If you don't get the connection between this image and this post, I feel sorry for you. (Hint: Google "Strong Bad") (Michael Cooper/Flickr)

• Cheat sheets might have been frowned upon in your school days, but in fantasy basketball they should be embraced with open arms. The good guys at Give Me The Rock have shared their cheat sheets with us, including Top 200 Overall, Top 200 by Position and Top 200 for Auction Leagues. Gold, pure gold.
• Wanna cheat some more? Head on over to Busersports.com’s ADP report and draft sheet.
• It’s always good to have a new addition to the family. Nate at MFBarkley is pumping out some fantasy rankings for y’all, so head on over and take a look.
• If you’re looking for team previews in addition to the ones here (and you should be), take a look at these:
  • Damn Lies & Statistics
  • Life is Just a Fantasy … Basketball Blog
  • Fantasy Basketball Daily (which is also asking a lot of questions these days)
• Yahoo Sports’ Roto Arcade is going through its own mock draft, which is currently in round three.

Acid test, indeed. I just wish more real people were around to test the acid with me. Wait, that's not -- oh, nevermind. (dok1/Flickr)

I’ve been a big fan of Yahoo’s Fantasy Basketball platform for nearly my entire fantasy basketball life, so when they unveiled the auction draft format this year, I was quite intrigued. I’ve always wondered about auction drafts and imagined that they’d be lots of fun, but I just never got around to them.

But since Yahoo introduced it and after reading Patrick’s case for auction drafts at Give Me The Rock, I just had to try one. So tonight, I entered a mock auction draft — $200 to spend, 12 owners (six real, six automated), head-to-head format and 13 roster spots (PG, SG, G, SF, PF, F, C, C, Util, Util, BN, BN, BN). It started out well but around 20 minutes into it, the other five real owners set themselves on autobid and I was left all alone, which explains why I still had $15 after I filled out my roster, was able to nab Paul Pierce, O.J. Mayo, Andrew Bogut and Blake Griffin at such insanely low prices, and kind of lost focus with my last batch of picks. So yes, the results below must have one o’ these bad boys appended to it:

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(continue reading…)

Listen to Batman, Robin. (batmancomic.info)

We finally pulled off our mock draft on Thursday evening, and I’m happy to say that it was privileged enough to receive the attendance of many of my favorite fantasy basketball bloggers. Here’s the cast:

- Justin from Life is Just a Fantasy … Basketball Blog (Life is Just a Fantasy … Basketball Blog)
- Patrick from Give Me The Rock (GMTR_Patrick)
- Doneycat from Tale of 9 Cats (Doneycat)
- Tippy from Fantasy Basketball Daily (supposedly “ended up” with the automatically
generated “Fantasy god”)
- Henry from Weakside Help (Weakside Help)
- Eugene, my good friend and fantasy basketball nemesis (ec236)
- West, a reader who seems to have missed the draft; next time!
- Boogerboys, an unknown participant who was on autoselect until round eight
- drafting hungover, another unknown entrant

While I don’t like leagues that are any smaller than 12 teams (too shallow, too much parity between teams, don’t get to utilize the depths of your fantasy knowledge), there wasn’t any other choice at the time slot we drafted in. No matter: the fantastic company made it easy to forget the size of our draft.

Without further ado, here’s a quick and dirty recap of our mock draft (nine categories, head-to-head), with round-by-round analysis. (Henry already posted his analysis at Weakside Help.) Especially admirable picks are in green, while questionable picks are in red. (Picks made on autoselect were exempt from color-coded and written judgment.) I’ve also decided to include the pick times for each pick, in case anyone was interested. (The average pick time was 19.2 seconds, for all you fellow inquiring nerds out there.) (continue reading…)

UPDATE:

Our mock draft will take place tomorrow, Thursday, Aug. 26, at 8:15 p.m. EDT at Mock Draft Central — draft #4563.

It’s a 10-team draft, so hurry on over and reserve one the remaining slots.

Again, the draft is going to be based on nine-category, head-to-head settings.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below, via Twitter or via e-mail.

If you can’t make this one, don’t worry — we’ll set up a few more before the season starts.

I'd like to tell you that KG's telling the ref to "Check out these links," but he's probably saying something closer to "**** ******* *** **** *********." (Keith Allison/Flickr)

A friendly reminder: Our flash-mob mock draft at Mock Draft Central is taking place tomorrow evening (Thursday, Aug. 26). Since I’m gunning for us all to take part in a free draft (bloggin’ ain’t easy — or lucrative), I can’t predict exactly what time or how many spots (10 or 12) will be available in the slot we get, but it will be sometime around 7 p.m. EDT (it won’t be earlier than that). The good news is that you can reserve your spot as soon as the time slot is created by the good people at Mock Draft Central, so keep an eye out for an update here and on Twitter sometime late tonight or early tomorrow morning about exactly when the draft will take place. It will be 14 rounds of nine-category goodness, and you choose your pick position. After the draft is over, I’ll post a round-by-round analysis where I’ll publicly laud or embarrass your picks (half-kidding). I hope you’re excited as I am.

• You’ll find Dirk Nowitzki ranked as the No. 4 overall fantasy player just about everywhere, but that doesn’t mean it’s cool. Justin at Life is Just a Fantasy…Basketball Blog talks about why he’s going with Stephen Curry at No. 4.
• Henry at Weakside Help is optimistic about the likes of Greg Oden and Andrew Bynum this season, but Pau Gasol? Pau-lease.
• Fantasy Basketball Daily is in the midst of his position-by-position fantasy rankings (based on a scoring system). Tippy’s going with Deron Williams over Chris Paul.
• The great Dan Gilbert is the guest poster for Give Me The Rock’s Cleveland Cavaliers fantasy team preview, and guess what? Comic Sans, that’s what.
• Yao Ming‘s famous foot (shouldn’t it have a nickname by now?) is declared fully healed and the big man appears optimistic. The AP report mentions his conditioning (he lost 40 pounds in the last 3.5 months, and wants to lose more weight) and that his minutes will be limited in the early going, as expected. If you’re optimistic about his fantasy value this season, giggle with glee.
• Kevin Garnett used to be a fantasy monster — now he’s relegated to being good for a highlight reel’s worth of cussing. Head over to Basketbawful to witness some of KG’s verbal diarrhea, but put earmuffs on the ears of any children that might be in the room.