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Subject: RIHC 2004/05 - Retrospective
Posted by: Guru
- [330592710] Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 09:55
This thread is for a general retrospective on the 2004/05 RIHC season. RIHC managers are encouraged, but not required, to post. Others are also invited to share their observations.
You may comment on any aspect of the season, including or excluding those listed below.
For League Managers:
1. How did you do, relative to your own expectations? What were your best decisions? What didn't work so well? If you could reverse one or two decisions you made during the draft or the season, what would they be?
2. Are there any changes in league rules that you would suggest for next year?
3. What have you learned over the course of this season? More critically, what would you do differently if you had to do it over - not necessarily with 20/20 statistical foresight, but in terms of general tactics or strategies?
4. How important was the draft to your success or lack thereof? To what extent were you able to make effective adjustments via free agent pickups or trades?
For outside observers:
5. Was this league interesting? I suspect the draft was of widespread interest, but did anyone follow the regular season? If so, what was interesting to you? If not, could we have done anything to make it interesting?
For participants in one of the Qualifying Leagues:
6. How did your league experience compare to that observed for the RIHC?
7. I'd appreciate is someone from each QL would post the final standings of that league in this thread. That will help me get organized for next fall. |
| 1 | FRICK@Work
ID: 220211
Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 10:13
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RIBC AA
1 Pacers Rule 81.5
2 Edgar Yellow Bock 74
3 Imperfectionists 70
4 tommyd 68
5 mMoses Productions 56
6 Frickin Idiots 55.5
7 Vienna Nix 54
8 Hubble 46
9 All-NBA Annihilators 45
10 Winter Knights 28
11 TheGluz 23
11 wisconsin flyers 23
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| 2 | Da Bomb
ID: 43359416
Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 19:36
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RIBC AAA
1 Skinnee J's 73.5
2 Tosh 72.5
3 Hank's House 72
4 KnicksFan 57.5
5 Da Bombers 49
6 Dilligad 46
7 beastiemiked 44
7 Donkey Hunters 44
7 Leggestand 44
10 Baloss de Milan 42.5
11 Peter N. 42
12 philflyboy 37
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| 3 | Rand
Donor
ID: 083231216
Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 22:54
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If RSF had taken Kirilenko like I had assumed he would, instead of Brand, then I would have selected LeBron James. And my season would have been quite different. Baron Davis is fine player but I'll never draft him again that's for sure, at least not in the second round. I was so gonna take Amare instead of Baron but made a costly error somewhere along the way and decided that it was too early for Stoudamire. Dumb.
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| 4 | Pacers Rule
Donor
ID: 910311210
Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 23:17
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Guru,
I'm wondering if you'd given any thought yet to the movement through the QL's. I can't remember how many moved up from the minor league this year or if there even was a minor league last year. I'm pretty sure there weren't 2 minor leagues last year. Specifically, wondering if any QL victory earns an RIHC berth. *sheepish grin*
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| 5 | Rand
Donor
ID: 083231216
Thu, Apr 21, 2005, 23:32
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Pacers, I would imagine your winning the AA league will get you to the Show. just my opinion though.
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| 6 | Pacers Rule
Donor
ID: 910311210
Fri, Apr 22, 2005, 00:13
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Things I learned: Draft is key. Because I did a lot of research in a draft that seemed to drag out for 2 weeks, it enabled me to select overlooked well-balanced players, and those posed for breakout seasons, like Dwayne Wade. Jason Richardson didn't go until the 7th round for goodness' sake. On his team, he was "the man."
I think the RIHC AA draft relied heavily on the RIHC draft results. I know I did, not only in knowing who I wanted to pick, but in knowing when they were likely to disappear. Our draft probably would have been wildly different if we did not have that blueprint for people to refer to.
I liked my overall strategy of drafting Big for position scarcity, Taking Brad Miller in the 2nd round and big Z in the 3rd. If only I wouldn't have reached for Mark Blount in the 5th!!! A scoring and assisting Center like Brad Miller was awesome for my season. If only he wouldn't have missed so many games, esp. after C. Webb was gone.
I found that a few timely free agent pickups can have a dramatic impact on your season. For example, Kyle Korver and Reggie Miller took me from being poor in 3's to best.
I found trades hard to execute, because either I wanted too much or the other team did. It's hard to make an "even up" trade because either seems someone's getting duped or there's a lot of risk involved. When things are going well for your team, you don't want to invite unneccesary risk.
RIHC league itself seemed a little hard to follow, because its results seemed so germaine mainly to league participants. Perhaps if the league dialogue threads were encouraged to be more inclusive of outside observers, that would generate more interest/participation.
I loved the RIHC links and graphics/tables. Made me wish they were available for the minor leagues as well :-O
Suggested rule changes:
1. Reduce games played per position to 82. I found that I had to really push and rotate most of my players in and out of the line-up and in one case still could not get all 84 games. I'm not sure what the point is of having bench players you are required to play almost always due to the inevitable injuries of your starters. An alternative would be to have an additional bench position, but the talent pool is already pretty thin.
2. Allow additional injury exceptions for particularly unlucky teams. Not sure how this would work with the structure of Yahoo, unless everyone had an extra unused bench slot. You would only be able to use it upon commish or majority vote approval due to unusual injury hardship. For example, I had Tinsley this year and though he missed tons of games since January, the Pacers never put him on the IL, always hopeful that he could come back sometime soon. Other players have been out of commission for a long time without going on the IL. That's a hardship when you only have so many bench slots and have to get extra games played from each position. Could also add an extra IL slot. That would help in some cases, but not Tinsley's situation.
3. This will not go over, but I'd love to see turnovers included. Seems that is a critical stat that is relevant to player's impact on a team but it's not counted.
Overall, Thanks Guru for the forum making this possible.
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| 7 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Fri, Apr 22, 2005, 12:01
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Refresh my memory. How many QLs were there? Just the two listed above? Or was there another AA league?
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| 8 | Edgar
Leader
ID: 00458944
Fri, Apr 22, 2005, 12:02
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Guru, just one AA.
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| 9 | Guru
ID: 330592710
Fri, Apr 22, 2005, 12:43
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My initial inclination is to retain the top 6 from the RIHC, plus the top 4 from the AAA league, plus the winner of AA, plus me.
That leaves 5 teams from the RIHC to move down. The four teams who remained active would move to AAA, and the bottom team (AP10) would be out, unless we hear some good excuse for his inactivity and failure to notify us during the season.
The AAA league would include the 4 RIHC teams moving down, plus the teams finishing 5-9 in the AAA this year (there was a 3-way tie for 7th), plus the teams finishing 2-4 in the AA league.
I considered having teams 5-8 in AAA remaining there, and teams 2-5 in AA moving up, but because of the tie in AAA, and because there is a pretty sizable point gap between the 4th and 5th place AA team, I think the proposed movement makes more sense.
Before making this the final pronouncement, I welcome feedback.
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| 10 | FRICK@Work
ID: 220211
Fri, Apr 22, 2005, 13:42
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One thing to consider is the number of teams that quit in the AA league. I'm not sure about AAA league, but there were 3 to 4 teams that weren't active after the first month or so. One of the teams never made a roster move in the entire year. I don't know how this would have skewed the standings, but could account for some point gap. Were all of the teams in the AAA league active at the end of the year?
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| 11 | Doug
ID: 211146518
Sat, Apr 23, 2005, 00:18
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Well, I would say I did not do nearly as well as I expected. Cassell (3rd round) and Van Horn (5th round) were pretty big disappointments, along with Glenn Robinson. But Jason Kidd and Larry Hughes in rounds 7 and 8 were GREAT decisions this year... Webber back in round 2 was a solid choice too until he got traded... and Ridnour in round 15 didn't suck at all. Pryzybila was a stellar FA pickup. Seems like there was more good than bad for my team, and in that respect I'm a bit surprised the stats didn't turn out more favorably for my team and that I finished mid-pack. I don't have any suggestions for rule changes. I really liked having the extra couple games per position (84)... it kept the bench more active (at least for me). Hmm.. I can't say that I really learned much over the course of this season... was a bit baffled by it in fact... just seemed like despite a lot of talent the numbers just weren't there. I think I made the right decision to cut bait on the points category when I did, as it allowed me to move up a few slots in both 3Ps and RBs... although I lost out a bit more in steals than I expected too. Oh, and post 9 makes sense to me.
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| 12 | Dave R
Dude
ID: 3010361110
Sat, Apr 23, 2005, 09:49
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First of all, thanks to Guru for putting this all together and for the stats links that are updated on a daily basis, particularly the per game average link.
I actually finished around where I expected. I didn't expect to win again this year but thought I would finish closer to the leader, point wise.
I think AI was solid all year ( although I still think my other option of Amare and a 3rd round PG would have worked out better ), and JRich, Lewis, Iguodala and Howard all performed better than I expected.
I must admit, Kobe was a disappointment as was Gasol ( mainly due to missing so much time ) and Dalembart, although he did improve towards the end of the year. Atkins certainly was a bargain in the 13th round. Sura as a FA pickup helped as well.
I think I learned I need to pay a bit more attention to the % cats than I did the first 2 years. It didn't hurt last year, but certainly did this year. It's hard to tell though where improvement there would lower other categories.
Kudos to Swish and Edgar for a stellar season. Lebron was probably this years KG and you rode him all the way to first place. Well done.
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| 13 | Pacers Rule
Donor
ID: 910311210
Sat, Apr 23, 2005, 14:31
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I wonder how many teams represented in these 3 leagues will not even play next year due to changing life circumstances, interests, etc. It may be that when it comes time to set the leagues, more players yet get to 'move up' because of attrition. For example, Frick @ #6 in AA was an active manager and contributed on the boards, which does help keep the fun going. Also, YoungRoman @ #7 in AA did a nice job of Commishing the league. Hopefully these guys will get a chance to move up if they still play next year. #5 Mmoses was very active early on and made a lot of trades happen. The Canadian kind of disappeared the last month or more and probably would have finished higher had he played most of his available games.
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| 14 | Swish City
Dude
ID: 0931275
Mon, Apr 25, 2005, 04:45
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Wow Rand, things would have been definitely been different if you had taken Lebron. Our strategy was pretty much based on the fact that no-one would take him with any of the top 8 picks. I'm not sure what we would have done if he wasn't there. There would have been much cursing if we dropped ourselves to #9 (since we could have taken #3) and that didn't get us the guy we wanted all along!
Obviously Mr James was a huge component of our winning team this year. In a league like this, i would say it's key that your top couple of picks can stay healthy. We were quite lucky in that our top 3 picks managed to play at least 78 games each. I think this was one of the main reason why we managed to jump out to a lead early on. Injuries and suspensions took their toll on a lot of GMs in the early going, and throughout the season. Rand was particularly badly affected (AK, Baron, Magloire), and it reminded me a lot of RFS' struggle the previous year when he suffered a similarly unlucky spate of injuries.
On the whole, i thought we drafted really well. With the exception of Marquis Daniels, we got solid contributions from everyone right through to round 12. The middle to late rounds were the difference i think, Hill's health and wonderful percentages helped keep us afloat when we had Walker, whilst Lafrentz, Gordon and Josh Howard (what a steal he was at #136) all made important contributions.
Getting some FA pickups was really important also. Getting Knight as an FA was just huge. Josh Smith was awesome after the ASB. And we were able to find some rebounders in Ely and Haywood at the end when the pressure was on. When SY made his run, it looked for a while that our FG% and rebounds cats could collapse and give him a chance. Luckily, we were solid in most of our other cats and could play quite defensively, as for the last month of the season we really just tried to defend our lead. Thankfully, we managed to hold out. If things had been different with injuries and/or suspensions, i could have seen Dave, Mike, and even Doug making serious runs at us. And if AP10 had been active, who's to know what effect that could have had on things. Guru, did you ever hear anything from AP10? I see he was being chased by the Gurupie 20 lot also.
Overall, i had a great time. And looking forward to defending next year with Edgar. He was a great co-manager again this year, and between us we managed to avoid making too many bad decisions. Roll on October so we can start it all again!!
OT: I'd like to be considered for any gaps that present themselves in AA, looking to play some more yahoo roto next season.
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| 15 | Swish City
Dude
ID: 0931275
Mon, Apr 25, 2005, 04:50
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I should also add many thanks to Guru for setting up and running this league again this year. The daily standings and per game averages were super-useful in determining the strengths and weakness of ours and opposing teams. Great job, Guru.
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| 16 | Mike D
Sustainer
ID: 41831612
Mon, Apr 25, 2005, 08:46
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For League Managers:
1. How did you do, relative to your own expectations?
Close, but no cigar. My goal was to win the league and for over half the season I felt I still had a shot, especially due to being behind in games that I knew I'd make up eventually. Looking at the standings, I fell in rebounding due to Theo's injuries and obviously Jermo's suspension/injuries. I was counting on those two for boards (especially Jermo). Late in the season, after acquiring Duncan, he rebounded very well until he too got hurt. My horrible FG% was killer. No 2 ways about it.
What were your best decisions?
My best decision was the deal I made with Doug. Kudos to Doug for his willingness to go back and forth with me, take a trip somewhere, and resume again later (lol). I wish I could have pulled more deals throughout the course of the season in order to better balance my roster, fill in gaps, and keep the excitement flowing.
What didn't work so well?
Due to outside interference (i.e., being pretty dang busy), I could not spend much time analyzing rosters and making deals. I made some progress with some GMs, but overall just couldn't sink my teeth in enough, which trickled down into some offers I did make that weren't as strong as they could/should have been. Also, making up missed games didn't work as well as I wish it would have. The guys I plugged in just didn't perform as well as I needed them too, causing my per/game results to drop...and drop...and drop.
If you could reverse one or two decisions you made during the draft or the season, what would they be?
Clearly I would have not taken Theo Ratliff in the 5th round. I was close to taking Manu at that point and wish I would have. Gary Payton in the 6th round did well, but I left some more valuable players on the board in hindsight.
2. Are there any changes in league rules that you would suggest for next year?
Yes, establish a trading minimum! Woo-hoo! Everybody must make deals! Seriously, I liked the increased games to 84----even though they may have ultimately come back to bite me. I don't quite understand why we had a special IL rule, though in the pre-season someone mentioned it stemmed from a problem last year with philflyboy's team? I know people can quickly add an IL player and stash them etc, but that's part of the strategy sometimes. The standard Yahoo IL rules are fine for me, but it's no bigee.
3. What have you learned over the course of this season?
For the first time ever I actually rejected a trade offer or two because I was concerned about the lack of quality free agents that would be available during the course of the season. Partially due to the excellent GMs in the league, and partially due to the depth of the rosters. I wish I would have "been myself" and accepted the deals. Guru's Marbury counter fairly early in the season still haunts me. Someone else hit the reject button, I tell ya!
More critically, what would you do differently if you had to do it over - not necessarily with 20/20 statistical foresight, but in terms of general tactics or strategies?
I think my draft was well balanced categorically with the obvious exception of FG%. But, it is sometimes hard to focus on that category when others are on the board. And some of my guys just didn't reach the levels of FG% that I had hoped.
4. How important was the draft to your success or lack thereof?
The draft was very important in a league like this where trading was rather minimal and free agents were quickly scooped up (Doug has his left forearm hard wired to his laptop, and it goes everywhere with him---an unfair free agent advantage---lol). I really felt that most teams just sat back and watched their new teams roll. In the 1st half of the season, many people said they were still waiting to see how their teams would perform, or that it was too early to really tweak things. In other words----let me people play! The draft is totally key.
To what extent were you able to make effective adjustments via free agent pickups or trades?
I made a few good pickups, but often felt that I needed to wait because I was not convinced I had a guy to drop, which caused me to miss out on the pickups. You gotta be quick in this league. Stevenson toward the end of the season gave me some nice stats. Telfair did too initially. Tyronn Lue played hard for me the couple of times that I had him. In looking back, I dropped Josh Childress on 12/28, and that wasn't smart. The problem was I needed guys that were getting minutes because I was behind in games, and didn't have the luxury of holding him at that time. My best FA pickup was clearly Kyle Korver on Nov. 12. He was eventually moved in the Duncan deal, but before that helped me win the 3 point category. Generally, my FA pickups had temporary stays while I squeezed all I could out of them and tossed them in the dumpster.
Guru----I loved the special per game stuff. For a big chunk of the season, seeing myself at the top kept my spirits up while I lagged in the standings, behind in games, mad at my players, and waiting for that pre-season conditioning to kick in for the stretch run. Which it kinda never did (lol).
Kudos to the Euros, and to all the other GMs for a great league.
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| 17 | blackjackis21
Leader
ID: 034837521
Tue, Apr 26, 2005, 00:21
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Tough tough season for me. TSN-wise and RIHC-wise, quite a disappointment.
As I posted in the ASB analysis thread, I sort of started in a hole, didn't shake things up with any trades, and went further in the hole. The % categories are what killed me most. I would have liked to have been able to propose a trade for Shaq, but his owner (AP10) didn't seem too responsive.
As I stated previously, the categories I was weak in, I was hopelessly weak in, and the categories I was "strong" in, I could easily lose points in and couldn't afford to give anything up (and I eventually did lose some of those points anyways).
As for my draft, I wish I'd drafted more with the %'s in mind. McGrady didn't do me any favors there, and to follow him with Ben Wallace was a bad decision in hindsight.
About the only guy who significantly outperformed my expectations was Joe Johnson. As for underperformers, I'd include Dampier and Sprewell, and I guess Richard Jefferson's 33 games weren't quite what I had penciled in at the outset. I certainly wish I had not dropped Brevin Knight after an injury early on. About the only free agent pickup that worked out for me was Jameer Nelson.
My draft was a pretty big determination in my poor performance. I drafted 3 centers fairly early (B. Wallace, R. Wallace, and Dampier) thinking I should be able to get something down the road for one of them. I really wish I'd pursued more trades, earlier, and by the ASB, I should have more strongly considered a trade just to shake things up.
No suggestions for rule changes - I thought the league worked great! I loved the competition and indeed tip my hat to Swish and Edgar on their season - well done guys.
Definitely looking forward to the AAA next year.
Thanks guru for the opportunity.
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| 18 | Rand
Donor
ID: 083231216
Tue, Apr 26, 2005, 01:10
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Yes, tip of the hat from me to Swish and Edgar as well. Sure having Lebron on your team was sweet, but you guys excelled in every aspect this season.
Well done!
thanks Guru for the chance to compete against the pros. Hope to return again someday:)
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| 19 | Edgar
Leader
ID: 00458944
Tue, Apr 26, 2005, 05:20
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The other hand of the Eurogollum always has to make his point as well. So here we go.
Played in two leagues this year: AA and ofcourse the splendid partnership with Heart lover en PES4 addict Swish City in the top RIHC league.
Starting with RIHC. Overall I think Lebron basically gave us a shot at winning. We spend some long hours in a bar in Utrecht talking through our options. We decided to gamble heavily in our draft and pick the 9th spot to start our quest for the ring. We could have played it safe and picked 3rd but we decided not to. Key decision for our season. In the draft we followed the same high risk high reward approach in almost all of our picks. Ofcourse Francis was kind of a no brainer as 2nd pick (we pencilled him out as our 2nd pick actually beforehand). And Z was a necessary pickup after bringing in tw PGs to start with. As Swish pointed out we made some key additions later in the draft. Only Marquis was a bust but I guess that is what you get when drafting high risk. Overall we were very fortunate with our picks.
Key aspect of our season I think were also the trades we made. First swapping Murphy for Damon Jones. Murphy continued to do fine but Damon gave us the much needed 3s. He and the return of Donyell from inury gave us a massive surge in that area during the season. Second trade was swapping the big chicken Toine Walker for Yao Ming. A trade working wel for both Guru and us I would say. Toine had some excellent contributions in assists, 3s, rebs and steals (really important quality of Toine in roto if you ask me). But as we all know this chicken tends to let his shots fly freely through the building from everywhere including the FT line meaning a bad FG% (not as bad as expected) and FT% (downright horrible for a player like him). Getting Ming was a huge boost to our FG%, FT% and blocks. After we completed this deal Swish and me really liked our chances at winning the league. In the final month I think we managed our cats well with the entry of some free agents. Especially rebounding was needed since we gave up both Murphy and Walker who propelled us into leading that cat early on.
Real MVP of this year's RIHC was Swish City who has done a great job in managing the team. Ofcourse I spend some hours looking at rosters and FA's but his persistence and quality analysis were amazing. Way to go buddy!
In AA I think it was a great experience of managing a team on my own. Swish is usually very keen on picking up FA's and I have done some learning in that dpt in AA. If I look at my final roster there are only a few players there that I started the season with. Basically I traded away or dropped most of them. Excellent draft picks included MVP candidate Steve Nash and Manu Ginobili. TD was somewhat of a disappointment and I think I will be very hesistant on drafting him again due to his FT%. Swish made a very good trade for me while I was on holiday by getting Dirk for him. I also traded away Jameson and Okafor (good pick) for AK47. AK helped me a lot when playing but his addtional 3 weeks of broken wrist might have cost me a shot at threatening Pacers Rule for the title.
Due to various injuries (most notable RJ) I made a lot of FA pickups. Best of which were Patterson (with Shareef out), Josh Childress, Jameer Nelson, Nenad Krstic and the best one: Bobby Simmons. I also manged to get Luke Ridnour but traded him away to easily in hindsight.
Overall a fun season. I am starting to enjoy Yahoo roto much more then TSN (this can have something to do with my bad season in TSN ofcourse).
BTW: if any spots are open in the Gurupie 20 keeper league I would like to be considered.
And ofcourse a big thanks to Guru for making this all possible once again. Great job.
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| 20 | Slackjawed Yokel
Leader
ID: 052347519
Thu, Apr 28, 2005, 00:03
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I should really throw my thoughts down now before the season fades completely from my memory. This way if I really did learn anything I can read about it next year...
Well, I ended up about where I had projected myself to be at the time of the draft - but to be so close and really within striking distance until Eurogollum turned it on in the past couple of weeks was a little disappointing. I could tell all along I was going to have a weakness in steals and threes. I was able to gain a respectable finish in threes thanks to the FA acquisition of Reggie Miller and the hot shooting down the stretch of his brother Mike and MoPete. Looking at my teamlog, I actually had 7 guys above 90 3's but none above 120.
The success of my team was based almost entirely on the draft. Reggie was really the only player I picked up that made a solid contribution (other than short stints by Jarvis Hayes and Dale Davis). That's not to say I didn't look to pick up free agents - I had just about every Pacer bench player this season (Bender, Double D, F Jones, A Johnson, and Croshere - I'm such a homer...). But, back to the draft. I had a number of breakout seasons by my players several of which could be considered 'steals' where I got them: Dirk(1.3), Nash(2.10), Amare (3.3), Wade (5.3!!!), Okafor(6.10), and Brezec (11.03). My only real busts were in the later rounds - J Welsch (10.10) and Kwame and Bender in the last couple. Finley underperformed for a 4th round pick, but I wouldn't necessarily call him a bust.
I guess my main failure was not being able to come up with a deal that could address the obvious weakness of my team while not sacrificing too many points in other categories. As I think I had pointed out at the allstar break, I had (and ended up with) an embarrasing gap over 2nd place in points and in fg%. Looking now, it did end up being over a 2000 point margin over second; but the guys who were doing most of the scoring were filling in the entire stat sheet - Dirk, Amare, and Flash. I should have looked at moving Jalen Rose, but he was helping my percentages and 3's, and would get a fair amount of steals for stretches during the season.
After the season ended, I was trying to diagnose where my team had failed. I knew I had some really strong stretches during the season. Basically, I wanted to say that if it weren't for the first three weeks of the season (for instance), I would've won it. So, I ran split standings from 11/23 to the end of the season, and sure enough I was in first a point ahead of EG. So, I figured I must've messed up those first 3 weeks to finish 9 points behind them. I look at 11/1 to 11/22 and it shows me in first by 8 points and 12 points ahead of EG. Although I don't know entirely what to make of this, I can at least console myself to the fact that if I break up the season into arbitrary chunks, I'm a champion.
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| 21 | Pacers Rule
Donor
ID: 910311210
Mon, Aug 08, 2005, 00:18
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So anyone getting the RIHC itch yet?
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