COLUMNL Fantasy basketball – The ultimate athletic experience
OK, here’s the situation: Friday night, about 6:35, the brisk fall air and the thought of True Aggie Night approaching is making for a love-in-the-air kind of evening. My five dorm buddies and I, all decent looking guys, are in the hot spot of campus impatiently awaiting some serious action.
Without a female to be found, we are in none other than the nearest university computer lab.
In less than a half an hour, we will embark on a new year of fantasy basketball.
In case you are unfamiliar with fantasy basketball, let me explain it a bit.
It all starts out with an online draft, in which all the members of the league select from a pool of all of the NBA players in order. Teams of 12 are made, each team will face off against another team every week. How you play each other is simple. Using your player’s statistics in their games, your team competes in categories like points, rebounds, assists, and shooting percentage.
To my left, Andy. (By the way, all the names used in this column are alter egos, protecting the humility of my oft-mentioned fantasy pals). Andy, an average judge of talent, has just found out that he owns the second pick in the draft, and obviously must decide between the remaining two out of the big three: Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Tracy McGrady.
Sitting directly behind me, Carlton is visibly shaken. He has an exceptional grasp of the game’s top players, but is worried sick at the thought of having to draft last.
Jake is two seats to my right, making a quick list of the top 25 players he would like to have on his team. Little did he know, all of the best ones would soon be playing for me.
Gary is sitting behind me as well. Every time I look back at him he has that excited look, like Britney Spears’ “Toxic” video had just started. I’m pretty sure his delight was strictly because he got a hold of my pre-draft notebook a day before.
Ah, the fantasy basketball online live draft. What we did that day unleashed several months of severe inactivity. Countless hours would be spent on the Internet, tirelessly refreshing NBA box scores, speculating and analyzing hundreds of trade scenarios, and secretly calculating point tallies before Yahoo would put out the final scores early in the morning.
Going back to the live online draft, it is by far the most entertaining aspect of the basketball season.
The terror of waiting for the couple of teams in front of you to pick is overwhelming. You know that feeling when you have that guy on your board who you know you should have picked in the last round but you went conservative and hoped for him to still be around? Probably not, but for me, this year, Lamar Odom was that guy. I knew he was going to rock moving to the East, rebounding against the likes of Christian Laettner and Donyell Marshall. But instead, I went cautious and grabbed Rashard Lewis and Pau Gasol with my previous two picks.
On a less serious note, the best moments of the draft are easily the social aspects. Getting a barrage of “nice pick” comments or engaging in a stare down with a guy that took your favorite player. These are the little instances that get a guy like me from one day to the next.
As we near the end of the long and treacherous season, my team, “Naked Truth,” has a firm hold of second place behind Andy’s “I am Hungry.” Gary’s team, “E.E.C.,” rounds out the top three clubs.
This has undoubtedly been a memorable fantasy basketball season, but regrettably, it will be my last.
These last few months have inspired me to take a look at what it’s like at the other side of the pendulum. One night, after two hours of boasting my late round selection of Zach Randolph, it just hit me. “What am I doing with my life?”
I decided I will live my life through incredible 23- to 24-year old athletes no more. As of today, I am formally declaring myself eligible for the 2004 NBA draft.
Brad Barth is a freshman majoring in English. Comments can be sent to bcb@cc.usu.edu.