$52M Draft Evaluations

I am not as good in this format as I am with lower caps. Because of that, I am also not quite as good with evaluations. I will do my best to objectively evaluate your team and make predictions. If you disagree with how I see your team, feel free to prove me wrong during the season! Good luck to all!

Atlantic
mikee1: Dwayne Wade, Tim Duncan, Eric Bledsoe, Buck Williams, Terrell Brandon, Charles Oakley, Paul Millsap

I’m not the biggest Dwayne Wade fan in the Sim, but other owners have certainly had success with him. Duncan is good value where you got him and I love, love, love Eric Bledsoe in the SIM. This is looking to be a wonderful defensive team. Offensively, your bulk numbers look good, but you are going to be really easy to guard. Not only do you not have many threes, but you don’t make the ones you do take. Anyone playing -2 against you is going to give you a hard time. I also don’t love that all your high usage players have mediocre efg%. That defense should keep you in games by itself though!

Prediction: 39 wins

redbooda: LeBron James, Ron Harper, Domantas Sabonis, Xavier McDaniel, Kevin Johnson, Wes Unseld, Jordan Clarkson

Not anything I can say about LeBron that hasn’t been said. Draft him, don’t completely screw up the rest of the draft, and coast to the playoffs. Unfortunately for you, you completely screwed up the rest of the draft. Ron Harper in the 2nd? Xavier McDaniel in the 4th? I will never understand why you consistently take players who won’t be drafted with your early picks. If you want them that badly, just wait. Better yet, don’t want them so badly. Also, LEBRON IS A POINT GUARD!

Prediction: 26 wins

amerk1180: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, Victor Oladipo, Emeka Okafor, Jayson Williams, Buddy Hield

Your draft was pretty good. I’m not a huge Oladipo guy, but he compliments Steve Nash so well. Marion was the perfect small forward for this team. Or he would have been if you had used 06-07 instead of 05-06. 98% at SF isn’t a killer, but it just doesn’t make any sense when he has an equally good season at 100% there. Overall, your offensive numbers look pretty good, although you will be hitting the ast% penalty for 6 minutes every game which will hurt your efficiency. Your defense is middling at best.

Prediction: 35 wins

longtallbrad: Wilt Chamberlain, Chauncey Billups, Klay Thompson, Patrick Ewing, Kenneth Faried, Jeremy Lin, Charlie Edge

Lot to love about this team. Wilt is Wilt. Billups, Klay, and Ewing all provide good usage/efg% combinations. Faried provides much needed rebounding. Ewing only being 98% at PF bothers me a little when paired with Wilt, but he should still be fine. You are a little turnover heavy, but you should score very well anyways and you have very good defense. Your salary/minute is also near the top. You did a great job allocating resources.

Prediction: 51 wins

Midge: Rudy Gobert, Karl-Anthony Towns, John Collins, Otto Porter Jr., Danny Green, Kirk Hinrich, Rudy Gay

This is the first draft I have been in with you where you didn’t wind up with either or both of Kevin Johnson or Jameer Nelson! More than any governor on this site, you constantly take players I love, but take them a round before I would. John Collins is awesome! But he only gives you 22 minutes. In the ODL, that’s fine for a 4th round pick and great for a 5th round pick. In the $52M, it’s a pretty big reach. Same with Otto. Love him, but you could have gotten him or someone like Danny Green in the 5th. Oh wait, you did get Danny Green! Towns and Gobert are a perfect front court tandem and I love your wings, but your point guard rotation is really weak and I’m a little worried about the usage penalty rearing its ugly head once or twice per game. I might worry a bit about the ast% too as some lineups will be getting dangerously close. The bulk offense numbers look great, but there are going to be some penalties that bring it down a bit. Defensively you should mostly be good, but your deep backups may be slightly problematic.

Prediction: 41 wins

gerryred: Shaquille O’Neal, Nikola Vucevic, Bill Walton, Derek Harper, Pascal Siakam, JaMycal Green, Jose Calderon

Shaq/Vucevic/Walton is quite a big man trio! Siakam/Green are the perfect SF combination as well. Harper is fine, Calderon is great, especially with the partial you are using. McCray is a great undrafted find and very underrated. Overall, your stats look fine everywhere. No major weaknesses (except for possibly limited threes). I’m also not sure this team has a ton of major strengths. I’m guessing you will have a slightly above average offense and average defense. That equals a pretty nice team.

Prediction: 47 wins

Divisional Predictions: This is the weakest of the divisions. longtallbrad will stay awake long enough to get the bye. gerryred will make the playoffs. Midge and mikee1 will compete for the playoffs. amerk1180 and redbooda will miss the playoffs.

Central
ysw128: Dennis Rodman, Andre Drummond, Alonzo Mourning, Mike Conley, Oscar Robertson, Andrew Bynum, Cheick Diallo

Rodman/Drummond is such a scary rebounding combo and Zo is the perfect complement to those two. Love the Conley pick. At first I was unsure about the Oscar pick, but he covers a lot of what you need. This is an awesome offensive team, with crazy rebounding, but there are a couple holes. Opponents can guard you -1 all season, and the defense isn’t great aside from your top 2 guys. Good perimeter scorers could really hurt you.

Prediction: 45 wins

sixernuggets: Moses Malone, Donyell Marshall, Ray Allen, Mookie Blaylock, Willis Reed, Rick Barry, Earl Watson.

Moses Malone at 8 is way too early. Donyell in the 2nd? Ray in the 3rd? Rick Barry? There are some things to like about this team and after looking at the squad you put together, I don’t hate it like I thought I would. However, I still don’t like many of the individual pieces.

Prediction: 29 wins

zora4preside: Kevin Garnett, Scottie Pippen, Bill Russell, Mark Price, Gary Payton, Anthony Mason, Grant Hill

Your starting lineup has insane defense and very good rebounding. That’s usually a good recipe for success. However, your bench has terrible defense and rebounding and the offense isn’t any good either. You are going to be playing your starters heavy minutes which is great, but there’s some major flaws, such as efficiency, to those starters to go with their major advantages. When your top 6 guys are all in the game, you should be fine. You won’t be great, but you will survive. Unfortunately, whenever you have to play a single player of your bottom 6, you are going to be in major trouble.

Prediction: 35 wins

Bds9992: Giannis Antetekounmpo, DeAndre Jordan, Joel Embiid, Jerry West, George Hill, Jameer Nelson, Brandon Wright

Step 1: Draft superstar scorer. Step 2: Trade back into the 1st round. Step 3: Draft DeAndre Jordan. Step 4: Win Championship? Where have I seen this formula before? Giannis is awesome, he’s a top 3 per minute player in the SIM, which is why I have him as a top 3 pick in the ODL. In the $52, I have him lower, but you still got him in a good spot. Trading away so many assets and drafting Giannis is certainly not a bad plan, but his limited minutes does mean you have to nail the rest of your roster. I’m not sure you did. I like a lot of what you did (especially loading up on 19-20 seasons), but I’m not sure that bench has quite the punch to replicate what I did last season.

Prediction: 43 wins

tarheel1991: Anthony Davis, Ben Wallace, Julius Erving, Rajon Rondo, Jamaal Tinsley, David West, Robert Covington

Anthony Davis isn’t as good in this format as the ODL, but he’s still a steal where you got him. Big Ben is the perfect compliment. I was also trying to trade up to grab Dr. J, but you beat me to it. He’s a great option next to your top 2. What a start defensively! Then you double down and grab Rondo. Not a bad pick, but doesn’t address what you need. Covington solves some of that, but I had thought Dr. J was going to be your SG. Looking at your roster, I’m not sure why you didn’t use the 54 efg% season for Erving, or the best Wallace season. Regardless, this team is a juggernaut defensively that should have just enough offense to be a contender.

Prediction: 50 wins

benhoidal: John Stockton, Hassan Whiteside, Amare Stoudemire, Montrezl Harrell, Kyle Korver, Andrew Bogut, Michael Porter

I took a risk and punted on usage until the 3rd round. Grabbed the best passer and best D/rebounder. This gave me a lot of flexibility, but also presented some holes. Amare and Harrell are the perfect scorers to complement them offensively, but put me into a small rebounding hole. Overall, rebounds are adequate, but not a huge strength. Defense is average or slightly above when Whiteside is in the game, and very bad when he is out which is almost half the game. I also did a poor job of getting good value per minute. The combination of poor defense and rebounding puts me in a hole that is almost impossible to climb out of. That is, unless I have the best offense in the league by a wide margin, which might actually be true. My seven draft picks all have at least 59 efg% and my team has relatively low turnovers. This team should be awesome at home, but struggle a bit on the road.

Prediction: 44 wins

Divisional Predictions: Four good teams in this division. tarheel1991 should get the bye. Ysw128, benhoidal, and bds9992 will all compete for the playoffs. zora4preside and sixernuggets will miss the playoffs.

Midwest
jcred5: Chris Paul, Jason Kidd, Elton Brand, LARRY SANDERS!, Jonas Valanciunas, Clifford Ray, Chris Andersen

Doubling down at point guard with Kidd after picking Paul is interesting! I’ve done something similar a while ago with mixed results. It’s a great backcourt, but I wonder if its diminishing returns where someone else might have given you something you needed more. I like the Brand pick to pair with them, but now you are in a big guy hole. I think you did a pretty good job with your remaining picks, but I don’t like your deep bench. Overall numbers look very good.

Prediction: 46 wins

pharrop: Kevin Durant, Ben Simmons, Tyson Chandler, Robert Parish, Christian Wood, Norman Powell, Kyle O’Quinn

I don’t really get the Powell pick, but it’s not a big deal and the rest of your picks are awesome! Simmons might have been a little early, but Chandler makes up for it with really good value. This is one of the best offenses in the league and the defense should be good enough.

Prediction: 50 wins

copernicus: Dwight Howard, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, Bob McAdoo, Bobby Jones, Andre Iguodala, Anderson Varejao

You love getting Kyrie in the back end of the second round! It’s a great place for him in the ODL, but I worry a bit that it’s too early for the $52. However, you quickly recuperated that value but trading down with your next pick and getting some good depth with Lowry, McAdoo, and Jones. You probably don’t remember, but our first argument on this site was after I evaled your pick of Bob McAdoo in the ODL. I said you picked him too early (front end of the 2nd round), you disagreed. Looking back, I think it was a fine pick, but regardless he is much better value in the fourth! You use some seasons that I wouldn’t use, but overall the numbers look good enough to compete for the playoffs.

Prediction: 42 wins

hoopsdude: Magic Johnson, Anfernee Hardaway, Nikola Jokic, Larry Nance, Joakim Noah, Jrue Holiday, Boban Marjanovic

Trading out of the first round certainly worked out for you last draft! I don’t remember exactly who was on your team or what your record was, but I do remember you won our division fairly handily. There’s a lot to like with each of your picks here. The question is, how do you fair in the playoffs without a star? Looking at your roster, there’s one pressing question that doesn’t make sense to me. Why didn’t you use the good season of Jrue Holiday??? Tons of assists on this team and you should have a really deep team with good offense and defense, but I think that choice on Jrue’s season will keep you from being a real contender.

Prediction: 45 wins

pennsylvania: Artis Gilmore, Draymond Green, Brent Barry, Jerry Lucas, Greg Oden, Gordon Hayward, Nate Archibald

Nate the Great is back! This team has low defense and lots of turnovers. Fine everywhere else. Overall, not a very good draft, but it’s hard to blame you. I’m sure you were distracted from drafting while storming the capital.

Prediction: 30 wins

samuelyork93: Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Horace Grant, Nate McMillan, Pau Gasol, Patrick Beverley, Jeff Ruland

MJ and Hakeem are a lot of minutes giving you everything but efficient offense. Grant is a great fit, as are McMillan, Gasol, and Beverley. However, you are missing one big thing: Threes! Anyone who goes -3 against you is going to have a very good chance of winning. They are going to have better defense and rebounding than normal against you, and you won’t be able to take advantage. You might survive against governors who aren’t paying attention in the regular season, but if you make the playoffs, any smart governor is going to beat you pretty easily.

Prediction: 35 wins

Divisional Predictions: Decent division, but hardest conference. Pharrop gets the bye. Jcred5, hoopsdude, and copernicus all fight for a playoff spot. samuelyork93 has an outside chance, but is in a very tough conference. pennsylvania will miss the playoffs and have more time to plan his next coup.

Pacific
thomcat: Steph Curry, Dikembe Mutombo, Shawn Kemp, Gerald Wallace, Charlie Ward, J.R. Smith, Chris Gatling

Curry is the best offensive player in the sim, Mutombo gives you 100 defense, Kemp, Wallace, and Ward each give you some of both. I figured Curry would be your SG until you drafted Wallace, but then you drafted Ward so I can assume you are using Wallace at the SF. This mitigates his value some, but he’s still a decent pick. This team has incredibly efficient shooting and decent defense, but there’s way too many turnovers for this squad.

Prediction: 40 wins



jackedjamie: Larry Bird, Clint Capela, Tom Boerwinkle, Maurice Cheeks, Wesley Person, Khris Middleton, Enes Kanter

Looks like six players will be getting the majority of minutes on this team, and while they all fit together pretty well with no major holes I’m still not super excited about those players. Cheeks, Person, and Middleton all have seasons that can play major minutes in a pinch, but none of them excite me. Not a ton of post defense either. I do really like your undrafted players of Moreland, Aldrich, McLauglin, and McGee. Excellent backups there.

Prediction: 40 wins

uptowngbv: James Harden, Paul George, Marcus Camby, Serge Ibaka, Chris Webber, Tyreke Evans, Cedric Ceballos

Harden and George give you a ton of good perimeter usage. It might be a little early for George, but I really like his best season. Camby and Ibaka are perfect fits. Not sure about Webber. You are going to lead the league in threes by a large margin, which should help you against most governors, but against the best ones you are going to have to figure out other ways to score. Defense should be pretty good.

Prediction: 45 games

vancem: Karl Malone, Damian Lillard, Deron Williams, Tree Rollins, Clyde Drexler, Arvydas Sabonis, Clarence Weatherspoon

Surprised you doubled down on PG with the Williams pick. I think you would have been much better with a defense and rebounding SG. Even with Weatherspoon’s great rebounding at SF, you are still one of the worst rebounding teams in the league. I think Jamario Moon should have been on this roster without a doubt. Everything else looks pretty good, but rebounding is a tough hole.

Prediction: 35 wins



dBKC: David Robinson, Kawhi Leonard, Luka Doncic, Bam Adebayo, Andrei Kirilenko, Carlos Boozer, Al Horford

Glossing over the obvious Admiral/Kawhi pairing jokes, the duo is a wonderful start to the draft. Tons of great options to go with in the third round. Luka… is not one of them. You are better than me in this format, so I’m not counting you out, I just am way lower on Luka in the sim than you are. Every other pick is perfect, and your undrafted players do great things and max out your money without any extra minutes. This team is awesome, but if you don’t do quite as well as you want in the playoffs, it’s going to be because of the Luka pick.

Prediction: 49 wins

dh555: Charles Barkley, Kevin McHale, Manu Ginobili, Terry Porter, Walt Frazier, Derrick Favors, Bismack Biyombo

Barkley and McHale are an interesting combination. Barkley covers for McHale’s one weakness, but McHale mitigates Barkley’s rebounding strength. Your two top scorers having 60+ efg% is awesome, but I worry you didn’t add enough rebounding around these two. I like each of your picks a lot individually, but a little worried about that rebounding. Going with the lesser D Favors season was probably a good idea. Your threes are pretty low as well, which might matter in the playoffs.

Prediction: 42 wins

Divisional Predictions: This is probably the toughest division. No clear front runner, but everyone is at least decent. I think dBKC gets the bye. Uptowngbv, dh555, thomcat, and jackedjamie all fight for the bye. Vancem is a dark horse, but I think the division will be too tough for him.

Playoffs

Eastern Conference:

1. longtallbrad
2. tarheel1991
3. gerryred
4. ysw128
5. benhoidal
6. bds9992

Western Conference:

1. pharrop
2. dBKC
3. jcred5
4. uptowngbv
5. hoopsdude
6. dh555

First Round
bds9992 over gerryred in 6
benhoidal over ysw128 in 6
jcred5 over dh555 in 7
uptowngbv over hoopsdude in 7

Second Round
longtallbrad over benhoidal in 7
bds9992 over tarheel in 6
pharrop over uptowngbv in 5
dBKC over uptowngbv in 5

Conference Finals
longtallbrad over bds9992 in 5
pharrop over dBKC in 7

Finals
pharrop over longtallbrad in 7

Again, I’m not great at the $52 million format. I also didn’t spend too much time on these evals. If you disagree with my predictions, feel free to prove me wrong. Good luck!

Yeah, ben, I thought about using the 2700-minute, 54%-efg Erving but I thought I would be too short on defensive rebounds. And I needed a bunch of threes from my other wing, and there just weren't any good SF types that fit what I wanted by the sixth round.

Here was the thought process on the Rondo pick: I knew I was trying to build the defensive juggernaut squad, so I wanted someone with 70+ D. I also needed some with 25%+ assists to hit 60% as a team. So that means slim pickings by the time of my 5th round pick. I was going to take Payton or Robertson, but they both went a few picks before my pick. That left Rondo. (I also considered Walt Frazier, but assists would have been an issue.) And because he doesn't take any threes, I needed a ton of threes at the other wing spot. Covington was the best I could find, with Vince coming off the bench behind him.

Also, re: Wallace: this is my favorite season of his at this cap. As compared to 02-03 (which I assume you're referring to as the best one), it has better efg%, lower turnovers and fouls, and higher blk% and stl%. The only think you lose is dreb% (offset by slightly higher oreb%). I can see an argument that it would have made more sense to go with the higher boards so I could take the 54% efg Erving, though.

I agree with every word of my evaluation, however I think I'm going to be able to keep my top 6 players on the court in 99% (or more) of competitive situations.. 18,922 minutes among them. Thanks for taking the time to do the writeups, ben

LTB's had a few disappointing seasons lately. I'd love to see him win the championship

It may not be the punchiest bench ever, although 09 Jameer and 20 George Hill ain't too shabby, but one thing they won't do is turn the ball over. The only people allowed to turn the ball over are Giannis and Jerry. The rest of them shoot threes or grab offensive boards. I have a good feeling about this squad, though I may be outclassed by tarheel's squad here. And with Giannis/DAJ or Embiid/DAJ, good luck rebounding or scoring in the paint.

copernicus: Dwight Howard, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, Bob McAdoo, Bobby Jones, Andre Iguodala, Anderson Varejao

You love getting Kyrie in the back end of the second round! It’s a great place for him in the ODL, but I worry a bit that it’s too early for the $52. However, you quickly recuperated that value but trading down with your next pick and getting some good depth with Lowry, McAdoo, and Jones. You probably don’t remember, but our first argument on this site was after I evaled your pick of Bob McAdoo in the ODL. I said you picked him too early (front end of the 2nd round), you disagreed. Looking back, I think it was a fine pick, but regardless he is much better value in the fourth! You use some seasons that I wouldn’t use, but overall the numbers look good enough to compete for the playoffs.

Prediction: 42 wins

not sure about the Kyrie thing, I don't remember taking him before, certainly not the last few league iterations but maybe you meant a more generalized 'you'? in that formulation

anyway which seasons? Iggy? I'll grant you he was a punt, is it the season of more usage from Lowry with not much else going for him? or do you think that's not the right Dwight?

honest questions (ps - thanks for the evals)

Thanks for the evals. Always appreciate feedback. Like you I don’t have a good feel for this cap, though you won the title last year. I have not even qualified for playoffs.

Powell, he came up with James Posey and Chris Mullin in my search. The 58% efg was the turning point. I am not as confident of this team compared to you but hope you are correct. Thanks again.

thomcat: Steph Curry, Dikembe Mutombo, Shawn Kemp, Gerald Wallace, Charlie Ward, J.R. Smith, Chris Gatling

Curry is the best offensive player in the sim, Mutombo gives you 100 defense, Kemp, Wallace, and Ward each give you some of both. I figured Curry would be your SG until you drafted Wallace, but then you drafted Ward so I can assume you are using Wallace at the SF. This mitigates his value some, but he’s still a decent pick. This team has incredibly efficient shooting and decent defense, but there’s way too many turnovers for this squad.

Prediction: 40 wins

Yep, I was reluctant to push Wallace to 3. but I was worried about too few assists and was looking for a few more 3s. Thought Motumbo and Kemp would have enough ORB% to offset Wallace's weakness in that department. Still think we have an assist problem and bench D is not that good. TOs are going to kill us and that's happened before with some of my teams.

Very accurate eval of my team ben! I didn't even mean not to draft threes. With my usual draft method the threes just come but it did not this time. I could have had my back up to MJ rain threes but I don't think it would have helped much, do I doubled down. I will say I think your wrong about MJ not bringing efficient offense. His extremely low TO rate plus the 54+ eFG makes him pretty darn efficient if you ask me!

Posted by bds9992 on 1/16/2021 8:32:00 PM (view original):
LTB's had a few disappointing seasons lately. I'd love to see him win the championship

It may not be the punchiest bench ever, although 09 Jameer and 20 George Hill ain't too shabby, but one thing they won't do is turn the ball over. The only people allowed to turn the ball over are Giannis and Jerry. The rest of them shoot threes or grab offensive boards. I have a good feeling about this squad, though I may be outclassed by tarheel's squad here. And with Giannis/DAJ or Embiid/DAJ, good luck rebounding or scoring in the paint.

Ha! Thanks for the love, bds. I've had a run of very disappointing teams in this league, usually built around Wade or Duncan. I finally stunk my way to the first overall pick, so here's hoping I can make a respectable showing with my first Wilt team in this league.