Brand New: Three Owners!

With the upcoming 2021 season, we’re shepherding (another) three owners into Slam Nation history and bringing in a trio of new blood. And by “blood,” this time we mean actual family members…but more on that later.

First off, we say goodbye to Snack Bears, Team Cameltoe, and Hilt the Stilt. Thank you for your years with us Brandon, Felipe, and Dave. We wish you good luck in your retirement. For posterity’s sake, here are their team records over their years with us.

• Snack Bears: 33-64-1, 0.340. Five seasons, one playoff appearance, one Toilet Bowl finals.
• Team Cameltoe: 20-56-3, 0.263. Four seasons.
• Hilt the Stilt: 10-29, 0.256. Two seasons.

Unfortunately, Cameltoe and Hilt are the holders of the title for worst two regular season records (by individual owner) in Slam history, and were also some of our most inactive management teams, according to our Owner Rankings. But that’s why we’re so excited for our new batch of owners! Let’s welcome Jordan, Matt, and Jack! We’ll go into their bios below but suffice to say, this rookie class is very exciting indeed.

SCRM Screaming Eagles (Jordan)

A total stranger to Slam, I found Jordan through the magic of the Internet — Reddit message board? — and it’s been first love ever since. A Raptors fan with relatively little experience in fantasy basketball — he just started playing last season — Jordan has already proven his chops with savvy dispersal picks and team building abilities. As our first resident Canadian, Jordan is bringing huge enthusiasm into the league and we’re thrilled to have him!

Before an unfortunate physical accident a few years back, Jordan was big into tennis, squash, and cycling competitively, but since then has been working on his recovery while leading a more sedentary lifestyle. And it seems like playing fantasy basketball will be a part of that, hurray!

KSKT Krispy Kreme Team (Matt)

Our first generational fantasy owner — across any league — Matt is Brian’s teenage son. I believe Matt has been co-running Squirtle Squad for a few seasons now and with great power now comes great responsibility: his own franchise. An Eagles and Sixers fan, Matt currently plays both basketball and tennis for his high school. A smooth shooting all-around guard, we’re curious how Matt’s IRL game would stack up to his dad’s — who was ranked number six overall of Slam owners in real basketball, by our scouts from 2011. Until we get that Slam Nation basketball tournament going, we’ll have to wait and see if we can get a son versus father fantasy title showdown instead, as KSKT could soon rule the Russell Conference while SQSQ are the defending Chamberlain Conference champs.

MELO Melo My Mind (Jack)

Our last new owner, Jack is actually a Jonathan, but we’re substituting in a nickname because two Jons is just too difficult to track for record keeping. [Um yeah, that’s the story we’re going with…] Jack is the second family relation to join this offseason, as he is Trieu’s brother-in-law and also living in Phoenix. That means not only do we have the prospect of future Brother, Father/Son Bowls, but also a Brother-in-Law Bowl as well! And heck, MELO could even eventually face off with TRUO Thien in a Russell Conference finals before taking on SOUR Trieu in a finals matchup. Strangely, for a Lakers fan, Jack’s favorite current player is Jayson Tatum…suspicious!

Dispersal Draft Results

It was a straight up #1-3 snake draft for dispersal this season, with the big prize being Anthony Davis. Jordan won first dispersal slot pick (taking over for HSTL), followed by Matt (taking CMTO) and then Jack (taking over SNAC). We’ll look at the individual teams more carefully in our season preview but in a wild thrill, we had our first in-dispersal trade — after five dispersal drafts all-time!

In trade ID#119, SCRM Jordan and MELO Jack exchanged RD2.3 De’Aaron Fox and RD3.1 Jaylen Brown for RD2.1 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and RD6.1, which was eventually used by SCRM to select OG Anunoby.

Overall we had eleven players taken from the leftover rosters of our three exiting teams, while seven were free agent non-keepers.