There comes a time in every fantasy owner’s season where they are faced with the dilemma of keeping or dropping a player. Generally, there are four reasons why players are dropped in our league:

1. Injuries

2. Lack of Productivity

3. Decent productivity, but upside players are available on the waiver wire

4. Need to rotate roster spots to combat injuries

TME!!! has been forced to make some difficult decisions in Week 2 due to a roster that can’t get healthy. 2nd round pick, Deron Williams, is still out with an ankle injury. 3rd round pick, Marcus Camby (sore heel), is on a minutes restriction. Corey Maggette (hamstring) and Al Harrington (sore back, trade demands) are both out as well. Plus, my first round pick, Shawn Marion, is no better than Udonis Haslem right now. One of the keys in H2H leagues is to try to keep your head above water while your team deals with injuries or sub-par production. 4-4 ties or even 3-5 losses are OK as long as you stay around .500. Both The Show and The Dark Knight are in jeopardy of starting the season 4-12 and 2-14 respectively. That’s a tough hole to get out of in a league as competitive as ours. Sweeps are rare and even 6-2 victories are hard to come by. Tough decisions like dropping Gilbert Arenas or Monta Ellis will have to be made if these owners want to stay in the race.

TME!!! made a tough decision by dropping Manu Ginobili and an easier decision by parting with Al Harrington. Ginobili was a great value in the 12th round, but healthy players are paramount with injuries mounting. Harrington has upside, but is clearly in Don Nelson’s doghouse and won’t have value until traded. I’d rather have two starters playing 35+ minutes in the Warriors fantasy friendly offense than waiting for Ginobili to get healthy or Harrington’s back spasms to go away.

Good strategy or bad strategy? Only time will tell.

The Main Event

First of all, let me introduce myself. My team name is The Main Event or just TME!!!. The 3 exclamation points denote how many times I’ve won this league. I’ve won two of the last four championships and it would have been three of the last four if Mike Miller and Jeff Green didn’t combine for 10 3’s on a Sunday in last year’s semis.

I wasn’t too upset to get the 10th pick. I preferred to pick at 10 if I couldn’t get picks 1-4. I believe that there isn’t a huge difference in talent between picks 5-15, plus I like going back-to-back. I established a round-by-round strategy that, on paper, made sense to me.

Rounds 1-2 - get a PF-C and a PG. I expected Brand, D12, AI or Deron Wiliams to be around.

Rounds 3-4 - get two scorers. Lots of value available here. Guys like Gay, Butler, JJ, Carter, Melo, K-Mart. Tons of 20+ per game scorers should be available.

Rounds 5-6 - get two centers. Plenty of 2nd tier centers like Dalembert, Biedrins, Okafor, Aldridge, Oden, etc. should be here.

Rounds 7-8 - get another point guard, maybe 2. I was looking for guys like T.J. Ford, Felton, Parker, D. Harris here.

Rounds 9-13 - sleepers and value picks. I wanted to get one more center and then take some risks on guys with upside.

Well, needless to say, the best laid plans often go astray. Below is how my draft turned out:

Round 1: Marion - didn’t expect him to be there, but too much value to pass up. Brand went #6 and Howard went #7.

Round 2: got my PG with Deron Williams. Could have gone AI, but I got him in another league and I like to diversify my teams.

Round 3: this is where my draft changed. I wanted to target two scorers, but Marcus Camby was still available. I know about the Clippers curse and his injury history, but he played like a top 15 pick last year and is pissed that the Nuggets gave him away for nothing (2nd round pick). Simply too much value to pass up.

Round 4: Pau Gasol -wanted a scorer, but I drafted Gasol at #11 last year and there he was at #31. Couldn’t pass on him.

Round 5: I originally wanted to get a center here, but I had to change my strategy after I went C-C back to back in rounds 3-4. My squads are typically built around points (the tiebreaker in our league) but my first four picks won’t average over 20 points a game. I decided to take Maggette here. He should thrive in Nelson’s system.

Round 6: T-Mac - I had already drafted Camby (hurt) and Williams (hurt) so why not go all in with injured guys? T-Mac could be a great value or break my heart. Only time will tell. I did add another scorer to my squad.

Round 7: Mike Miller - love his all around game. Good source for pts, 3’s and assists. Good %’s too.

Round 8: Jamal Crawford - the rumors about him coming off the bench didn’t bother me. he’s probably the Knicks best player and D’Antoni will use him accordingly.

Round 9: Troy Murphy - Wanted Rose or Felton to pair with Williams but they went right before my pick. With Jermaine O’Neal gone and Dunleavy hurt, Murphy should be a nice source for 3’s, pts and boards.

Round 10: Al Harrington - another TME!!! favorite. Sucked last year, but should see an expanded role this year with Baron Davis gone and Monta Ellis hurt.

Round 11: Luke Ridnour - all the pre-season fuss was over Ramon Session based on his ridiculous garbage time run last year. Well, Ridnour’s the starter and Sessions hasn’t played a minute in the first two games. I like his upside for assists and steals.

Round 12: Manu Ginobili - was shocked that he was still around. He will probably miss about 20 games, but should return by December. Great value at pick 11 if he comes back as scheduled.

Round 13: Mike Conley, Jr. - was choosing between him and Nene. I will probably rotate this spot until Camby, Williams and Ginobili out.

The jury is still out on how this team will perform but it has potential. The key will be injury prone guys like Camby and T-Mac staying relatively healthy.