By Dan O’Shea
This is one of those crazy times of year when we’re all suffering from information overload. No, I don’t mean election time, though in your real life, you certainly may be suffering from election info overload, too. What I’m talking about is fantasy info overload. This condition becomes especially acute at times when different sports seasons overlap. Drafting your fantasy basketball team can be difficult even if it’s the only thing you have to worry about, but when your middling fantasy football team at the same time is facing a big Week 9 test and requiring waiver wire help to reach the playoffs, well, who can blame you for not having time to take out the trash?
We’re contributing to the info overload with this column, of course, which is just one of dozens – dare I say hundreds? – of fantasy sports advice columns, research dispensers and informational resources you can turn to for different takes on who to draft, who to sit or start, who to pick up from the waiver wire, or who to trade for. And a lot of us may feel like we need to check out every single one of them. Some might say it borders on obsession, but it doesn’t just border on obsession; it crosses the border and heads straight for the next state: insanity.
Managing a fantasy sports team is one of those things where most of us feel we are better off the more information we seek out, but the more information we seek out, the more directions we get pulled in. It’s best to pick a few sources of information that prove trustworthy and effective over the course of a pre-season or the first couple weeks of the regular season. Or, you could find someone who has more time than you do to organize that information for you.
So, here at Fantasy Fix, we’ll now make that part of our weekly mission. Let’s start with a couple of “kitchen sink” sites, ones that cover all sports:
* Rotoworld is one of my favorites. It’s got a lot of breaking news from local-level news sources, and the individual player notes tend to go more in-depth than the typical stuff you get from Yahoo! and other sites.
* FantasySportsCentral is another good catch-all where you can find links to fantasy experts from Sports Illustrated and ESPN, among others.
Then there are the individual columnists you can count on. Some of the fantasy football experts have been at it for years, and now have huge followings:
* I just mentioned ESPN, and anybody who plays fantasy football is at least aware of the Talented Mr. Roto, who also goes by Matthew Berry. You can also catch Mr. Roto on Sunday mornings on ESPN News dispensing fantasy football advice. He’s a pretty funny guy, and self-deprecating about his sometimes acting career, though at times he blathers on a little and makes you wonder how self-deprecating he really is. He also tends to champion the same guys for weeks on end, and is fairly obsessed with the fantasy strategy of “hand-cuffing your studs” by picking up their real-life back-ups or potential injury replacements to keep on your bench in case something happens. Still, I do agree with that strategy if you have a really solid starting lineup and can spare the roster room.
* Eric Karabell is another ESPN guy, and seems to offer some pretty solid player predictions and trend assessments that go beyond sit-and-start advice.
* Over at Yahoo!, many people are aware of Brandon Funston, but I like Brad Evans and his Bringing the Noise column. He’s entertaining and quick with the obscure reference, and just as good at finding truly obscure players and figuring out if they have they potential to be more than one-week wonders.
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Fantasy basketball tends to have less expert analysis as football, and some of what’s out there is honestly no better than street-level trash talk.
* Matt Buser’s NBA Skinny report for Yahoo! offers a pretty good reviews of actually NBA happenings, such as big trades, and their effect on the fantasy world.
* InsideHoops isn’t as noisy or glitzy as some other fantasy sites, but offers straightforward fantasy hoops analysis.
* The daily Fantasy Basketball Blog at ESPN also is helpful if you’re the type who’s swapping guys in and out of your line-up nightly, and using the waiver wire just as often.
We’ll be watching these sources and others weekly, and we’ll link to some of the columns and posts we think are especially valuable.
And now, how about a quick look on the week that was in the NBA?
The top five performers in the first week show one guy everyone expected to be at the top, and four complete surprises. Of course, most teams have about 78 more games left to play.
* Chris Paul: 65 pts., 16 reb., 36 assists (averaging 21.7 PPG and 12 APG, the stud we all expected)
* Rashard Lewis: 81 pts., 28 reb., 10 3-ptrs. (a top 30 player expected to fade is looking stronger)
* Spencer Hawes: 50 pts., 37 reb., 9 blks. (a late-round sleeper still largely unclaimed)
* Dwight Howard: 87 pts., 58 reb., 18 blks (even better than predicted, second in pts., rebs., tops in blks.)
* Jose Calderon: 54 pts., 29 assists, only 8 turnovers (another sleeper making good, with 9.7 APG)
Next week, we’ll start taking a look at some of the trends and hot waiver wire pick-ups in the hoops world, and we’ll return with a fresh fantasy football round-up.
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Dan O’Shea’s Fantasy Fix appears every Wednesday, Tips, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Posted on November 5, 2008