Thoughts for your prolonged trip to the office crapper -- Feb. 21, 2006

Written by Xach on February 21, 2006

Random roto-related thought of the day:
With both the NBA and NHL taking breaks this past week, much of the roto world had little to do other than prepare for baseball season. However, in one of my hockey leagues, we've decided to play through the Olympics. It's a lot easier to play through a break than you might think, so long as there are games of some kind going on. For the Olympics, our approach was to keep it simple. Each owner chose a center, a winger, a defenseman, and an additional forward from their regular NHL fantasy roster. We then pared down the categories to goals, assists and +/-. Any owner without enough Olympians on their regular fantasy roster was allowed to draft from the league's free agent pool. That draft was conducted in reverse order of current standings. To make things a little more interesting, each owner had to throw in $10 to compete. So far, I'm faring pretty well. For anyone who's interested in checking out our simple Olympics roto format, our standings are listed here. My team's The Fixodent All Stars. Because I know you care. I can see similar formats being successful for other non-traditional roto events as well -- World Baseball Championships, olympic basketball, etc.

Roto asshole of the day:
My vote goes to Roger Clemens. Why? Because this shitwit won't let anyone know whether he's retiring until after we've all drafted our teams for the 2006 season. Some asshole's bound to over-spend on draft day, on the speculation of a second half comeback. And I'm gonna tell you something T. Are you listening? I'm not gonna be one of those assholes.

FA wire pick up of the day:
As the NBA trade deadline approaches, keep your eyes glued to the latest trade news. If Steve Francis gets traded, jump all over Carlos Arroyo.

Message board thread of the day:
Today, I'm pimping our latest discussion of NBA All Star weekend. Here's one quote from the thread to whet your palate:

Yeah, Kobe and Shaq should just fuck already, their love fest is annoying. I liked it better when Shaq wouldn't talk to him. -- Beagle

The song that's currently stuck in my head:
"Roll Another Number (For the Road) " and "Albuquerque", both by Neil Young. I finally filled in a bunch of missing albums in my Neil Young collection yesterday and these two tracks from Tonight's the Night are still echoing in my head. "I been standin' on the sound/ Of some open-hearted people/ goin' down..."

Daily scrub pub:
Around these parts, "scrub pub" means "scrub publicity." And today's scrub is Raymond Felton, because he's AWESOME. 16.1 points, 6.4 assists, 5.4 rebounds, 1.6 threes and 1.7 steals per game in February so far, baby! And if you think getting rear-ended by a drunk driver will slow him down you are sorely mistaken. As of this writing, I am currently entertaining offers of Jason Kidd or Chris Paul for Raymond Felton. That's today's scrub pub -- smarmy and self-serving inflation of a player's value -- as only Yours Truly can bring it. Thanks for reading!

-- Written by Xach on February 21, 2006