Feeding the Roto Monkey

Written by Xach on October 13, 2004

For the true fantasy sports junky there are only two major components to each calendar year –- playing out a season and waiting for a season. And, as Homer Simpson discovered while awaiting delivery of his shiny new gun, the waiting is the hardest part.

For most fantasy players, the baseball season has already ended by October. And even though football is in full swing, many fantasy owners crave the more steady action of the approaching NBA season. This holds doubly true for those who are addicted to the rotisserie format for its daily highs and lows.

Each workday morning since baseball season ended, I have entered the office, fired up the computer, gone to my fantasy homepage and clicked on the link to Rotogods baseball only to see the standings are exactly fucking the same as they were a week ago. Sure, there’s a new post or two on the league message board every day or so –- artifacts left by fellow rotisserie addicts who keep checking in to see what’s happening. I look at the final standings, shake my head that I performed so poorly this year and move on.

I know what you’re thinking: The season’s over and Xach is waxing sentimental. No. The season is over and I’m acting like a fucking junky. I get online and before I can consciously do whatever I got online to do, I have clicked on the link to Rotogods baseball. Why? Because daily transactions and changes in the standings are the perpetual monkey on my back. And if you have as much hair on your back as I do, this is not a good thing.

For those of us who are between seasons, there are two ways to deal with the roto monkey. We can either ignore the monkey or feed the monkey. I can tell you right now that Alcoholics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Jerry Falwell will all disagree, but believe me O! brothers and sisters, if you don’t want to fuck up your next draft, you must learn to feed the monkey.

Feeding your roto monkey

Preparing for the next draft is always the best way to feed your roto monkey. This can be especially gratifying coming up on the NBA and NHL seasons, as none of the fantasy sites that cover them are as comprehensive and well organized as many of the football and baseball fantasy sources tend to be. Good luck finding decent sleeper lists and draft cheat sheets for your NBA and NHL drafts without paying for them. Um, not that I myself have any use for such crutches. And even if you do pay for them, NHL and NBA leagues tend to vary so much in format that one man’s top pick might be another’s projected fantasy bust. For example, if you count free throw percentage, you’ll not be wanting The Big Aristotle's services with a top five pick in your draft. Likewise, if you count turnovers, you can go ahead and knock Steve Francis down the list a notch or twenty. Start reading. Pore through each position. Find out who’s where. Do your research. Know exactly who you want and at what cost. You may even break down your rankings into draft rounds.

Keep up with how teams are performing in the preseason. This is another excellent way to make sure you and your monkey are cozy as floppers at a crack house.

Talk to your fellow owners. Try and pick their brains as best you can for information. See if you can figure out who will be available to you, what the prevailing draft strategies are. If you want to go a step further, you can even look around the various web sites and see who’s getting the most hype. This can help with figuring out what players are likely to be overpriced and which players only a handful of owners will probably be targeting.

Shoot your frickin’ mouth off. If you must, another great way to feed the monkey is to be a cocky, belligerent bastard to your fellow owners. Make as many side bets as you can stomach and talk as much shit as possible. This will make the upcoming season seem more important to you and make success seem like more of a requirement than something that just might be fun if everything works out. Because here’s a newsflash for you: in a competitive roto league, a casual player will never win. Ever. If you have won and taken the game casually, you haven’t been in a truly competitive league. Take my word. And if you can’t trust me, ask someone else with a backpack that looks suspiciously like a monkey.

What happens when you don’t feed the monkey?

• People who don’t feed the monkey draft Rashard Lewis in the opening rounds –- the 2002 Rashard Lewis.
• People who don’t feed the monkey end up starting Mehmet Ohkur at center.
• People who don’t feed the monkey sometimes sleep through the draft. I’ve done this. It can ruin the entire season. So tie your tourniquet tight and start heating that spoon.
• People who don’t feed the monkey get flustered when their top three choices get drafted from under their noses.
• People who don’t feed the monkey draft the highest ranked duds they can find in the closing rounds of the draft instead of taking the, generally lower ranked, quality sleepers.

As I mentioned, finding quality sources for NBA fantasy information can be difficult. In an effort to help feed your monkey, I’ll share some of the places I’ve found the most helpful as I prepare to finally make the most of my fantasy NBA season. If there’s anything this monkey toting hairy Heeb has learned from experience, it’s that I need to feed the monkey.

• RotoWorld.com – has the most frequent player updates I’ve found. It’s particularly helpful for tracking injuries, both before and during the season
• HoopsHype.com – no longer a secret among the Rotogods, the Junky actually turned me on to this one. A great site for rumors.
• ESPN’s Page 2 (and Insider, if you don’t mind ponying up the cash) – This is an important distinction, because many a misled NBA fantasy owner has made the egregious error of leaning on ESPN’s fantasy tailored content. Let me be the first to inform you: ESPN’s fantasy content sucks ass. Their injury updates are not frequent enough and never thorough enough. Their analysis of who’s hot and who’s not always comes a day or two too late for competitive league owners to make a successful waiver or free agent claim. And if that weren’t enough, their site design is clunky at best. A savvy Page2 surfer can often pick up on NBA happenings just by reading between the lines. And ESPN’s Insider coverage often delivers the straight dope with little surfing necessary. Xach’s only word of caution where ESPN’s Insider is concerned, is that they do fall prey to sensationalism. So if you’re what we Rotogods call a “hype-aholic” you may want to steer clear.

-- Written by Xach on October 13, 2004