Okay, I'm Ready To Go

So I haven't really posted anything substantial in the first quarter of the season, and I know that I'm really behind. (It's just that I've been busy with school, as it is my last quarter of being a full-time student. Now that I'm done with school, I have plenty of free time to blog as much as I want when I'm not busy with work or whatever I have going on for me [It's not much]).

So I decided I'm going to make up for my lack of posts by writing an entry every single day for the rest of the season, as long as there's a game. (I really don't know what fantasy-related news I can come up with the day before and the day after the All-Star game). But you never know. I have no life. Actually, "one has only a life of one's own."

I can't promise to talk about every single player in every single format. The truth is- I play in one shallow h2h league and one standard-sized roto league (no deep leagues), and it's quite difficult to talk about every single player in the league. And even then, I don't follow the players that I don't own in either league. I am guilty of that.

Not only am I guilty of ignoring all the players that I don't own, but I've also noticed within the leagues that I participate in that almost every manager grows an attachment to their own players and places a higher value to their players than to the players on other teams. It makes sense, I guess, though it shouldn't.

I know for certain that I follow my own players more intently. When a game is going on, I read the box scores and wait for the updates in hopes that my player contributed within the past 10 seconds. I refresh the page every so often, celebrating every made bucket and crying over every missed attempt. And as I obsess over my player, I overlook the other players in the game. I just put them in a category in my head of "Players I don't own; hopefully, they all play like crap so some other owner has to suffer."

This is a bad habit that I have, and I know that many managers do this as well. And I've begun to make a conscious effort to browse the box score more thoroughly, with an open mind. I keep in mind the minutes every player plays, shot attempts, free throw attempts, the fouls they accumulate which can affect their playing time, and what the player does with the minutes that he is given. (Usually, minutes, shots attempts and free throw attempts have a direct correlation to their usage rate, which indicate that that player has more opportunities to produce stats.) Having an all-around understanding of how productive my player is in relation to all the other players in the game helps me compare my entire team with the other teams in my league, as well. It also gives me a solid idea of what kind of value a player holds. And understanding the grand scheme of things is a pretty good first step to improving your team.

(Gee, I basically said 'Knowing everything is good for you.' I am so wise.)