The Auction Draft Results

As my friends and I progress in the fantasy sports world, we've decided to venture into the exciting world of auction drafting. We've all talked about it in recent years, but with ESPN offering free customizable leagues auction league, we couldn't at least try it.

This draft was considered a "year zero" for our league. What we did was to allow players from our head to head league to keep one player at a significant cost ($50) to be held over. In this league, we will be able to keep up to 5 players, with each player costing $5 each year the player is kept under contract. Teams were able to spend $200 to fill 16 slots. Here are the results of my team (with the round acquired before the name followed by the cost):

• Keeper: Dwight Howard ($50)- Yes, he is defintiely NOT worth $50, but he's one of my favorites. I'll be able to keep him another year or two tops before his contract is too cumbersome with the $200 cap. Super deluxe in the FG%, boards, blocks, FTM, and turnovers

• 2.11: Carmelo Anthony ($28)- A bit overpriced for my taste, but I did it to protect him from being on a team that went hogwild spending in the first 2 rounds and had an overabundance of talent. He's a scorer and does decently across the board, hopefully he does more this year.

• 4.2: Chris Bosh ($23)- For a young, talented star, I think he was worth the $23. While other teams had more players, I needed to start getting players that are the nucleus of the team. Scoring, boards, FTM with some blocks are CB4's forte.

• 7.11: Richard Jefferson ($11)- I went silent for a LONG time. I was in on a few shootouts, but decided to pull up on a few of them because I didn't see the value there. RJ should be good in points and FTM, but hopefully he can do better in assists and rebounds than last year.

• 8.10: Raymond Felton ($11)- To me, $11 is well spent on a young PG with upside and a talented team surrounding him (JRich, Gerald Wallace, Emeka, Sean May). He should be very solid in assists and steals with some upside in 3PTM.

• 8.11: Jermaine O'Neal ($14)- I overspend here in a bidding war, but his ability to put up 18 points, 10 rebounds, and 2 blocks is intriguing. I'm thinking that Toronto should be pretty good this year (sicne I have Bosh also).

• 8.12: Rajon Rondo ($11)- As you can see I started spending the money I had right her, making plays on 3 consecutive players. Rondo is Mookie Blalock for the 21st century. I expect that you'll see a few of those 10 point, 11 rebounds, 11 assist (or 10 steals) triple doubles in the coming years.

• 9.9: Marvin Williams ($8)- I'm hoping that he becomes like a poor man's Carmel Anthony, with a three. The upside is there because he can score, but he needs to put up the rebounds, assists and defensive numbers to make him more valuable.

• 11.2: Thaddeus Young ($6)- One of those upside talents we all look for. Yes, his scoring should be down, but he could be a nice source of rebounds, steals, and FG%. I guess when coupled with the aformentioned Marvin Williams, you could make a pretty solid all around player.

• 11.4: Nick Collison ($4)- With it being this late in the draft, this is also a good value pick to boost my rebounding numbers.

• 12.2: Chris Duhon ($2)- If he can become half of what Steve Nash was under D'Antoni's tutelage, $2 is an absolute steal. He should be decent as a space filler in assists and steals, with serviceable points, rebounds and threes.

• 12.3: OJ Mayo ($6)- Oddly enough, a lot of the rookies fell to the late rounds. I may have overspend a little because another owner wanted him, but I think that he should be able to score in the league and put up enough stats to make him the rookie of the year this year.

• 12.5: Charlie Villanueva ($6)- Again, I went with a team tandem (CB4 & ONeal, RJ and Villanueva). Charlie V should be in for a good year if he can stay healthy and bring across the boards stats to the table.

• 12.6: Travis Outlaw ($1)- Personally, I thought he would go for at least a couple bucks more, but I gladly accepted this bargain. Like Villanueva, he is an across the board contributor that could post better numbers with more minutes.

• 13.4: Russell Westbrook ($1)- He's got the size that could make him into an elite PG. This is not the year. At a buck (and him being $6 next year) this is his audition to see if he can become good (or great) in the next few years.

I had $19 left over from the draft, way too much to have left holding. I probably needed that 4th star, and because of it, I don't have the elite talent of other teams, but I should do ok. Yes, it's not a winning team, but they should be competitive. This year's auction draft was more of a dry run and to set values going into next year.

As I look at this team at this point, I would probably keep Howard ($55), Westbrook ($6), Chris Bosh ($28), Rondo ($16), and Marvin Williams ($13) for next years team. The majority of my players on this team are very young, so I do have a lot of choices when we have to announce our keepers for next year.