Fantasy Trend Emerging

Fantasy owners across the country are always looking to devise new tricks and strategies to get the upper hand on their opposition. Some of these strategies have stood the test of time and have become a staple of every fantasy owners repertoire. Take "category tanking", a strategy in which a fantasy owner determines before the draft or shortly after that they will concede one category per week. A team drafts Dwight Howard, Rajon Rondo, and Blake Griffin, conceding FT% each week but hoping to gain an edge in the other 7 categories. This strategy is tried and true. Not every owner uses it but it is accepted as a possible winning strategy. Another time tested example is "spot starting", originated in 2009 by Bronson Castellano of Tacoma, WA via Vancouver, WA (though some people, read: everyone, argue that this pre-dates Castellano and has actually existed forever). Spot starting has been known to be quite affective, though many league commissioners are taking steps to prevent this strategy, as it is seen as "cheap" due to the fact that it inherently bypasses an owners actual knowledge of the sport.



The most recent emerging trend is what hardcore fantasy freaks are calling "locker room guys". The basic idea is simple: when you are in an absolute must win fantasy playoff matchup, you never ever drop an injured player. The theory being that the injured players locker room presence will lift the play of his teammates. We've seen a lot of teams hanging on to Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, and Dwyane Wade for this very reason. Despite the obvious scientific and logical backing of this strategy, it doesn't appear to be working so far. Last week fantasy aficionado J-Smi fell to 4th seeded Mr. Glass. Glass was using the traditional "do or die" fantasy playoffs strategy and was able to narrowly crush J-Smi and the Layup Drills 6-2. Trotting out Jarrett Jack and his season ending injury for more than half the week, J-Smi thought that Jack's moral support was really going to turn the tide in the matchup but after falling to 1-7 mid week, he dropped Jack. Not one to admit that a hair brained strategy didn't pan out, J-Smi commented that "Jack's leadership skills weren't good enough in a game of statistics where the players commonly do not play on the same team and may or may not even know one another. A better leader like Ron Artest or Matt Bonner could have really fueled this team." Z, owner of Stevie's Dance Acadamy, also deployed this strategy last week. Despite injuries to 3 of his top players, Z refused to part with his core for much of the week. Z, however, was able to discard the strategy near the end of the week and pull out a narrow victory. Z stated that he didn't want to drop the players but ultimately realized that injured players are not going to accumulate statistics which is what are needed to win a fantasy matchup. Glass sees it differently, as he told media members, "Look this whole Locker Room Guy strategy is a joke these guys don't even share a locker room. This is fantasy and everyone knows the only playoff x-factor is... HOME COURT ADVANTAGE (drops the mic)".