When considering my options as to what to write about
during the NBA’s offseason, I decided to focus my efforts on more retrospective
pieces. Yes, I could write about the NBA Draft, but frankly that is a dead
horse that has been kicked one too many times. Eventually every single prospect
is pointed to as a potential bust or sleeper; and eventually all of the
opinions blend together in an unending mass. The only other blip on the NBA
radar is free agency, and that is a time that belongs to the Ric Buchers and
the Marc Steins of the world: media leeches with more inside sources than I
have Facebook friends. My only option is to react to big stories, but we find
ourselves in a particularly bland summer of free agents.
As
a result, I decided on a little reader participation. I wanted to figure out a
way to demonstrate who the most valuable players are in the NBA today; who you
could build a team around. I wanted this to take into account all factors: ability,
age, salary, and personality. With all this in mind, I have created the 1st
Annual NBA Fantasy Value Draft.
In
order to conduct this draft, I called upon the brightest basketball minds that
I know (i.e. the only people I have ever had a conversation about basketball
with). Joining me in this venture are CJ Arena, Sean O’Toole, Joe Fisher, and
Adam Lamonica. Each has varying levels of knowledge about the game, so it will
be interesting to see which of us comes out on top. And how does one win this
competition, you ask? Let me show you.
The
rules of the Value Draft are simple. There are eight rounds and seven roster
spots, enough for a starting lineup and two role players. The eighth round is
designated to drafting a coach that will effectively lead your team to victory.
There is a salary cap as well. The regular NBA salary cap is $58.044 million.
But this is a soft cap, which allows teams to have a higher annual payroll as
long as they pay the subsequent luxury tax. But I decided to make things
interesting. My league has a hard salary cap of $55.164 million. I arrived at
this number by subtracting five minimum salaries ($480,000) from the current
NBA cap. This allows for five bench warmers to be added to our current
seven-man rosters, though they will be unnamed and theoretically will not play
any minutes. But since every NBA team must consist of at least twelve players,
they are necessary to devise our salary cap.
The
goal of the Value Draft is to construct a team that will compete for a
championship, both next year and in the future. The order of the picks were selected at random. The winner of this competition will
be decided by the one person I trust most with such a decision: myself. However,
I do promise that each team will get a fair shake, and if somebody drafts a
team that is better than mine, I will declare it as such. I just think that it
is highly unlikely to happen. I will post the results every two rounds, with
the final post detailing each player’s explanation of why their team is
superior. So, without further ado, I present the 1st Annual NBA Fantasy
Value Draft. May the best man win.
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