ESPN NBA

I used to. Enjoyed it, frankly.

But there are only two ways you can go about it:

• Not do very well.
• Obsess over it many hours a day.
  

Well, at some point I had children, and decided that I would not be able to forgive myself if I abandoned my kids in favor of pretend, online basketball.

But then Roland Beech of 82games.com got in touch. He was setting up a league that was really no work at all. There was the draft. And then that was it. Every player plays every game. No trades. No replacements. No nothing. Just watch the points roll in.

And, the winner gets $1,000!

The only downside was that practically every person in the league is a friggin' full-time paid basketball statistics or fantasy expert. I'm just a dumb blogger, you know?

Here was the draft order:

1. Henry Abbott - TrueHoop
2. Jeff Ma - PROTRADE
3. Brandon Funston - Yahoo! Sports
4. Matt Berry - ESPN
5. Jon Loomer - NBA.com
6. Rick Kamla - NBA TV
7. Justin Kubatko - Basketball-Reference.com
8. Tommy Craggs - Writer
9. Eric Wong - 82games fantasy expert
10. Roland Beech - 82games founder
11. Andre' Snellings - Rotowire
12. Chris Liss - Rotowire

So don't expect to win this thing. Frankly, I would be embarrassed to be beat by me, if I were one of these guys. I mean, they're supposed to know know to do this. I literally do not know how to do this.

In fact, I am already playing the season under protest. There were various technical difficulties with the draft. At the very end, I had to leave, so I set the machine to pick for me. It was all set to pick Daniel Gibson. Martell Webster was a second choice. I came in this morning and found I had ... Brevin Knight.

The world works in funny ways, though. Maybe it'll somehow work out. Go, Brevin.

UPDATE: Fine gentleman that he is, Roland Beech tweaked my roster. Gibson is in, and Brevin is out. Go Boobie. 

I'm also upset at Jeff Ma for taking LaMarcus Aldridge one spot before I was going to do just that. But maybe it's for the best. He is injury-prone, you know, and in this league, with no substitutions and no bench, injuries are probably really all that matters. This is what I hate about fantasy. Now if Aldridge gets hurt, my inner Blazer fan will be ruined, but some little evil part of me will cackle and probably call Jeff immediately.

Anyway, since the draft, Roland of 82games has since crunched some numbers, made some fancy charts, and essentially predicted that he's going to win. It's like trash talk, with graphs.

You can also see our entire draft, if you're so inclined. Should be fun.