Many of you know him as Bilbo Baggins, my sidekick on the NBA Weekly Chat where he disses and dishes on all things Association. But he is also known as "James". James is the guy who puts his nose to the computer screen and fancies himself a Fantasy Sports savant. After so many years of not winning a legitimate Fantasy Sport, James has reeled off back-to-back championships in the YeeBA. As if a title defense wasn't a good enough story, the way he won this year was nothing sort of EPIC. Or perhaps I should say "amazing" since we are speaking about The Association and all. Here is how he did it, in chat form of course.
Cam: James, congratulations on winning the YeeBA for the second straight year! It’s funny that last year’s victory was your first real fantasy sports title of your 128 years (editor’s note: he’s a hobbit) and you promptly came out and defended your title this year. That’s some big shit!
 |
| Biblo used his winnings to purchase a snowmobile |
James/Bilbo: Wait a minute, are you saying that my 2008 Fantasy Golf Championship wasn’t real? Is golf not a legitimate sport?
Cam: Winning a 4 man PGA Golf League is not "legitimate". Back to the title at hand: Commish Toomie’s changing of the format from Rotisserie to Head to Head couldn’t stop you. Can you tell me about your thoughts pre-draft?
James/Bilbo: First of all, I was extremely lucky to win this year. While I had a plan from the beginning, things definitely did not go the way I intended. I knew I had to try something unique to compete against you fantasy geniuses so ignoring a category seemed logical in a H2H format. But I knew I didn’t want to go the traditional route of drafting Dwight Howard and ignoring FT%, so after careful consideration I chose to ignore points. The irony is by ignoring this category I had a horrible team FT% anyway, so that shows what I know.
 |
| Bilbo used what was left of his YeeBA cash to take his son to Disneyland |
Cam: Winning a Fantasy Basketball League, especially the YeeBA with veteran managers, does require luck. But it seems as if you really took a risk drafting the way you did.
James/Bilbo: I was extremely optimistic about the draft because people tended to overvalue scorers and ignore guys that get good stats but don’t average 20+ points. I had some good picks (Odom and Varejao) and some shitty ones (Brendan Haywood and Johnny Flynn) but overall I liked my team.
Cam: Your team was middle of the pack during the regular season finishing in sixth place. But in the playoffs your guys turned it on winning all three rounds. Let the readers know how your season went.
James/Bilbo: Things were going well and I was winning the categories I expected, but then the injury bug hit me. Rondo severely sprained his ankle in December and missed a few weeks. Then both my bigs went down (Camby & Noah). Then I lost Varejao for the year and I really thought I was done. Just trying to make up the 30+ board per game these guys generated seemed impossible. And yet I somehow hung on to 6th place. But I knew I had to make a move to get into the playoffs, so for the second year in a row I got the best of Toomie in a trade. He needed 3’s so I gave him Ryan Anderson and Jason Terry for Holla Holla Iguodola who was the new point forward in Philly. With the return of Noah and Camby I had just enough to get into the playoffs. And by just enough I mean that the team I beat out had ONE more loss than me. That works out to .003 percentage points. Crazy.
Cam: You got that right! We were all making fun of you for barely qualifying for the playoffs with your team that you were originally so confident about. But you knew that with the renewed health of your players that your team was actually rolling. Tell us about that playoff run.
James/Bilbo: By trading away my 3’s I had a third category I was weak in. Luckily three’s could be had on the waiver wire so I rode Mike Bibby through the first 2 rounds, barely beating two exceptional managers. Then it was me and Oaktown, the other dark horse team that stormed through the playoffs. Not only were our team names oddly related (James' team name: Ghetto Physics), so too were our team strengths. It was a fierce battle, but in the end, I won by a narrow margin managing a couple of blocks more than my sexy opponent. You should have seen the victory party we had that night in The Shire. It was epic.
 |
| Bilbo beat the guy in the middle in the semi's (Bilbo on right) |
Cam: Pipeweed and Hobbit Beer for the entire block! What a fiesta. What are your final thoughts on all of this?
James/Bilbo: I guess my team was built to barely win, which did cause me a lot of stress, but it did prove that being a little unconventional can sometimes work. Now, if I could just do a little better in the Nextians league, maybe I could be a fantasy MVM like Toomie!
Cam: You would have needed to finish higher than 7th in The Nextians League. Regardless, congratulations on an exciting playoff run and thank you for spending time in the Nextian Grotto for this interview.
James/Bilbo: I love the new spa jets you put in here and have always enjoyed the waitresses.
No comments:
Post a Comment