Owner Ratings 2025

Our first executive of the year award is awarded! The formula for owner rating is: Games Played + Moves + Wins. [ 2018 Explainer | 2022 Owner Rating ]

Our five best owners were KSKT, SCRM, SOUR, FJUB, and SQSQ. Their combination of Games Played, Moves, and Wins came out on top. So this year’s Executive of the Year Award goes to KSKT’s Matt! He had the third most GP, the fourth most Moves, and had the fourth best regular season record.

FJUB must be commended here as well, as they were first in both Games Played and Moves, but came up short in Wins. Still, that meant Eric was really doing the most to maximize his roster all season.

As for the bottom five owners, the list was SWMP, ILCN, ABCX, FUNK, and UFOS.

SWMP, ILCN, and especially FUNK all had lower Games Played numbers, as they were eleventh, thirteenth, and fifteenth in that category, respectively. They were also thirteen, fourteen, and fifteenth in moves, which threw them into the “bad” owner category.

Speaking of “moves,” again, I have no idea how they calculate them because for example, FUNK is credited with just one Moves but I clearly added Al Horford and Kevin Huerter post-draft and then Ziaire Williams on Jan 7th. Perhaps it’s just the result of how I calculate the ODE. Regardless, Moves is just a small measure of owner activity.

ABCX was much more active this season, with plenty of pickups throughout the season: Grant Williams, Isaiah Stewart, Andre Drummond, Buddy Hield, Amir Coffey, Jose Alvarado, Mike Conley, Gradey Dick ($9), Ben Simmons ($5). We’re wondering why their lineup didn’t change much near the end of the year though, especially Bobby Portis, who was suspended. We’ll have to send out an investigative team for that.

UFOS has been pretty bad for two years—the first when they were getting used to our Slam system, and the second from just plain inattention—and only made one move all season: adding Julian Champagnie all the way back in November. They'll be exiting SlamNation next season. Thanks for your time Victor! If anyone has leads on new owners, do tell!

Overall, good job everyone and the thing we need to do is look at some metric for overall owner participation. Of course, Games Played is the most important stat here—maximizing your lineup is important—and Moves and Wins are more arbitrary. But is the owner active in trades to make up for it? Is the owner active at all? Is there a GP minimum threshold we should install? We’d like a full sixteen team league of active owners, as that provides the best competitive balance. Any thoughts or ideas on how to advance that, do tell!

UFOS: Somewhere Up in the Sky

It’s been three years since we’ve had new blood and while we hate to lose old owners, it’s always exciting to have someone new drop into the league. And in this case, UFOS aka Uncalled Flopping Objects is sort of old blood as well, since Victor is CHMK Evan’s cousin—that makes for two Evan cousins in SlamNation if you’re counting.

A (basically) California native, Victor hails from Fremont and picked a great time to get into basketball, right around Linsanity and the rise of the Golden State Warriors. This family man works in NASA—thus the space-themed name—and is deemed the “cool cousin” by those in the know. Athletic endeavors include some pickleball, golf, and rock climbing.

While Victor hasn’t had decades of fantasy experience like many of us, he is excited to participate in his first fantasy basketball league—he recently started playing in our sister fantasy football league, Catch the Damn Ball. And Victor’s already started off his Slam tenure with a bang, having a new rule named after him and taking part of two pre-dispersals trades before he’d even gotten all six of his keepers selected. We love it!

With the detritus of the FOBS roster to pick from, Victor moved Jamal Murray away for the package of Nic Claxton, Jabari Smith Jr., and Jordan Poole. All three of those would be keepers. Then a few days later, UFOS traded Keldon Johnson away, in return for basically an extra RD4 in this year’s draft. Already the new-look UFOS was looking better than last year’s iteration. The one-team dispersal yielded FOBS holdovers Damian Lillard and Jarrett Allen, the Claxton-Smith-Poole package, and then dispersal grab Cameron Johnson.

Let’s wish Victor and the Uncalled Flopping Objects good luck in the future!

Owner Ratings 2022

We haven’t looked at owner ratings in awhile so here we go, with our foolproof method for determining the owner of the year via statistics! What could go wrong?! As you’ll recall from previous iterations of this article, the formula for owner rating is: Games Played + Moves + Wins. [ 2018 Explainer | 2019 Owner Rating ] It’s a little arbitrary but it’s also fun and enlightening.

Games Played

It was another year of weird NBA games, even if COVID wasn’t fully affecting the regular season anymore. Still, with COVID scares and injuries galore, there were many SlamNation teams that struggled to fill out their lineups each week.

Having said that, the Games Played average was 23.6 per week, with an average regular season total Games Played of 472 GP. Topping the charts was SBUK with 507 GP, followed closely behind by BUFF, ABCX, KSKT, and SCRM. Good job coaching fellas!

At the other end of the spectrum, six teams fell below the average Games Played total for the season: SPDE, FUNK, SWMP, CHMK, FOBS, and MELO. The last place team here, MELO, was only at 87.5% capacity compared to the league average, and put in only 20.65 GP per week, which indicated both major injuries but also a tank-mentality. Next year we’ll be watching closely to see if MELO can get their Games Played up to a reasonable level, otherwise a new head coach might have be installed!

As for week-by-week lineup violations — defined by weeks where Games Played was twenty or under — every team had at least one this season. In a twenty game regular season, a handful of lineup mistakes isn’t too terrible, and we’ll wash a lot out for injuries, but there were two teams that had egregious “tank attitudes.”

FOBS and MELO both had over double-digit weeks where they had twenty-one or lower Games Played. That means in half of their games this season, FOBS and MELO both failed to not only maximize their lineups, but not even give their team a decent chance to win. Whether this was by design or negligence, we encourage Jimmy and Jack to give their players a chance to win next season. Note: From WK11-WK17, MELO hit twenty-one Games Played only twice, and dipped down to fourteen and sixteen games as well.

As for the team with the least lineup violations? It was SBUK, who had only one, followed by BUFF and SCRM close behind with two apiece. So for 2022, the coach of the year award goes to SBUK’s Josh!

Moves

As usual, TRUO led the way with a ton of roster pickups and drops, to the tune of 46 this season. Moves don’t lead to wins but moves can lead to lineup depth and an indication to the fanbase that the General Manager is at least trying to maximize the fringes of their roster. TRUO, FJUB, and SQSQ all had over thirty-plus moves this season, with CHMK topping the twenty moves mark.

At the tail end of the list for moves was ABCX (7), SCRM (7), FUNK (6), SDPE (5), and MELO (3). Were your teams that good guys that there was nobody on the waiver wire worth getting? Should the GMs for these organizations be on the hot seat?!

Wins

Well the is straightforward. The best owners win. Forget moves, forget Games Played, it’s really all about the wins. For the purposes of calculating our best owner rating, we just go with the regular season power rankings aka wins.

OVERALL

Instead of calculating the best owner by a 1-16 point system, we did 1-4 instead, giving credit to where a franchise’s Games Played, moves, and wins were in relation to each quarter of the league. So if you were in the top four in Games Played, you received four points, in the top eight teams, three points, and so on.

With that adjusted formula in hand, the owner of the year is SQSQ Brian, who led their team to the top record in the regular season while also showing up well in Games Played and moves. Following closely behind SQSQ for owner of the year was FJUB Eric and SBUK Josh.

Congrats everyone! (Except FUNK, FOBS, SPDE, MELO…we better not see you at the bottom again next season!)

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.

Owner Ratings: Final 2019

Remember when we dug into owner ratings at the end of December? Well the formula was Games Played + Moves + Wins. Now we're back to take a look at how the final 2019 owner ratings worked out.

[Google Sheet]

Our top five owners at the turn were Eddie, Thien, Trieu, Brian, Evan. Now that has changed to Eddie, Trieu, Brian, Evan, Jon. Okay so that didn't change all that much, but that's likely explained mostly by how the end-of-season wins column got added in.

Similarly, our bottom five owners remained mostly static, with the exception of Jimmy sliding down as Randall moved up a slot.

Games Played
Securing the top prize for Games Played is Roger, who despite pulling some players in WK20 to secure a seed, edged out Eddie by +1 game (530 to 529) for GP. Congratulations! Of course, Buffy also holds the distinction of being the only non-playoff team of the top five GP owners...

Looking at disparities between GP and wins, we can see who used the least number of games to acquire the most number of wins. Evan's Chunky Monkeys were a sterling +8 here as they had the tenth most GP but tied for second most regular season wins. Jimmy and Randall were right behind Evan at +5 and +4 in this category, respectively.

Roger "led" the way in the other direction, playing the first most GP but grinding out only the eleventh most wins for a -11 calculation here. There was a three way tie after Roger with -4 GP/W ratio, with were achieved by Thien, Frank, and Oliver.

In total we had fifty-two early maxed out weeks this season, thereafter referred to as "mismanagement." Our bottom five Games Played owners -- Josh, Jimmy, Brandon, Dave, Felipe -- accounted for a whopping forty of them, or 76.9%. Felipe led the way with fourteen mismanagement weeks while new owner Dave racked up eleven.

Coaches that didn't have a single mismanagement week: Roger, Frank, Brian, and Eddie. Attendance medals for these four! 🏅

Taking the top/bottom outliers out, the average Games Played per week was 24.9 per week.

Moves
As usual, Thien led the league in Moves, with a whopping 102 -- that's 5.1 a week! -- while Trieu and Brian were a distant second and third with 39 and 34 moves respectively. We saw no moves from both Brandon and Dave. What gives?!

Both Thien and Frank had much higher moves than wins, with Thien ranking a -9 for moves/wins ratio, while Frank was -5 for the same calculation. On the other end of the spectrum, Spade was a whopping +8 as they made only the thirteenth most moves but emerged with a tied for fifth best wins in the regular season. Similarly, Jon was a +5 in the moves/win ratio.

Taking the top/bottom outliers out, the average moves per franchise was 15.5, or about 0.78 moves per week.

Trades
Moving players aren't an indication of a good or bad owner, but trades are fun and the life/rumor blood of any league! We had a sterling twelve trades this season -- including our first actual three-way -- but it was basically a Jon and Trieu show as Jon was involved in eight of those trades and Trieu five. Eddie, Frank, Jimmy, and Thien snuck in two trades apiece though! Where were you Evan, aka our third most often trading owner?!

Owner Ratings

It’s been a year of coming up with ratings for everything, so why not come up with a management rating? It’s going to be: Games Played + Moves + Wins. I think there’s probably something to be said for Moves not necessarily being correlated to Games Played and Wins, but let’s just let it ride. This is all for run anyway right? Let’s take a look at each owner category.

[Google Sheet]

Games Played
Unquestionably the biggest correlation to GP is good coaching, right? After some early season mess ups with games limits, most every owner should now manage their team to maximum value. Take a look at our current Games Played through ten weeks.

Our top five coaches are Roger, Eddie, Trieu, Brian, and Thien, who lead the pack in GP management. However, there is a giant outlier here, as Buffy only has four wins despite being the best coached team. Every other top team in the top nine GP ratings are playing at a 0.500 or above clip. On the flip side, Spade is only thirteenth in GP but has five wins... Still there's little debate that a high GP is essential to winning, right?

Our average Games Played is 24.7 GP through ten weeks, with a high average of 26.1 for Buffy and a low of 21.0 for Cameltoe. Most everyone is within ten GP of the average except Randall, Jimmy, new owner David, and Felipe. Perhaps a review of the Weekly Games Cap Explainer? The bottom three coaches are all on the hot seat, as they’ve racked up a combined sixteen weeks of early GP violations. That’s 53% of the time. Jimmy has largely worked out his GP issues as he’s found his rhythm the past month, but David and Felipe are still hitting the game limit early most weeks.

Moves
I’ve been trying to figure out what ESPN means by “moves,” and it seems like it’s mostly an add/drop action, and possibly a trade. We haven’t had a trade yet all regular season so I can’t quite tell. Either way, I only started compiling stats since October 31st, so missed the first two weeks of the regular season. Since then, these are the top five general managers: Thien (41 moves), Eddie (11), Trieu (11), Brian (8), and Josh (8).

Making a lot of moves generally means lineup activity and wins, which proves to be true, as our top five general managers are a combined 30-17-3, for a 60% winning clip. The two outliers as far as few Moves to Wins correlation are Chunky Monkeys and Fat Jubas, who are currently a combined 18-2 overall, meaning they probably haven’t had to shift players around much as they are the current two best teams in SlamNation.

Every other GM has made at least three pickups since Oct 31st, except for Roger, Randall, Brandon, and David, who each have made none! While their zero Moves is not entirely accurate — each of them has made at least one pickup previous to Oct 31st — it is reflective of a lack of GM activity since the starting weeks of the season. These bottom four teams are a combined 15-24-1, which equates to a 0.375 winning percentage.

Is Moves a better indicator of winning? Looking this over, there could be a case made for the idea that good general managing is more important than coaching! Or wait, is a coach and general working hand-in-hand the best? Looks like both! But seriously guys, Thien has more moves, forty-one, than the bottom twelve teams combined. The rest of us need to work that free agent bin! In related news: who is Rodions Kurucs?!

Wins
Well, we know which teams are winning, but to break it down, our top eight teams have 53 wins combined, while our bottom eight have 25 wins. That means our so-far playoff teams at the midpoint of the regular season have 6.6 wins apiece, while our presumed Toilet Bowl participants are at 3.1 wins each.

Best Owner
So if we combine all three ratings — by ranking each of Games Played, Moves, Wins and then adding up the total — we get the following list of best owners so far this season: Eddie, Thien, Trieu, Brian, and Evan. Our number franchise, Swamp Dragons, features the second-best GP, second-best Moves, and a fourth-best Wins rating. Looks like Eddie is really out to make the playoffs this season!

The bottom five owners: Randall, Brandon, Felipe, Oliver, and David. C’mon guys, fantasy football is over. 2019 is around the corner. Let’s pick it up! Or wait, are people tanking for Zion?!? Remember that our new playoff/draft format is designed to discourage tanking!

Golden Star: Hilt the Stilt

With Matt stepping down from Sager's Suits & Ties, we were looking for a new owner and Brandon's friend and ex-roommate slipped right in! Welcome Dave, who is from the Bay but recently moved to New York. A long suffering Warriors fan now frolicking in the warm waters of "best team ever," Dave strangely passed up all Warriors in the dispersal draft! What would Zach Lowe have to say about that?! So welcome Dave and Hilt the Stilt to SlamNation -- nice historical shout out to the Chamberlain conference name -- and let's get 2019 ready!

Well, before we could really get going, we did a three team dispersal between Hilt the Stilt, last year's lone new team, IL Conceived, and Snack Bears, who didn't have the benefit of a dispersal two years ago. The goal here was to even out all three teams and try to distribute some stars, and give each franchise a step up to be competitive right away.

Due to this year's unique nature, we gave each owner a protected "franchise" player and then drafted five rounds after in 1-2-3, non-snake, fashion. Dave got first pick because Stilt would pick lowest in 2019 RD1, followed by Brandon, and then Frank (runner-up in 2018's Toilet Bowl, and would receive 2019 RD1.2, which was a factor in slotting him last and not snaking the draft).

[2019 Dispersal Order and Results]

Hilt the Stilt
Dave went young all the way through, installing Andre Drummond and Aaron Gordon as the young frontcourt around franchise cornerstone Victor Oladipo -- whose superstar emergence helped lead Sager to very respectable nine wins last season. While there was a bit of early confusion about who was eligible to be dispersed, Dave still indicated that he was happy with his team so we continued on with Steven Adams, Jarrett Allen, and Josh "Not Jason" Richardson being added to the core. That's three centers if you're counting, so it looks like Hilt the Stilt will certainly have a lot of strength in the middle!

Snack Bears
With franchise unicorn Kristaps Porzingis likely out for the year, Brandon decided to also go young, focusing on new second-star Bradley Beal while adding Jaylen Brown, their own 1.4 selection from last year, De'Aaron Fox, and closing with Tim Hardaway Jr. Add in twenty-nine year old Blake Griffin for some frontcourt support while KP is gone, and Snack definitely upgraded despite losing former franchise big man, Drummond, to dispersal.

IL Conceived
After drafting superbly last year to go from zero wins to eight in his rookie season, Frank decided to enter the dispersal to buff up their team even more. Sophomores Donovan Mitchell and Dennis Smith Jr will still anchor the backcourt but Draymond Green and Marc Gasol will now provide valuable veteran leadership up front. Add in the versatile Dario Saric on the wing, plus versatile swingman Will Barton for the last dispersal pick, and IL Conceived went from last place to playoff contender in very quick fashion.

New Owner: Cure for All?

As Jedi Knights walks out the door to pursue additional Force training, welcome Frank into the fold! An old fantasy basketball player from our middle school days, Frank still boasts about calling Hakeem Olajuwon’s dominance in the mid-90s fantasy scene. Of course, since then Frank has been more focused on football — not to mention the many years it took to become a doctor — and hasn’t kept up on all of the NBA’s intricacies. Well, it’s time to put that big brain to use as Frank has a big rebuild job ahead of him!

Without the benefit of a two team dispersal, similar to Snack Bears two years ago, Frank had to rely on the leftovers from Jedi Knights roster and non-keepers. As it turned out, not a single player on Knights was worth keeping around, as the likes of Patty Mills, Monta Ellis, Thaddeus Young, recent high draft picks Emmanuel Mudiay and Kris Dunn were dumped overboard. Oh but wait! Jeff Teague was one of the selected new keepers, and he’ll be the new face of the franchise.

As it turned out, Frank’s six man crew will be Jeff Teague, Jrue Holiday, Tim Hardaway Jr, Willie Cauley-Stein, Aaron Gordon, and Justise Winslow. With the 2017 #3 overall pick on the way, Frank wisely decided to draft (mostly) young and start fresh. Let’s see if our Chinese school / middle school quarterback can take ILConceived to the top! (Note: Frank was not born in Illinois but I guess he just wished he had been -- he's currently in Houston but from San Diego.) Let’s welcome Frank and see what he’s got in store for SlamNation!

The New Guys

As co-commissioner Alvin and C-Lucas walk out the door, we welcome two new owners: Felipe and Matt! Taking over the reins for two successful franchises, our two new newbies are no fantasy amateurs. Felipe has been playing fantasy football over at our Maize and Blue football league for years, and is such a forward thinking owner that he even has a dedicated email for his fantasy empire. He’s a pure professional folks! And Matt, Oliver’s old co-worker and Kevin Garnett fan, has been hearing rumors about SlamNation for years and will finally get his shot at taking the rest of us down after bouncing around the non-SlamNation fantasy gutter for years. Welcome to our little league gentlemen, and good luck to you both!

The dispersal draft went like this, with the first pick getting Anthony Davis, and then three successive follow up picks to the number two slot. So the order for the first six picks was 1-2-2-2-1-1. After that the remaining three rounds went in 2-1-2-1-2-1 fashion. This unorthodox arrangement was made to balance out the fantasy gawd that is The Brow, and if you’ll recall we had to do a similar stacking to offset the LeBron James dispersal draft in for the 2012 season.

Thanks to a quick and easy dispersal draft, our new teams look like this:

• Team Cameltoe (Felipe): Anthony Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Brook Lopez, Elfrid Payton, Mike Conley, Derrick Rose
• Sager’s Suits & Ties (Matt): Draymond Green, Blake Griffin, Victor Oladipo, Bradley Beal, Enes Kanter, Rodney Hood.

And for the first time, not a single non-keeper was selected, as these teams were completely constructed from the remnants of the Pogiboys and Silent Crows franchises. Fascinating!

Farewell, and 你好!

First off, big thanks to Trevor for stepping in during the 2014 season and taking over a 1-17-1 team that had hit rock bottom. Trevor dispersal drafted a team that featured Derrick Rose, Dirk Nowitzki, Kenneth Faried, and Eric Gordon, and took them to 6-12-1 in his rookie season. He followed that up with a series of trades that eventually turned his roster over into Dwight Howard, Derrick Favors, Faried, and Tony Parker, and then improved to 8-11 in his second campaign. Trevor, a fantasy newbie, got some experience with SlamNation and then chose to step down to commish his own league. Good luck Inept Henchmen, may the basketball gods be with you! And let's not forget Inepts' great logo!

And so, here steps in our sixth new owner of the new SlamNation cycle: Brandon! Brandon is my classmate from Taiwan, where we slugged through Mandarin lessons together. Originally from San Diego, Brandon mostly resided in the Bay Area the past couple of years and now we’re here in Taipei together, savoring the cheap drinks from 7-Eleven and playing Hearthstone. This is Brandon's first fantasy league and he’s a big NBA fan so we wish him the best.

With the other eleven teams having declared his keepers, GM Brandon got to use his current roster, plus all the non-keepered players to fill out his core — similar to how we gave Silent Crows (then Eron, Joven, and Chandler) the same thing in 2012. He ended up keeping Howard, Favors, and Faried, while jettisoning Parker, Gordon, and Kyle Korver. That front line will bring in a ton of REB, BLK, and FG%, while leaving an empty backcourt. Who would Brandon choose to fill out his roster?

Bypassing a few big name veterans — such as Dwayne Wade and Joakim Noah — Brandon tabbed Danny Green, Gorgui Dieng, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Green, fresh off a new contract, will be a jack-of-all-trades while tossing in a bunch of 3PT and a sneaky 1.0+ BLK per game. Gorgui Dieng will add strength to strength as the fourth big, and will likely put up close to a double double with 1.5+ BLK. And then there’s the big home run shot with KCP, who is coming off an on-and-off sophomore season but could rise quickly with his shooting prowess.

Overall, “The Brandons” (until they reveal their new name and logo), are lacking a floor general but will have a solid foundation of big men surrounded by some excellent shooting. In a tough Voltron division, this team will look to get competitive while building for the future. Welcome to SlamNation Brandon!

Two New Owners

When two former champs -- including the defending champs -- exit the stage, who do you bring in to replace them? Jose and Eric-A both announced that they were vacating their teams at the end of last season. Panic ensued but after a long and arduous search, one that included an all expenses paid jaunt to Africa to look for prospects -- ala The Air Up There -- our selection committee have turned up two bonafide star owners: Trevor and Randall.

• Trevor is a huge Clippers fan and is also a writer -- the best kinds of people on Earth, obviously. We are excited for his debut on this very blog. Goodness knows somebody else needs to blog here besides me. Maybe everyone should contribute an article once in awhile. Ahem. Either way, Trevor has been eyeing SlamNation for awhile and we're excited to have him. Fun fact: Trevor apparently reads and writes Anglo-Saxon. I have no idea what this means, but it sure is fascinating! 
• Randall is a sixteen year fantasy basketball veteran, the rare Utah Jazz fan and has played in multiple fantasy leagues with Josh -- and I believe a football league or two with me. He's from New Jersey, religiously follows Linsanity, and wants to up the league ante to more cash, which seems like a declaration of "I'm gonna win this whole thing in my rookie year" to me. We should all be immediately afraid.

Dispersal Draft Rules & Results
Trevor and Randall did a quickie dispersal draft, this time a simple six round snake draft -- unlike two years ago when LeBron James was an obvious prize and we had to move things around picks wise to accommodate. Randall wanted to go #1 and so Trevor kindly took the #2 position. See below.

A quick team preview of the new keepers:

Spade (Randall)
Representing for the defending champs is no small feat, especially being thrown into Thundercats, aka the division of death, that featured all four teams winning at least eight games last season, but it looks like Spade will be just fine. In fact, they could be the pre-season frontrunners out of the gate. With a frontcourt featuring Kevin Love and real life teammates Al Horford and Paul Millsap, this team will be rock steady in PTS, REB, and even STL for a big man trio.

Love doesn't block many shots but mini-Wade Eric Bledsoe gets almost a block per game, which is an interesting team dynamic as the point guard out blocks the power forward, while the power forward has more three point range. We love Bledsoe and Kawhi Leonard in the starting backcourt, as both bring tons of STL and useful stats across the board, even if they are not huge scorers. PTS will be sixth man Kobe Bryant's job. We weren't sure where Kobe would be dispersal drafted but he's going to be pissed that he slid down to the fifth round. Even if Kobe misses a few weeks/months, his incredible scoring and all around numbers are going to be the perfect icing for a keeper core that has a great mix across all fantasy categories.

Interestingly, half of this team's core were Heffalumps' main holdovers -- Kobe, Horford, and Kawhi. Spade will basically keep that main core of the old Heffalumps, minus Faried, and add Love, Millsap, and Bledsoe. We're intrigued by what Randall's team can do on the (fantasy) court, and quite frankly, frightened more than a little.

Inept Henchmen (Trevor)
Trevor's team has slid right into the former Human Amoebas' high risk, high reward strategy. The Amoebas were buried by injuries the past two seasons but were always super talented on paper. Five of the top six dispersal draft picks were from Amoebas, and six ex-Amoebas were drafted versus just four ex-Heffalumps.

If all things go right injury wise, Derrick Rose and Eric Gordon are a perfect backcourt pairing. (Sidenote: We were mildly surprised to see Clippers' fan Trevor pass up Eric Bledsoe.) The two of them bring everything to the table you want from the PG/SG positions. A rejuvenated Dirk Nowitzki has lost his center eligibility from a few years ago but he's going to bring lots of small ball power forward stats. Whatever Dirk lacks in REB/BLK, Kenneth Faried will bring as an active double-double who basically just runs the floor to dunk and to pile up nice STL/BLK numbers. In theory, Gerald Wallace would fit that mold too but we saw how far Crash fell last year. Even with plenty of playing time in Boston, we're not sure if he was a better pick than say, last dispersal pick Kawhi Leonard. Still, why nitpick? For my Celtics' sake, I hope Wallace gets forty minutes a game and he accrues 12 REB, 2 STL/BLK for Trevor and Boston doesn't win a game all season!

With a big hole at center, Trevor reached into the free agent ranks to grab injury prone Andrew Bogut, who has played 109 combined games over his past three seasons. When he's on the court though, Bogut's a defensive force. All in all, Inept Henchmen has a nice blend of pieces but most of the team's success will come down to injuries. If Rose, Gordon, and Bogut can stay on the court, this team can challenge for a post-season berth and the Voltron division title.

Another new owner!

After adding two new owners last year, we have another one this year. We bid farewell to the creaky 2005 NBA All-Star Team, which was built for a short championship run, and then deemed too old once the chips got down. Way to ditch you team Steve! Over three seasons, 2005 NBA All-Star Team compiled a 27-22 record and won the Transformers division back in 2010. It will be a real loss to lose Steve, who was the consensus #1 pick for the mock draft of the owners, but we feel confident our new owner can step up to the plate.

Introducing Chris*, who is actually an old SlamNation owner from years ago. He's back after a bit of a hiatus and is now tuning in from Korea. Which is a nice tidbit since 2005 NBA All-Star Team used to be called Korea! Korea! during their first season. After just a few days on the job, Chris has already upended his roster to dramatic results.

*I have no idea how I'm going to differentiate between the two Chris', both are "Chris L's" and I can't use last names. Should we just go with last names as first names? Yes, it'll be Lum and Lucas from now on, unless they want me to article them under a different name.

Three years ago, Korea! Korea! took Dwight Howard, Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Jason Richardson, Antawn Jamison, and Manu Ginobili during our inaugural draft. Since then, their best move was to trade for Ricky Rubio during before the 2012 draft.

While Steve showed a predilection for veterans, it's clear Chris has a different agenda. Left with the carcass of a roster, Chris set about rebuilding by moving Dwight Howard for Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, and Kenneth Faried. Declining to keep Faried, Chris then tapped Derrick Favors, Rubio, Ginobili, and free agent non-keeper Jeff Teague to form the core of his new squad.

Then, during the 2013 draft, Chris took Glen Davis, Antawn Jamison, Thomas Robinson, C.J. Watson and Gerald Henderson. A 2013 RD2 pick was pre-ordained for another team too, as that was the pick exchanged for Rubio. With everyone on board, we can imagine where this team is headed for the upcoming season.

Jeff Teague will run point to start and he'll have savvy veteran Ginobili beside him. Teague is an up and comer and will be the only source of AST on this team until Rubio returns. C.J. Watson will be pressed into duty as the third guard, a role that's perhaps overeaching for him but he'll likely add a three and a steal each game. Carmelo Anthony and Blake Griffin will form the highest scoring forward tandem in the league, and that will give Chris' team a chance to be highly competitive in FG% and PTS. Manning the middle will be undersized Glen Davis, who can't protect the rim but could provide some scoring and a touch of rebounding.

Filling out the frontline will be three power forwards. Derrick Favors could be a future star but he'll need more minutes to break out. Rookie Thomas Robinson is a shoot first project that will also have a crowded real life logjam in front of him. Old boy Antawn Jamison is back for another spin, and he could be a nice scoring boost but his best fantasy days are clearly over. With the exception of Favors, there's not a lot of BLK on this roster, so this team will likely be offensive first and defense second, which will make for great highlights.

In general, we're looking at a team that has quite a few holes, especially with Rubio injured, but this is a roster that is rebuilding and already looking infinitely better than where it was left at the end of last season. So everyone, please (re-)welcome Chris and his new franchise: Eron, Joven and Chandler! "The prized Ebony Rhino was stolen from Eron by Chandler and Joven, and had yet to be retrieved the last time Ulgrotha was seen."

New Ownership

There comes a day when some men decide to leave their fantasy team behind. After two years of ownership, Mikey and Pierre decided to take a bow, leaving behind such players as Lebron James, Pau Gasol, and Andre Iguodala to become fantasy orphans. Luckily we scoured far and wide to find two great owners:

• Eddie (NJ All-Stars) is Evan's cousin and a somewhat recent college graduate. That means he has his whole future ahead of him.  Not that I'm jealous or anything. Hailing from New Jersey, he's probably super sad the Nets are leaving for Brooklyn. Then again, what are the chances he's a Nets fan? Is anyone a Nets fan? Mikhail Prokhorov?
• Josh (So Buckets) played fantasy football with me this past season, and he's been playing fantasy for decades from what I can see.  His favorite NFL team is the Detroit Lions even though he's from Connecticut. Clearly he's a glutton for punishment like the rest of you Michiganders, so he should fit right in.

Dispersal Draft Rules & Results
During the past few days Eddie and Josh took part in a dispersal which resulted in the following two teams made up of Mikey and Pierre's old squads and any free agent non-keepers they wanted -- excluding rookies. Due to the power of Lebron James, we heavily weighted the non-LBJ team to have more depth to make up for not having a Grade A franchise player on the roster.

Now all sixteen teams are ready to go and we can the real draft started! Get'er done.