The Saga of the Bricklayers

Originally posted on "Is It Sports?" by Steve. In case you were interested, I ended up finishing 2nd that year in my league, and then morphed into the Buffalo Bills of fantasy basketball, losing in the championship matchup 3 years in a row.

Steve: do you think anyone would care if I wrote a story on fantasy basketball
Ryan: it could be entertaining
Steve: it's an emotional roller coaster
Ryan: haha
Ryan: i think if anyone reads our site, they will read whatever we post
Steve: that's true
Steve: its on then

Disclaimer: I hope our IM conversation warned you enough so if you could care less about fantasy sports, click here to go back

I'm an odd type of fan. I'm not the type that will change alliances to other teams if my team is doing bad, I may just lose interest in the sport itself. That's what happened to me in 1999 with the NBA. Jordan retired, Pippen and Jackson left, and I was left to cheer on Ron Harper and 2 exciting rookies, Elton Brand and Ron Artest (yes that one). What happened? they sucked. What happened in 2000? they sucked, and they kept sucking and sucking until I lost interest in the NBA (now the Bulls are on a remarkable tear, it's really too bad that Satan will own their souls in a few years but that's a whole article).

Last year things changed when my friend AJ asked me to join his fantasy NBA league. I decided it could be fun, especially because some of Bill Simmons's articles on ESPN.com about all the crazy/thug characters in the NBA got me interested in watching the mayhem again. So the Bricklayers were born, named for the ill-fated Rock N Jock Basketball game on MTV, and I thought the name was appropriate for the level I knew they'd suck at. My draft went well, and my team was anchored by a bunch of guys from Chicago and high profile rookies like Kevin Garnett, Antoine Walker, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, my high school classmate Dwyane Wade (no kidding), and Michael Finley. I also had Baron Davis, who was like a living, breathing "lots of pros/cons instead of nicely balanced" video game character last year (ridiculous 3's, tons of assists and steals, but infinite turnovers and 6 for 31 shooting nights).

So what happened? they sucked. I finished dead last but I became an NBA junkie again. This year, the Bricklayers returned with a mission. I reassembled my core in the draft and tried to get a better supporting cast (last year I had 78 year-old Clifford Robinson and the "Stro Show" at center for example) for the real junkies out there, here is the my current team:

Guards: Dwyane Wade, Baron Davis, Larry Hughes, Ricky Davis, Manu Ginobili
Forwards: Kevin Garnett, Corey Maggette, Rashard Lewis, Joe Johnson, Bobby Simmons, Vladimir Radmanovic
Centers: Emeka Okafor, Marcus Camby, Nazr Mohammed

After a 1-8 start riddled with injuries, the Bricklayers tore off a 51-28-2 run and I'm now tied for first place in an amazing Cinderella story. But the events late last week just proved that its midnight. Like I said, emotional roller coaster. Usually 1 big injury can hurt a good NBA team, but how does it effect a fantasy team...well let's see. In a span of about 4 days, Lewis got knee tendonitis, "Flash" suffered 4 separate injuries, Baron sprained his ankle, Hughes broke his thumb, Ginobili hurt his calf, Camby got suspended for trying to protect a 7 foot Brazilian with 1 name in a fight, and my healthy Corey Maggette decided to throw up a 2 for 17 night on Monday and then came over to my apartment to step on my throat and light my furniture on fire (ok maybe that part didn't happen, but I'm still not ruling out that it can't). Needing a healthy Guard, I decided to pick up Ricky Davis, the king of crazy from the Celtics, and I got this nugget of information:

Jan 17 Celtics coach Doc Rivers kicked swingman Ricky Davis out of practice on Sunday when the sixth man complained loudly and "colorfully" about the officiating during a scrimmage. The practice was held in front of a group of New England Baptist-sponsored high school students, and Rivers didn't like Davis' tone and language. "He was yelling at the guys, and I didn't like the tone of his talk," Rivers explained to the Boston Herald. "And there were kids in the gym. When I think a guy is becoming a distraction, I'll throw him out."

I forgot to mention that after the scrimmage, Randy Moss gave Ricky a congratulatory phone call but suggested that the colorful language should have been directed at the high school kids, not the ref. If this was a real NBA team, I think about 57 minutes of SportsCenter would be dedicated to them. Oh wait, I don't have Kobe so when you subtract ESPN-mandate Kobe time I think that leaves me with about 34 minutes. But still, how can something so good become so bad so fast? Oh, and I forgot to mention I'm only playing the team I'm tied with for first. So my time on top is over, but I'll cherish my worst to first turnaround forever. My advice: don't play fantasy, it's more addictive than the facebook (so I'll make sure to have a lot more stuff on this team in the future!) joooooiiiiinnn, you can't resist. mwahaha