Weekly: Nov 26

This week we're taking a look at four teams, including one of our remaining undefeated squads and two of our recent dispersal squads.

Chunky Monkeys (6-0)
With Team Thien falling in WK6, we have a lone undefeated team in Russell Conference: our defending champs! Despite efforts to move LeBron James, Monkeys still retain the services of the King and he’s been spectacular. And even though James Harden has suffered some fall off this season, he’s still fantasy gold. Plus, Kyle Lowry’s career best AST year is leading the league so that more than makes up for Harden’s dip.

While it could be argued that nobody on this team is playing at their best — excepting maybe Clint Capela — there is still just too much talent on this team for the league to handle. Even with depth sapped by the keeper drop of Marc Gasol for Kris Dunn, Monkeys still have had enough to fend off all challengers. Even RD1.16 rookie Collin Sexton has started to really step up on offense and will likely grade out as an absolute steal for Evan.

Monkeys sport a top-two rated offense to pair with a top-three defense, and while their efficiency rating is about league average, they are mainly only taking that hit due to a fourteenth ranked FT%. Monkeys are basically a punt free throws team but as long as they continue to be so highly ranked everywhere else, the wins will keep coming.

Overall, while the champs are definitely more vulnerable than last year — as the bottom of the lineup is a piecemeal effort between the likes of Joe Harris, Trey Lyles, Josh Hart, and Kelly Oubre — we’ll see if that affects them going forward though. Next week’s matchup against Silent Assassins will be one to watch as Evan and Thien jostle for the top slot in Russell Conference.

Team Spade (3-3)
Spade has already surpassed their win total from last season’s two wins, but of course, we always knew Spade had the goods as they were mostly just injured last year. This season, Kawhi Leonard is back, as is Paul Millsap, and despite the still missing Kevin Love being out — plus Will Barton’s absence — Spade has emerged as a possible playoff contender in their new conference.

Truly one of the stranger category teams around, Spade is strong in efficiency with a top-four rating there, highlighted by excellent FG/FT%. And while they score about league average, they really rely on their AST numbers to boost them up. The loss of Love has meant a big hole at rebounding but even still, their defensive rating is a respectable ninth.

The plug-ins this year has been a healthy Danilo Gallinari and Spencer Dinwiddie, who are both playing quite well and really help to keep the team afloat alongside the Leonard and Devin Booker twin stars configuration -- Booker is throwing up a delightful 7.3 assists per game by the way! Add in outside shooting bigs in Millsap, Al Horford, and Brook Lopez, and Spade truly plays a five out offense that has obviously elevated them back into the playoff picture. It looks like Randall’s set up for another veteran run to a title shot!

IL Conceived (1-5)
Torpedoed by an injury plagued week from Donovan Mitchell and Dennis Smith Jr, IL Conceived couldn't quite come from
behind on Sunday to notch their second win of the season versus Buffy, a team we lauded highly last week. It’s been a tough early schedule, with matchups against two of the best teams in the league and no softie opponents yet. IL Conceived is about to hit an easier patch of their schedule though, aside from a WK8 matchup against Chunky Monkeys — a revenge game for Frank ruining Evan’s undefeated season last year.

On paper, IL Conceived has not been great, as their offensive and efficiency ratings are at twelve and fourteen respectively over the past month. A worst in SlamNation FG% is the main culprit but this team also just can’t score, which is very different than last year’s offensive powerhouse.  Even a solid league average defensive rating can’t quite mask IL Conceived rebounding woes as well. So what’s the good news here?

Well, there are plenty! With a dispersal draft that reshuffled the deck, GM Frank picked up 2019 RD1.2 and 1.3, which translated into Luca Doncic and Jaren Jackson Jr. Both have already at least met preseason expectations with Doncic proving to be an offensive dynamo behind 18.8 PTS, 6.7 REB, 4.5 AST, 2.4 3PT, and 46.0 FG% while Jackson has started to solidify his defensive numbers with 3.3 combined BLK/STL, plus almost a three per game. Those two rookie finds alone make this IL Conceived season a win, but there’s also Miles Bridges, Aaron Holiday, Cedi Osman, OG Anunoby, and draft-and-stash Lonnie Walker lurking in development.

While the 4-D lineup of Donovan, Dennis, Draymond Green, and Dario Saric have been a little all over the place, the rock of the team has been Marc Gasol, who is definitely rejuvenated and looking for a winning situation. It’s possible that Gasol could be moved later to a contender, or IL Conceived could just ride the Spaniard to another deep Toilet Bowl run.

Hilt the Stilt (2-4)
As we look at our most recent addition to the league, it’s been tough to tell how David’s rookie SlamNation team has been as he’s racked up a month straight of early capped out games, plus no weeks of Games Played above 22 games. So taking that all into account, two wins is actually quite impressive — including a WK4 win versus Spade that confounded us with many less games played. It’s no surprise that with so few GP, Hilt the Stilt is ranked bottom three in just about every category, and sports a ODE rating of 15/7/14. But let’s look beyond the numbers at what’s actually on this roster.

It’s safe to say that David went six for six in his dispersal draft, with no duds taken — the jury is out on Jaylen Brown for Snack Bears and Dario Saric for IL Conceived. Franchise cornerstone Victor Oladipo has maintained his Most Improved Player numbers for the most part, and Andre Drummond has increased his defensive numbers even higher than last year. And while the league still continues to wait for a full on Aaron Gordon explosion, the high flier is still putting up a very nice all-around line.

Oh right, and I’m loathe to mention Josh Richardson here, who has been jumped an entire level and I’m so so bitter because I kept Andrew Wiggins instead of my favorite son Josh Richardson. Sigh. J-Rich is throwing up 20.7 PTS and plus numbers everywhere else. Double sigh. Add in the additional big man presence of Steven Adams and Jarrett Allen, and Hilt seemingly has it all...except a point guard. The rotating cast of Fred VanVleet, Terry Rozier, and Derrick White are unlikely to be the answer here and there are enough pieces here to go shopping for a short or long term solution. (Is this a Markelle Fultz reclamation destination?!)

Overall we’re not sure what to make of Hilt until the Games Played evens out to to something that maximizes their roster. Is this a playoff or Toilet Bowl team? We don’t know!