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Share on FacebookApril 11 -- Beyond the four leagues I am chronicling in this, my first year of fantasy hoops, I also joined a keeper league with my friends that I usually do the other sports with. Thanks in large part to writing this column and reading all the articles on TalentedMrRoto.com and NBA.com, I am into the H2H finals this week. I don't have a good keeper crop, but I mortgaged a lot of the future to take a shot this year. With Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, Andrei Kirilenko and Jason Kidd leading the way I have a chance to add that league to my winning record this year.
This is it. The final standings for what started as a simple question of who had a better record than I and turned into a weekly leader board for the NBA.com H2H-points leaders. Eric F is your big winner. I have asked Eric to write a brief summary of how his year went and what strategy he used to score so many points, so tune in for that next week. Congratulations also go out to everyone else who was on the board at one time or another, as I'm sure that if their record warranted a spot, they are likely fighting for a championship now.
| Eric F (USA) (v) | 22-0 | 26,153 |
| Scot B | 22-0 | 25,562 |
| Juan K (Panama) | 22-0 | 25,062 |
| Steve M | 22-0 | 24,868 |
| Taj R (USA) | 22-0 | 24,657 |
| John C (USA) | 22-0 | 23,481 |
| Zeb H | 22-0 | 22,377 |
| Michael C (USA) (v) | 22-0 | 23,352 |
| Ryan C (v) | 22-0 | 22,881 |
| Sean A (Canada) (v) | 22-0 | 22,754 |
As you can see, I was a little out of my league.
Still just hanging on to fourth. There really isn't anywhere to make up points, but I'll keep trying. I'd like to be able to say I finished top three in every league, and right now this stands as the only exception.
I won my first round playoff 1103-874 and am playing the third seed for the championship. My opponent finished last week with 790 points, so I like my chances.
A strong 6-2 win in the first round and now I face the second place team that was actually first until the final two weeks. It should be very interesting as I would have actually lost to this team had I played them last week. But we'll see.
I gained a little money, and a little distance on first. I'm still back about 300-points and intend to make a push at the end like I did in the first half-season. Didn't make any trades this week because I am happy with the lineup.
I received an interesting e-mail this week, I thought I would explore.
Hey,
Do you think it is possible to make a gain of 0.001 in field goal percentage this late in the season (about 8 games remaining per position)? My roto league has 10 playing roster spots and a max games played of 820.
The reason I am asking is that my FGP is currently 0.475, the person one spot ahead of me has FGP of 0.476, and the person two spots ahead has FGP of 0.477, so I may be able to move up in that category with a small change in FGP. (My other categories are reasonably far from being able to change up or down.)
Chuck
So, essentially, Chuck is asking if it's too late to do anything about percentages - in his case, field goal percentage. I thought I'd do some quick math to try and figure out if there is time to do anything.
1) Let's assume 15-field goal attempts per game per position. That number I chose rather arbitrarily but not without some quick research. I looked at the stat leaders and just eyeballed the attempts for a bulk of the top players. If anything, that number is high, but as you'll see that only means it will be easier to change the percentages if the number is actually lower.
2) 15-attempts per game would equal a total over the season of 15 * 10 (roster spots) * 82 (games played) = 12,300 attempts. Again, this is a rough number because of the assumed 15-attempts, but I still believe my estimate is erring on the high side.
3) Chuck's current percentage of 0.475 would mean his team has made 5,273 shots this year; 820 (man-games possible) – 80 (man-games left) * 15 (attempts per game) * 0.475 = 5,272.5
4) Let's assume best-case scenario and that Chuck wants to finish at 0.478 for field goal percentage. That means he needs to make a total of 5,880 shots. 0.478 * 12,300 (total attempts) = 5,879.4.
5) That means Chuck needs to make another 607 shots of an assumed 1,200. The 1,200 comes from 80 (man-games left) * 15 (attempted shots). And the 607 comes from shots made so far, minus shots needed. That would be a 0.506 field goal percentage out of all his players.
That seems rather impossible, and very unlikely. But now that we have some numbers to play with let's look at the specific question Chuck asked.
If you think it's possible, I could bench Rasheed Wallace (my worst FGP) and replace him with Chris Wilcox (my best FGP) for the final 8 games. Wallace has 13.8 FGA at 0.430 FGP this season, while Wilcox has 10.0 FGA at 0.600 FGP since his trade to Seattle.
OK. So we know that because these boys are both big men, their attempts will be lower than the rest of his team. In fact, Chuck states that Wallace has 13.8-attempts and Wilcox has 10.0.
So again, let's assume the 15-attempts per game for everyone outside of the roster position these guys will occupy for the final eight games of the season. That means out of 820-man-games for the season, only eight are unaccounted for.
So, 812-man-games * 15 attempts leaves us with 12,180 field goals attempted for the year outside of this roster spot.
At a clip of 0.475 that means 5,786 shots will be made.
Now, if we extrapolate Wallace and Wilcox's numbers over the final eight games we get.
| Name | Attempts Per Game | Games Left | Expected Attempts Left | Percentage | Expected Shots Made Left | Expected Shots Made For Season (Team) | Expected Shots Attempted For Season (Team) | Final Percentage |
| Wallace | 13.8 | 8 | 110.4 | .430 | 47 | 5,833 | 12,290.40 | .475 |
| Wilcox | 10 | 8 | 80 | .600 | 48 | 5,834 | 12,260 | .476 |
Overall, I think it's quite clear the impact of a move like this is minimal on percentages, but it could make that 0.001 difference. In Chuck's shoes, I'd definetly start Wilcox and then cross my fingers and hope the rest of the team can put up some slightly better percentages.
This week’s lesson, I've heard many times this season, but this letter and the exercise of calculating a response to it really drove the point home…
Build a lead in percentages early.
Once your team has logged a majority of the season, it becomes harder and harder for a player to impact your percentages. I assume the same would hold true for free throw percentage as well.
Until next time, practice safe fantasy hoops!
Sean Allen is a fantasy expert for www.TalentedMrRoto.com, a site featuring free advice, news, stats and analysis for all fantasy sports. The site has been nominated for 16 Fantasy Sports Writing Awards by the FSWA, twice as many as any other site. Contact him at alla_rino@TalentedMrRoto.com.
The views expressed by the TalentedMrRoto.com represent only the views of the writers; they do not represent the views of the NBA or any NBA Team.
