HOW TO JOIN FANTASY NBA

From Worldometer (new deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9     1093    4732        1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835       130

Sept     9     1208     6222        1136      1168        82

Oct     21     1225     6849          571       703        85

Nov    11     1479      10178         564       550        60

           25     2304    12025        620       518       118

Dec       1     2611     11891         697       500      109

             9     3265    12342         848       337      142

           16     3538     13535        968       357      166  

           17     3387      12968      1054       342      184

Summary:

• The USA had 237,349 new cases yesterday and 3387 new deaths.
• Japan had 3061 new cases and 51 new deaths.
• China had 7 new cases and no new deaths.
• Singapore had 24 new cases and no new deaths.
• South Korea had 1014 new cases and 22 new deaths.
• Australia had 12 new cases and no new deaths.
• Thailand had 20 new cases and no new deaths.
• New Zealand had no new cases and no new deaths.
• Taiwan had 8 new cases and no new deaths.
• California had 44,937 new cases and 263 new deaths.
• Hawaii had 141 new cases and 2 new deaths.
• Vermont had 140 new cases and no new deaths

While Japan and South Korea are very much concerned about their latest wave, why has the U.S. gone from bad to worse, by far, while many of the countries of the Orient and Oceania have controlled this coronavirus?  Many reasons, but you can start with Donald Trump:  

It was only around two months ago that the Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA championship.  You probably already forgot who they beat?  Miami Heat.  Well, the new season starts next Tuesday, December 22:

• Each team will play 72 games, 10 fewer than a normal season.
• No bubble this year.
• The new champion could be crowned as late as 22July2021

So, if you've toyed with idea of getting a basketball fantasy team or two, this would be a good year to get started.  If you'll be watching the NBA anyway, having a couple of these teams will make this activity more meaningful.  You root for your players and hope all the others get injured.  Well, not really, but you want only your players to do well.  There is no team allegiance.  You select the best players available in a draft. 

There are expensive fantasy leagues and FREE ones.  ESPN has a simple FREE way to get started.  Here is how:

• If you are new to fantasy sports, you can practice in a mock draft.  Click on THIS to to the mock draft page.  Look for a league that shows:
• DRAFT TYPE:  Snake

• 
  LEAGUE TYPE:  
• 8-team H2H Each Category:  you'll easily find this option available.
• 8-TEAM ROTO:  you'll need to wait a bit longer for this option, but not by much, and the ROTO game gives you more options to be creative.
• DRAFT TIME:  exactly when the draft starts
• MEMBERS: 
•  If a league shows 7/8, you will be #8 and the draft will occur at the time indicated.
• If 2/8 or so, the league needs 6 more teams to sign up by that time, so might need to wait until the next cycle, which is only 5 minutes later.
• In any case when the time comes, click on ENTER THE DRAFT.
• At the top of the page you will find when you will draft.  If you're #1, you're the first.  If #8, you'll have selections 8 and 9, etc.  This is where the term snake comes into play.
• For the mock draft, you have 45 seconds to select someone,  For the real draft you have 90 seconds.
• If a player has DTD or O, it means he is injured, so avoid that player.
• I like to select those who play more than one position so you have more flexibility in playing them.
• The draft page has a list of the best-available players, so, even though you don't recognize those names, in general, pick someone at the very top.
• Make sure you have all the positions covered, although the controlling computer will not allow you to make a mistake.
• It should take all of 10 minutes or so for each of the 8 members to select 13 players.
• For my mock draft, I ended up with:

POS	PLAYER	ELIG
PG	F. VanVleet	SG, PG
SG	S. Gilgeous-Alexander	SG, PG
SF	K. Durant	SF, PF
PF	A. Davis	PF, C
C	B. Adebayo	C, PF
G	D. Wright	SG, PG
F	K. Middleton	SF, SG
UTIL	R. Covington	PF, SF
UTIL	M. Harrell	C, PF
UTIL	D. DiVincenzo	SG, PG
BE	J. Richardson	SG, SF
BE	M. Smart	SG, PG
BE	R. Holmes	C, PF

I've been out of fantasy NBA for several years, so most of those on my team are totally unknown to me.

To officially draft, you should go to this page.  Look at the right column for GET A TEAM.  You can experiment later, but for Draft Type, use Snake.  You have a choice of 8, 10 or 12 Teams.  Pick 8, for you have more chances to later get free agents.  For now, for Scoring Type, use ROTO.  Click on Join a Public League.  YOU'RE ON!!!  

Generally, you'll have a few minutes so you won't have any chance yet to Edit Team Settings.  You can do this later.  Depends on what parameter you have selected, this wait can take longer.  When the time gets to zero, you'll be asked to Enter the Draft.  Click on it.

At the top you'll see where the computer has placed you on when you will draft. Don't draft injured players, indicated by DTD or O.  The players at the top are the best ones left.  Make sure that you draft so that you have at least 3 players at each slot:  PG, SG, SF, PF, and C.  I have a tendency to select players with more than one position.  You don't want to select all your players from the same team, even though you might be a fan of, say, the Los Angeles Lakers.  You will select 10 starters and three subs.

Once you get your team, go to your league page.  Near the top, click on League, then Settings, to see how points are obtained.   There are league rules you can read. 

Now, get a second team, but this time, 8-team H2H.  Same process.

Once the season starts, you will notice that many of the players won't be playing that day, so you should adjust your team every day before the first game starts.  Note that you can add free agents by releasing your players.  In HTH, you will have maximum of 7 free agents you can get each week.  There is no limit to the number of times you can do this for ROTO.  I tend to throw away subs and just add those who will play in this type of game.  H2H is too limiting for me.

I had the #1 pick in my first official draft, and selected:

Giannis Antetokounmpo, the winner of the past two N.B.A. Most Valuable Player Awards, who signed a $228 million deal to stay with the Milwaukee Bucks for the next five years. It’s the most lucrative contract in N.B.A. history.

I ended up with a good team.  I then went to get a ROTO team, but there were not enough players for a couple of cycles, so I went to do something else.  When I returned, the draft was over, and ESPN showed me my team.  I didn't recognize anyone, and three were injured.  I could have abandoned it, but decided, this is just for fun anyway, let me manage this team by taking extreme measures, that is, only keep a few really good players, and try to get a full team playing every day.  This, it now turns out, is not so easy to do because others are doing the same thing, and the best players available are mostly centers, where you are limited to four.  But this could be because there are only four teams playing on December 22.

My second ROTO draft went okay.  Now I have three NBA fantasy teams.

The early schedule (useful in selecting free agents to play):

Dec. 22    Golden State at Brooklyn

                LA Clippers at LA Lakers

Dec. 23    Almost all teams play, except those above

Dec. 24    NO GAMES

Dec. 25    Five games 

Any questions?  Add a comment below and I'll respond.

My favorite song #9 is Ginza Kan Kan Musume, written by Ryoichi Hattori and Taka Saeki.  I remember growing up with this song playing on the radio, sung by a local girl, Jane Itai.  Fortunately enough, she is the one singing with Club Nisei.  The original came from a 1949 film by that name with Hideko Takamine.  Here is a short clip of her singing this song from that movie.  She was born in Hakodate, Hokkaido, and was so popular that she was known as the Japanese Shirley Temple.

Here is an informative article reporting on this song, including a version by Hibari Misora.  The song is a play on words for panpan musume, referring to unlicensed prostitutes.  More specifically, Kan Kan Musume meant short-tempered ladies who had to somehow survive the immediate postwar years.

Later in life, my karaoke friend in Japan, Tadashi Matsunaga, and I, many times found ourselves at his favorite bar in Ginza, where the mamasan sung the song for me.  This is where I responded with Blue Hawaii.  Matsunaga went on to become President of Tokyo University of A&T, and is now President of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth and Technology, reporting to the prime minister.

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