Sports
James Harden
I'm not a James Harden guy. Advanced analytics may echo, Rockets' general manager, Darryl Morrey's statement about Harden being in the conversation for "greatest offense player," but the eye test says a lot of his numbers are inflated by the era and a quirky way of drawing fouls that lends itself more to the regular season. He's still a remarkable talent as an athlete and scorer. I've just never bought into him being Kobe or Jordan.
That is until today, May 13th, 2019. The Warriors knocked off the Rockets on their home floor Friday night without KD. Charles Barkley and the rest of the NBA world all but gave game 6 and the series to the Rockets, as if the Warriors aren't 24-1 when Steph plays sans Durant. I texted my buddy the night before game 6 that "KD is incredible but Steph and Klay always step up in his absence," which I didn't think was a super spicy take until I heard everybody dig the Warriors grave when word came out that KD was definitely out for the series.
Along with the shock that people didn't give a fighters chance to Steph and Klay, I also have to put myself in a corner I've never been in before; defending James Harden.
Here's the Rockets starting lineup.
G. 34-year old aging star who averaged the least amount of points per game and the worst shooting percentage of his career.
G. Harden
G. An oft-injured but versatile scoring guard.
F. Never averaged more than 9.4 PPG in his career and played overseas for what should have been the prime of his career.
F. An up and coming, mobile, big man.
Bench.
G. His Dad traded him if that tells you anything.
F. He's played on 9 different teams not including two seasons in Russia during what should have been his prime.
Please do not tell me that this is a team that "should" have beat Golden State. They've overachieved due to a superstar getting the absolute most out of his talent and teammates, a coach that suits this roster and a pragmatic general manager. Let's not pretend that they have anywhere near the firepower of Golden State even without KD.
I hear sports media people talk about how this loss diminishes Harden and D'Antoni's legacy. I'm not sure in what other world a team like this is as competitive as it is with a team as stacked as the Warriors whose core is all in its prime, with the exception of Iguodala. Houston has two starters in their mid-30s, the backend of their careers.
We should be praising Harden and D'Antoni for even making these series competitive.
Let's do a similar exercise with Golden State.
PG. Only unanimous MVP in NBA history. Most prolific shooter in the NBA history. One of only two NBA players to make over 200 3's in seven straight seasons. Averaged 27 PPG this year on a team with two of the greatest shooters of all time.
SG. One of the top 2-way players in the game, only other player to make over 200 3's in seven straight seasons, worst 3-point shooting year of his career and still shot over 40%.
SF. Former NBA Finals MVP and All-First Defensive First team. Capable shooter. Great glue guy.
PF. Former NBA Defensive Player of the Year, one of the most versatile and tough players in the league.
C. Whoever they throw out there.
Bench
A FANTASY STORY
Fantasy football is a game of hypothesis', outliers, statistical anomalies and ultimately luck. No matter how hard you study players and teams or how much insight you have, there are so many variables at work beyond what any one person can understand.
I am the commission of my fantasy football league that just concluded its 11th year with friends from high school. I've officially been playing fantasy half of my life and enjoy it so much. Even as people get busy and move and marry and maybe someone in our league will have kids at some point, the thing that brings us all together is fantasy.
My draft strategy is pretty straight-forward. It's based on watching sports for 20+ years, falling in love with different teams and styles of football, and even a little bit of basketball as I'll discuss later.
Typically, fantasy is a hit and miss thing, a coin flip. Sometimes a guy you'll want so badly will turn out to be a complete bust, while the guy you "settle" for ends up being a rock in your starting lineup. This year, was one for the ages.
I had an incredible year, winning my first 12 games and, unfortunately, getting crushed in the playoffs to sadly crawl to a 3rd place finish despite my statistical breaking year. There were so many factors that contributed to my success and so many 'what-if's' that would have made fantasy football incredibly frustrating had I been on the other side of some of these picks. My picks are in italics. I show the two picks before my picks and the two picks after for some context.
ROUND 1
2. Bell 3. Zeke 4. David Johnson 5. Barkley 6. AB
The number 4 pick was an awkward spot. The top three were pretty set in stone (seriously, who thought Bell would hold out the whole freaking season?) which left a few question marks for the number 4 pick. David Johnson was coming off an injury playing for a depleted offense with sketchy QB play; Barkley's a rookie and playing with what was one of the worst offenses in football. A few questions about durability and his ability to run inside (which he answered, dude is special); and out of fundamental principle I can't take a receiver so high in the first unless it's Randy Moss '08 level upside. Although I took Johnson, who had exactly the kind of season you could have guessed - heavy volume on the ground and in the passing game and not a lot of upside because of a rookie QB and lack of skill players at other positions (Fitzy doesn't count, he's too old to scare defenses) - I was considering two guys with breakout potential--Dalvin Cook and Christian McCaffery. Ultimately, Johnson was the safest choice in my mind.
ROUND 2
15. Devonta Freeman 16. Mike Thomas 17. Christian McCaffery 18. Keenan Allen 19. Jordan Howard
This was a no-brainer for me. Since last year I have been a fan of Run CMC's skill set, especially in an offense like the Panthers. I've traditionally stayed away from Panthers running back for fear of choosing the wrong running back, as they've featured a RBBC for as long as I can remember. This year seemed different as noise from camp (which you can't always trust) was that he was going to get a shit ton of touches through the ground and air. The yards make his floor extremely high. The trade-off is he doesn't have the stature of a power back who will be relied on at the goal line and to make matters worse, his QB is a 6'6" stallion who makes it a habit of vulturing touchdowns from running backs. Although I knew CMC was going to be good, I didn't imagine he would be so ridiculously consistent. He even came on late in the season and put up a few 30-pointers that moved him to a top 5 back, even in non-PPR leagues.
QUICK SUMMARY: My first two picks were high-floor running backs who were, assuming good health, a lock for 300-350 touches from scrimmage. Both of these things were true as Johnson and McCaffery were the cornerstone of their offenses.
22. Joe Mixon 23. Davante Adams 24. Tyreek Hill 25. TY Hilton 26. Mike Evans
The rage from this off-season was how impressive Patrick Mahomes was looking in camp. With a proficient offensive head coach, one year to learn from a professional QB and a suite of weapons, Mahomes couldn't have walked into a better situation. It spoke volume about the Chiefs believe in Mahomes that they would dump a quarterback who played at an MVP-level and led them to the playoffs last year. Even though this is about Tyreek Hill, it really wasn't so much for me. It's not until he was on my fantasy team that I saw how talented he is. I shy away from small receivers, especially ones who aren't known to be good route-runners as it's really a hit or miss play that can fuck up your team. I always thought DeSean Jackson was overrated (fantasy-wise) and Hill seemed to be a clone although here's the big difference. Defenses have to gameplan against Mahomes prodigious arm and capable legs, Kelce, Hunt (not anymore...) and Watkins. That is a nightmare for defenses and that's before we knew if Mahomes was any good. Hill has proven to be not just a deep threat, but a guy who is a consistent part of the offense and not entirely dependent on the deep ball.
Although I was tempted to snag Mike Evans, who's game I'm a huge fan of, there was too much uncertainty with the QB situation for me to feel comfortable doing that. The same applies to Hilton who was getting an Andrew Luck we weren't sure about.
Hill was a monster throughout the season and had less duds than I expected for a home-run hitter (WHICH HE SAVED FOR THE FANTASY PLAYOFFS). Overall, he ended up top-2 receiver depending on scoring rules.
35. Josh Gordon 36. Marvin Jones 37. Adam Thielen 38. Kenyan Drake 39. Doug Baldwin
I had plans to grab Josh Gordon in the fifth or sixth round so when he was grabbed this early I was bummed. It was too big of a risk in the fourth round for me and I had reached, I would have really regretted it. I've never had Marvin Jones on any one of my fantasy teams so he wasn't even in consideration. Kenyan Drake has been around for awhile playing on a not very good offense without an impressive skill set. I'm a huge fan of Doug Baldwin, but the Seahawks passing offense is too inconsistent for Doug to be a guy you rely on.
That left me with Adam Thielen. Truthfully, I liked his situation more than Diggs who was 10 picks before him. There's such an advantage of not being lined up across the opposing teams top corner every week. In my opinion, Diggs is the better talent who would attract more attention than Thielen. It also helped they had a solid threat at tight end in Rudolph and a running game that would ensure the Vikings offense would be high-powered and put him in position to score. I've had Redskins receivers in previous years and was thankful that even in games where he looked horrible, Cousins was still able to feed Reed or Crowder in garbage time.
I was way more right than I could have thought. Thielen was an automatic touchdown or 100+ yards every week. He didn't have a signature game, but was a consistent and steady as any fantasy player this year.
BOTTOM LINE:
Three of my four picks were absolute home runs. CMC finishes in the top 5, Thielen and Hill are basically 1 and 2 at their position the entire year. David Johnson actually faired the worst although he was very consistent and hovering around the top 15 through out the year.
Team Jimmy Butler
I did a piece for WAVE sports.
Got a hilarious comment on my hair which they were 100% right about.