13 replies to this topic

[Sir Thursday]

So every year NBA.com does the Drive to the Finals game for the playoffs, and every year I enter it only to realise that I have no-one to measure myself against. But this year I am sorting things out in advance! Once the game becomes available, who's up for playing?

 

If you don't know what it is, the game asks you to select one player for each night of the playoffs. You score their Points+Assists+Rebounds total from that game, with the catch that once you've used them once you can't use them again. There's some interesting strategy involved (eg. should I pick this player given that his team might be eliminated this round, or save him in case they advance?), and because it's cumulative scoring you can easily measure your scores against everyone else.

 

Who's with me?

 

ST

[blakecouey]

Ill try it.  I usually don't do too well with games that have to be changed every single night(usually I forget a day or two...or more), but I'm definitely up for it.  

[tombrokeoff]

id prob do terrible, but id give it a try.

[Sir Thursday]

It's up and running everybody! The website is here: http://www.nba.com/drive.  I've created a league for us:

 

League Name: Red94

Password: gorockets

 

Hopefully we can get plenty of people involved!

 

ST

[tombrokeoff]

im signing up now .... just an FYI for anyone who might not figure it out.  when you click the link above, it adds a period to the end of the URL which in turn makes it appear broken.  at least thats what it did for me. 

[Sir Thursday]

im signing up now .... just an FYI for anyone who might not figure it out.  when you click the link above, it adds a period to the end of the URL which in turn makes it appear broken.  at least thats what it did for me. 

 

Oops! I've fixed the link, so it should work now.

 

ST

[blakecouey]

It worked.  I've signed up!

[ale11]

Done, I'm in.

[Sir Thursday]

Now that the playoff brackets are set you can now start making your selections! Interesting slates of games to start things off...

 

ST

[Sir Thursday]

Kind of conflicted - I picked David Lee tonight, and he had a decent (if not spectacular) game going before going down injured. Is it a good thing that I've managed to get some production out of him if he's going to be out for the rest of the series, or is it a bad thing that I wasn't able to pick someone who was on the court the whole game?

 

ST

[ale11]

I figured some kind of approach in which you take advantage of the most favourable situation. For example, I prefered picking Lee when they played in GS, assuming he would perform better at the Oracle Arena....if the numbers were good, I guess it was good for you to pick a player that isn't gonna play anymore (also assuming Denver gets the series)

[Sir Thursday]

Hmm, well looking at who everyone else picked I'd say it has come out pretty well. Curry had a poor game for GS (he was someone I thought would do better in Game 3/4), and Lee almost matched his production. I figured Lee would get his numbers wherever they played - you can't lead the league in double doubles if you're performing poorly away from home, after all!

 

The issue with waiting until Game 3/4 to pick the good players is that, especially in the first round, there are too many good players for you to pick them all if you wait. There are going to be 8 teams eliminated in round 1, and they're going to play their games 3 and 4 over a ~4 day stretch...someone's going to miss out. 

 

ST

[blakecouey]

I had Lee locked in for Game 2, had to change that now though.  I had taken Curry last night, and although he didn't have a monster game, his production was good enough that Im satisfied with having used him.  

 

My strategy so far was to mainly pick players on the teams that I don't think will win the series, so that I have the ones moving on left when they move to the next round.  I don't want to use Lebron now when it's basically a lock that the Heat make the finals, same with Wade.

[ale11]

I had Lee locked in for Game 2, had to change that now though.  I had taken Curry last night, and although he didn't have a monster game, his production was good enough that Im satisfied with having used him.  

 

My strategy so far was to mainly pick players on the teams that I don't think will win the series, so that I have the ones moving on left when they move to the next round.  I don't want to use Lebron now when it's basically a lock that the Heat make the finals, same with Wade.

 

Ditto. I think is the smartest thing to do