Much appreciated.

the missing 4 owners have been sitemailed

ill hopefully be setting up the divisions either sunday night or sometime on monday

Starting to forget some of the draft at this point, 8 days and counting definitely takes away some of the excitement of the savage...

Sorry, I have been underwater between prepping for a huge race and traveling for a week for a conference. I will get them in by the end of this weekend.

Posted by jcred5 on 7/15/2022 10:12:00 AM (view original):
Starting to forget some of the draft at this point, 8 days and counting definitely takes away some of the excitement of the savage...

eh..some of us arent in a rush to get to our 14th place finish haha

i can understand your impatience tho....squads looking tough

Posted by dh555 on 7/15/2022 6:45:00 PM (view original):

Posted by jcred5 on 7/15/2022 10:12:00 AM (view original):
Starting to forget some of the draft at this point, 8 days and counting definitely takes away some of the excitement of the savage...

eh..some of us arent in a rush to get to our 14th place finish haha

i can understand your impatience tho....squads looking tough

I might be right there with you. I'm just anxious to find out

Apologies for the delay. I ... have a problem when it comes to this thing. I always think I can do better and so end up making an absurd number of builds, so many that I get option paralysis when trying to choose and then psyche myself out, so I start making more, continuing the cycle.

Waaaaaay late to the party, but wanted to share my draft thoughts on my team...

1. Larry Bird - Boooooo. I already drafted at 14 before and I've already used some of the top targets at that spot(Maliman/Harden/Bird). Happy to make the trade with dbkc to 21 and am now targeting AD, Kawhi, Timmy, or DeAndre. Larry falls to 21 and now I don't know what to do. I get cold feet on Duncan(mediocre efg% - stupid btw, Bird isn't that much better) and end up choosing Bird over DeAndre after convincing myself it'll be much easier finding low usg reb/def than high usg scoring later in the draft. So much regret. One of the things I love about Savage is exploring and using the different seasons of players I would only use 1 or 2 seasons from. My initial plan with Savage was to use 24 different 1st round picks before I repeated one. I didn't even make it through 8 before a repeat. Pathetic. Don't get me wrong, I love Larry Legend and have him ranked in a higher tier then the other options available, but Timmy and DeAndre were perfectly fine options to start with.

2. Dennis Rodman - You can't win Savage after your first two picks, but you can definitely lose it. My chances of Savage glory ended right after this ****** pick. To be clear, I thought(and still think) that Rodman was the best player available with my 2nd round pick. BUT, that's only if you use him at SF! I already have Bird locked in at SF. WTF was I thinking!?! I initially explained it as liking the fact that his oreb% and defense at the 3/4 meshes well with Larry. That might be somewhat true but it's an awful reason to justify taking Rodman here. Bird's defense isn't even bad! But I'm most mad at myself for not realizing the huge problem that was gonna create for me at center. Rodman doesn't provide any paint scoring and he can't cover centers on defense without taking a huge chunk out of his defense. So now I need to find a center with good defense that also provides good paint scoring with some usage. It's basically Ewing or Zo and now I gotta sweat about rebounds and towels. Looking back, I might have been better off going with Ewing in the 3rd and targeting someone like Moncrief or Alvin at SG.

3. Paul George - While I probably should have been considering Zo or Ewing here, I was laser focused on a guard. Soooo many good options. I figured I would be picking between Frazier/Lillard/Nash/PG13/Jrue/Kyrie/Manu/Billups. I got pretty excited when Payton started to fall and had a full on WIS boner when Klay was 1 pick away. I think he's an exceptional pick in the late 2nd/early 3rd if you have the right guys to cover the lack of ast/reb. jp sniped him and I went on tilt. The reasons in my head for the PG13 pick(mainly the 3pt/def/dreb combo) made sense but I regretted it almost instantly. I used to love Nash but I've become so rigid in my thinking of getting defense early that I won't even take him in the 3rd now? Awful. Kyrie is a better scoring guard than PG13 but I won't take him because of said defense concerns and lower mins(PG13 has two low min seasons idiot!!!)? And let's not forget, I used him just last season. So boring. Rodman was bad...this one might be worse.

4. Mookie Blaylock - Oh hey, look it's another player I've already used before. Now I'm a Mookie stan and think he's highly underrated in Savage. Awesome defense, plenty of 3s, pretty clean, boards decently for a PG. It's a great spot to get him. But this is now a lot of bricks I'm throwing up from my backcourt and I have no paint scoring at all to balance it out and my SF doesn't hit the orebs that hard. Love the player but he may not have been the best pick for team. The right pick was Willis Reed. He's got two heavy min seasons with good boards and defense that would have got me off to nice start in fixing the center problem. He was my top target for round 5 but I never even gave him a thought in 4 after Mookie "fell" to me.

5. Emeka Okafor - This is where it really hit me that I hated my team. There would be no fixing the center spot. I'm screwed. I desperately need some paint scoring but I also really want some oreb and def to go along with it. McAdoo and Lanier stand out with their one really good seasons. But they also don't score as much in the paint as I thought and don't really have the oreb I wanted. Not to mention their other seasons are pretty underwhelming and I probably don't need that much usage to add to Bird/PG13. So when I go to the player search page and put in C eff 99+, usg 18-22, paint% 50+, oreb 10+, efg 50+ and def (sigh) 50+. Okafor pops up a few times and he's the pick. When does Savage 9 start?

6. Deron Williams - Another thing I love about Savage is the fact that unlike every other league I've played in(besides BOWIS), I can feel completely satisfied despite not finishing 1st. The competition is so tough and the draft/season is such a grind that I take great pride in finishing in the top 10. I'm still battling to the the very end to see how high I can climb up final standings. There's also great pride for me in winning a Savage World title even if it doesn't move you much in the final standings. Deron falling to the late 6th put a huge jolt back into me and I was excited again about this team to see if I could sneak them into the top 10. He was a perfect pick for me. His two best seasons will start in place of Mookie's two worst seasons and he's a much better 3rd scoring option than Mookie on teams where Bird/PG13 need some help(like 82-83 Bird). This was a huge break for me.

7. Khris Middleton - After the Okafor pick, my two main targets at center were Bynum and Ayton. Bynum went before the Deron pick so I was all set to take Ayton here. Then I started to do some second guessing. That can backfire sometimes but this time it worked out beautifully. With two low min seasons from PG13 and a lower usg 82-83 Bird, I felt high usg backups behind PG13/Bird would be important. Middleton has everything I was looking for except the defense and that gets covered up nicely with the rest of my team. I decided I liked the backup options to Ayton better than the backup options to Middleton and pulled the trigger.

8. Deandre Ayton - Look who's sitting there for me in the late 8th. Fuuuuuck yea. Defense sucks(of course, it's the 8th) but hes got amazing paint scoring with the perfect amount of usage I was looking for and he's got very good oreb as well. Things are starting to look up.

9. Samuel Dalembert - Sammy and Clifford Ray were my top targets for a Rodman backup since I made a list of them back around the 5th round. Didn't think I'd get either of them. Sammy's best 09-10 season will pair nicely with 95-96 Rodman.

10. Mel Daniels - Mel was a target since the Okafor pick. I knew I could probably get him late but wanted to take him on the 8/9 turn to make sure. There was no way I was passing on Ayton or Sammy D though so I was thrilled to still see him there with this pick. He's one of those guys who could go undrafted or he could be a jethro pick in the 6th. You just don't know with Mel. His two usable seasons fit nicely on the teams where I needed an extra boost on the boards from the center spot. I had forgotten just how good his 70-71 season is since it's not really good enough for a single season draft league anymore. But in Savage, in the the later rounds for a team desperate for center mins, it's a great pick. Starting to feel a little optimistic now about breaking into the top 10.

11. Cedric Ceballos - Now I kinda regret the Mel pick. Not Mel himself, but taking him in the 10th instead of the 11th. I probably still get him here and I would have been able to take Blake Griffin before ben grabbed him. I really liked Griffin as a Bird backup. Love me some Cedric tho. He's got 55% and 57% efg seasons that will fit in nicely with Middleton as backups to PG13/Bird.

12. Danny Granger - Not sure how I feel about this one. I picked him to use his 08-09 season to pair with 19-20 PG13 so it would free up the awesome 19-20 Middleton to backup 20-21 PG13 on my best team. I stuck with that plan but have usable Middleton and Ceballos seasons on that team as well. It might have been a better use of the pick to find someone else to add to the Center rotation.


After a ****** start I thought I rounded out the team very well. Caught some great breaks along the way. This team has no shot of winning Savage but I wouldn't be shocked to see it sneak into the top 10 with some division luck. Most likely I'll be in that 12-16 range though. I stacked one team and kind of spread out the better seasons for the other 4 based on team needs. When I sim tested(does it work? who knows but I still love doing it) the teams, my best team performed poorly while the other 4 did okay. Not good. On the plus side, expect Savage 9 to start a lot sooner than 8 did haha.

Got em in, sorry for the delay.

Posted by dh555 on 7/17/2022 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Waaaaaay late to the party, but wanted to share my draft thoughts on my team...

1. Larry Bird - Boooooo. I already drafted at 14 before and I've already used some of the top targets at that spot(Maliman/Harden/Bird). Happy to make the trade with dbkc to 21 and am now targeting AD, Kawhi, Timmy, or DeAndre. Larry falls to 21 and now I don't know what to do. I get cold feet on Duncan(mediocre efg% - stupid btw, Bird isn't that much better) and end up choosing Bird over DeAndre after convincing myself it'll be much easier finding low usg reb/def than high usg scoring later in the draft. So much regret. One of the things I love about Savage is exploring and using the different seasons of players I would only use 1 or 2 seasons from. My initial plan with Savage was to use 24 different 1st round picks before I repeated one. I didn't even make it through 8 before a repeat. Pathetic. Don't get me wrong, I love Larry Legend and have him ranked in a higher tier then the other options available, but Timmy and DeAndre were perfectly fine options to start with.

2. Dennis Rodman - You can't win Savage after your first two picks, but you can definitely lose it. My chances of Savage glory ended right after this ****** pick. To be clear, I thought(and still think) that Rodman was the best player available with my 2nd round pick. BUT, that's only if you use him at SF! I already have Bird locked in at SF. WTF was I thinking!?! I initially explained it as liking the fact that his oreb% and defense at the 3/4 meshes well with Larry. That might be somewhat true but it's an awful reason to justify taking Rodman here. Bird's defense isn't even bad! But I'm most mad at myself for not realizing the huge problem that was gonna create for me at center. Rodman doesn't provide any paint scoring and he can't cover centers on defense without taking a huge chunk out of his defense. So now I need to find a center with good defense that also provides good paint scoring with some usage. It's basically Ewing or Zo and now I gotta sweat about rebounds and towels. Looking back, I might have been better off going with Ewing in the 3rd and targeting someone like Moncrief or Alvin at SG.

3. Paul George - While I probably should have been considering Zo or Ewing here, I was laser focused on a guard. Soooo many good options. I figured I would be picking between Frazier/Lillard/Nash/PG13/Jrue/Kyrie/Manu/Billups. I got pretty excited when Payton started to fall and had a full on WIS boner when Klay was 1 pick away. I think he's an exceptional pick in the late 2nd/early 3rd if you have the right guys to cover the lack of ast/reb. jp sniped him and I went on tilt. The reasons in my head for the PG13 pick(mainly the 3pt/def/dreb combo) made sense but I regretted it almost instantly. I used to love Nash but I've become so rigid in my thinking of getting defense early that I won't even take him in the 3rd now? Awful. Kyrie is a better scoring guard than PG13 but I won't take him because of said defense concerns and lower mins(PG13 has two low min seasons idiot!!!)? And let's not forget, I used him just last season. So boring. Rodman was bad...this one might be worse.

4. Mookie Blaylock - Oh hey, look it's another player I've already used before. Now I'm a Mookie stan and think he's highly underrated in Savage. Awesome defense, plenty of 3s, pretty clean, boards decently for a PG. It's a great spot to get him. But this is now a lot of bricks I'm throwing up from my backcourt and I have no paint scoring at all to balance it out and my SF doesn't hit the orebs that hard. Love the player but he may not have been the best pick for team. The right pick was Willis Reed. He's got two heavy min seasons with good boards and defense that would have got me off to nice start in fixing the center problem. He was my top target for round 5 but I never even gave him a thought in 4 after Mookie "fell" to me.

5. Emeka Okafor - This is where it really hit me that I hated my team. There would be no fixing the center spot. I'm screwed. I desperately need some paint scoring but I also really want some oreb and def to go along with it. McAdoo and Lanier stand out with their one really good seasons. But they also don't score as much in the paint as I thought and don't really have the oreb I wanted. Not to mention their other seasons are pretty underwhelming and I probably don't need that much usage to add to Bird/PG13. So when I go to the player search page and put in C eff 99+, usg 18-22, paint% 50+, oreb 10+, efg 50+ and def (sigh) 50+. Okafor pops up a few times and he's the pick. When does Savage 9 start?

6. Deron Williams - Another thing I love about Savage is the fact that unlike every other league I've played in(besides BOWIS), I can feel completely satisfied despite not finishing 1st. The competition is so tough and the draft/season is such a grind that I take great pride in finishing in the top 10. I'm still battling to the the very end to see how high I can climb up final standings. There's also great pride for me in winning a Savage World title even if it doesn't move you much in the final standings. Deron falling to the late 6th put a huge jolt back into me and I was excited again about this team to see if I could sneak them into the top 10. He was a perfect pick for me. His two best seasons will start in place of Mookie's two worst seasons and he's a much better 3rd scoring option than Mookie on teams where Bird/PG13 need some help(like 82-83 Bird). This was a huge break for me.

7. Khris Middleton - After the Okafor pick, my two main targets at center were Bynum and Ayton. Bynum went before the Deron pick so I was all set to take Ayton here. Then I started to do some second guessing. That can backfire sometimes but this time it worked out beautifully. With two low min seasons from PG13 and a lower usg 82-83 Bird, I felt high usg backups behind PG13/Bird would be important. Middleton has everything I was looking for except the defense and that gets covered up nicely with the rest of my team. I decided I liked the backup options to Ayton better than the backup options to Middleton and pulled the trigger.

8. Deandre Ayton - Look who's sitting there for me in the late 8th. Fuuuuuck yea. Defense sucks(of course, it's the 8th) but hes got amazing paint scoring with the perfect amount of usage I was looking for and he's got very good oreb as well. Things are starting to look up.

9. Samuel Dalembert - Sammy and Clifford Ray were my top targets for a Rodman backup since I made a list of them back around the 5th round. Didn't think I'd get either of them. Sammy's best 09-10 season will pair nicely with 95-96 Rodman.

10. Mel Daniels - Mel was a target since the Okafor pick. I knew I could probably get him late but wanted to take him on the 8/9 turn to make sure. There was no way I was passing on Ayton or Sammy D though so I was thrilled to still see him there with this pick. He's one of those guys who could go undrafted or he could be a jethro pick in the 6th. You just don't know with Mel. His two usable seasons fit nicely on the teams where I needed an extra boost on the boards from the center spot. I had forgotten just how good his 70-71 season is since it's not really good enough for a single season draft league anymore. But in Savage, in the the later rounds for a team desperate for center mins, it's a great pick. Starting to feel a little optimistic now about breaking into the top 10.

11. Cedric Ceballos - Now I kinda regret the Mel pick. Not Mel himself, but taking him in the 10th instead of the 11th. I probably still get him here and I would have been able to take Blake Griffin before ben grabbed him. I really liked Griffin as a Bird backup. Love me some Cedric tho. He's got 55% and 57% efg seasons that will fit in nicely with Middleton as backups to PG13/Bird.

12. Danny Granger - Not sure how I feel about this one. I picked him to use his 08-09 season to pair with 19-20 PG13 so it would free up the awesome 19-20 Middleton to backup 20-21 PG13 on my best team. I stuck with that plan but have usable Middleton and Ceballos seasons on that team as well. It might have been a better use of the pick to find someone else to add to the Center rotation.


After a ****** start I thought I rounded out the team very well. Caught some great breaks along the way. This team has no shot of winning Savage but I wouldn't be shocked to see it sneak into the top 10 with some division luck. Most likely I'll be in that 12-16 range though. I stacked one team and kind of spread out the better seasons for the other 4 based on team needs. When I sim tested(does it work? who knows but I still love doing it) the teams, my best team performed poorly while the other 4 did okay. Not good. On the plus side, expect Savage 9 to start a lot sooner than 8 did haha.

This was an awesome read I really respect you as a coach, so when you are up I find myself analyzing what to do, as if I was up. This plays out a lot of thoughts I had when your picks came up tbh.

Now that the teams are in, I guess I'll follow suit and explain my rationale. Some of it's going to be VERY boring, and the rest of it is just going to be somewhat boring. Okay, here we go:

1. James Harden - I really wanted to trade into the top 12, as I didn't think he'd make it past that. Honestly, I have him in my top 10. There are many other players with more value overall, but the combination of things he brings with the value he has at the position he plays literally cannot be found anywhere else. The only player that comes close is Steph, and well, Steph is going to be top 5 every season (with good reason - the things he's better at than Harden he's much better at... like, it's not even a comparison). Yeah, I've used Harden before, but unlike DH, I couldn't give less ***** about repeating a player I've used before. Until I actually win this thing, it's all a control experiment. If that ever happens, maybe I could try for variety, but yeah. So anyway, sitting at 16, and I'm two picks away, with both Harden and Rudy Gobert there, and seeing as they were the top two on my list, I was super stoked that I'd get one of them. JH didn't take Rudy, so now I had to face a decision. Gobert rates higher with my metric than Harden, but the thing my metrics really don't do justice are threes, so Harden it was.

Verdict:

I'll fuckin' do it again

2. Tyson Chandler - I really wanted to give Ben Wallace another shot here. I mean, it came down to Kinoa winning a game 7 on the last day to have him eke past me the last time I had Harden, so with what I've learned since then combined with Wallace now having 5x 100 defense seasons, it just made the most sense. He went, along with Russell, Gobert, Jordan - all the guys I really wanted here. I don't particularly love Tyson's inconsistency of seasons (like - he has six really nice ones, but they are just all over the ******* place), but he was by far the best player available with the metric I was looking at. Despite that, there were five other guys I wanted to take here including Whiteside & KAT. I'm not crazy about Whiteside's lack of minutes, and KAT's lack of defense when I hadn't already gotten someone to cover for that, everything just pointed to Tyson despite me wanting to go elsewhere.

Verdict:



3. Shawn Marion - Easily the top player on the board by multiple metrics, yet I still was leaning heavily toward Ewing or Mourning for the usage + nice efg + nice defense. Boards were the thing that bothered me about both of those guys, though, since Marion gave me as many or more while playing the smaller position, and in several seasons gave me some decent threes... easy trigger pull here in what might be the biggest case of thievery in this draft.

Verdict:


4. Penny Hardaway - As mentioned earlier, I had many options and agonized over this for far too long. Ultimately, it came down to this: I regretted passing on him in a previous savage, and at this point, I decided my plan was to pick him up to start 2-3 seasons and try and grab MIkal Bridges before anybody suspected, as at this point Mikal was the top guard on my board when looking at 3-year peaks of lower usage guys. I still almost took MIkal here, but didn't. After messing around with as many builds as I did, I actually don't like this Penny pick at all. I think he has one elite season, one good season, and then a few seasons that are only halfway decent as backup seasons. All in all, I don't think he's worth a top 100 pick and should probably go around the end of round 5 / beginning of round 6.

Verdict:



5. Wes Unseld - I was all geared up to take Derrick Favors, but he went just before me. I almost took MIkal here and rolled the dice on Unseld making it back to me, and with his adp (especially recent adp), it looked like he would. However, as I learned the past two Savages I played in and in this Savage, dontburnearl seems to pick the guy I desperately want, as he has done with Jerry Lucas at least twice and another guy later in this very draft. By the five-year metrics, I had Unseld as easily the best player available (weird, huh?) when adjusting for usage, and he was desperately everything my team needed (with the exception of his **** defense). I pulled the trigger and have zero regrets - dude is going to play around 16k minutes for me. I was also looking really hard at Mitchell Robinson & Robert Williams, as they had better value per minute but over fewer seasons with waythefuck less minutes.

Verdict:


6. MIkal Bridges - It was time to pull the trigger here. His best two seasons are absurdly good value per minute, and his third is still really solid, yet after doing the amount of team builds I did, I wouldn't pick him again this early. His limited usage & assist at the guard spot felt incredibly restrictive when putting it all together. Still, he will give me exactly what I drafted him for, so there's that. Still, I almost passed him here and grabbed either Andrew Bynum, Bob McAdoo, or Bob Lanier, but since all three of them still existed + several other bigs I was happy with (see next pick), I went this way, much to future Ash's chagrin.

Verdict:

7. Dale Davis - So both Bobs went, but Davis was someone I was considering when I took Unseld, so it was kind of a no-brainer. At this point, he's starting on one squad and fills in beautifully behind Tyson Chandler on the other four. That would go down to three by the end of the draft, but still, this dude gives great value per minute, and getting him round seven felt really nice. I was starting to get scared about usage at this point, though, so I knew the next two picks had to give me solid usage behind Harden.

Verdict:


8. Terrell Brandon - By this point, I had a good idea how my players were falling together, and i knew that if I wanted to have even a chance at respectable assists on the two Mikal teams, I needed someone with a decent amount to back up the two big Harden assist seasons (which naturally paired with Mikal). I've always loved that one season - maybe the best tov% for a point guard in the entire season combined with decent defense, assists, and respectable 50.7% efg? - and he had several others that could fit here or there to fill a hole. I considered starting that aforementioned season, but I really needed it behind the 2500 minute Harden season, and I filled that hole later anyway.

Verdict:


9. Alex English - Other than progs, I have never used this guy before. I picked him because at this point, what I was lacking was usage & defense, specifically on 2 squads. I wrestled between him, Gervin, and Tobias here for longer than I care to admit. I went with English because a) he had the higher per-minute value & b) he had more assists - something I was glad I took. I like the one Tobias season more than any English season, and honesty, I liked 4 of Gervin's seasons to English's 3, but English just fit my team needs better while having the superior value per minute... it was really a no-brainer, even though I really can't stand using such a mid-focused scoring option, even if it's just for like 4500 minutes spread over three teams.

Verdict:


10. Hot Rod Williams - I hadn't picked a backup for Marion yet, and though there were guys available with slightly higher value per minute, none of them gave me the tier 4 usage Hot Rod did. He's not playing many minutes for me, but he 100% fit on every team and made every team better. I wanted to wait till round 11 and pick either Mel Daniels or Walt Bellamy here to maybe replace an Unseld season here or there / sure up depth, but when I looked at the last couple of Savages, people seemed to be picking up on Hot Rod, so I went ahead with it. I don't think the guy is honestly better than a 10th round pick, but he's an absofuckinglutely beautiful late 10th round pick for what he gives.

Verdict:


11. Fat Lever - Well, there went Mel Daniels, so that plan is gone. The more I looked at things, the more I thought that I could just wait and sure up those big minutes in round 12 with a player who had one or two decent seasons (and boy was I right, there were like seven dudes available to me in round 12 I could have went with but yeah), and Fat just gives so much value, albeit at a sacrifice of efg%. His elite season is starting one season for me, and another one that is close is playing major rotation minutes. Two more versions can come in if I need to switch things up to get more boards (when can't you use more boards?), but man, I was just super glad to welcome him back to the fold.

Verdict:


12. Gheorghe Muresan - I wanted Bellamy here (remember what I said about dontburnearl? I swear that guy is looking at the same **** I am) but he was long gone. There were several dudes that worked here, but that one season of Gheorghe just gave me so much of what I needed, and so yeah.

Verdict:



Conclusion: I'm winning this whole damn thing.

Posted by dh555 on 7/17/2022 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Waaaaaay late to the party, but wanted to share my draft thoughts on my team...

1. Larry Bird - Boooooo. I already drafted at 14 before and I've already used some of the top targets at that spot(Maliman/Harden/Bird). Happy to make the trade with dbkc to 21 and am now targeting AD, Kawhi, Timmy, or DeAndre. Larry falls to 21 and now I don't know what to do. I get cold feet on Duncan(mediocre efg% - stupid btw, Bird isn't that much better) and end up choosing Bird over DeAndre after convincing myself it'll be much easier finding low usg reb/def than high usg scoring later in the draft. So much regret. One of the things I love about Savage is exploring and using the different seasons of players I would only use 1 or 2 seasons from. My initial plan with Savage was to use 24 different 1st round picks before I repeated one. I didn't even make it through 8 before a repeat. Pathetic. Don't get me wrong, I love Larry Legend and have him ranked in a higher tier then the other options available, but Timmy and DeAndre were perfectly fine options to start with.

2. Dennis Rodman - You can't win Savage after your first two picks, but you can definitely lose it. My chances of Savage glory ended right after this ****** pick. To be clear, I thought(and still think) that Rodman was the best player available with my 2nd round pick. BUT, that's only if you use him at SF! I already have Bird locked in at SF. WTF was I thinking!?! I initially explained it as liking the fact that his oreb% and defense at the 3/4 meshes well with Larry. That might be somewhat true but it's an awful reason to justify taking Rodman here. Bird's defense isn't even bad! But I'm most mad at myself for not realizing the huge problem that was gonna create for me at center. Rodman doesn't provide any paint scoring and he can't cover centers on defense without taking a huge chunk out of his defense. So now I need to find a center with good defense that also provides good paint scoring with some usage. It's basically Ewing or Zo and now I gotta sweat about rebounds and towels. Looking back, I might have been better off going with Ewing in the 3rd and targeting someone like Moncrief or Alvin at SG.

3. Paul George - While I probably should have been considering Zo or Ewing here, I was laser focused on a guard. Soooo many good options. I figured I would be picking between Frazier/Lillard/Nash/PG13/Jrue/Kyrie/Manu/Billups. I got pretty excited when Payton started to fall and had a full on WIS boner when Klay was 1 pick away. I think he's an exceptional pick in the late 2nd/early 3rd if you have the right guys to cover the lack of ast/reb. jp sniped him and I went on tilt. The reasons in my head for the PG13 pick(mainly the 3pt/def/dreb combo) made sense but I regretted it almost instantly. I used to love Nash but I've become so rigid in my thinking of getting defense early that I won't even take him in the 3rd now? Awful. Kyrie is a better scoring guard than PG13 but I won't take him because of said defense concerns and lower mins(PG13 has two low min seasons idiot!!!)? And let's not forget, I used him just last season. So boring. Rodman was bad...this one might be worse.

4. Mookie Blaylock - Oh hey, look it's another player I've already used before. Now I'm a Mookie stan and think he's highly underrated in Savage. Awesome defense, plenty of 3s, pretty clean, boards decently for a PG. It's a great spot to get him. But this is now a lot of bricks I'm throwing up from my backcourt and I have no paint scoring at all to balance it out and my SF doesn't hit the orebs that hard. Love the player but he may not have been the best pick for team. The right pick was Willis Reed. He's got two heavy min seasons with good boards and defense that would have got me off to nice start in fixing the center problem. He was my top target for round 5 but I never even gave him a thought in 4 after Mookie "fell" to me.

5. Emeka Okafor - This is where it really hit me that I hated my team. There would be no fixing the center spot. I'm screwed. I desperately need some paint scoring but I also really want some oreb and def to go along with it. McAdoo and Lanier stand out with their one really good seasons. But they also don't score as much in the paint as I thought and don't really have the oreb I wanted. Not to mention their other seasons are pretty underwhelming and I probably don't need that much usage to add to Bird/PG13. So when I go to the player search page and put in C eff 99+, usg 18-22, paint% 50+, oreb 10+, efg 50+ and def (sigh) 50+. Okafor pops up a few times and he's the pick. When does Savage 9 start?

6. Deron Williams - Another thing I love about Savage is the fact that unlike every other league I've played in(besides BOWIS), I can feel completely satisfied despite not finishing 1st. The competition is so tough and the draft/season is such a grind that I take great pride in finishing in the top 10. I'm still battling to the the very end to see how high I can climb up final standings. There's also great pride for me in winning a Savage World title even if it doesn't move you much in the final standings. Deron falling to the late 6th put a huge jolt back into me and I was excited again about this team to see if I could sneak them into the top 10. He was a perfect pick for me. His two best seasons will start in place of Mookie's two worst seasons and he's a much better 3rd scoring option than Mookie on teams where Bird/PG13 need some help(like 82-83 Bird). This was a huge break for me.

7. Khris Middleton - After the Okafor pick, my two main targets at center were Bynum and Ayton. Bynum went before the Deron pick so I was all set to take Ayton here. Then I started to do some second guessing. That can backfire sometimes but this time it worked out beautifully. With two low min seasons from PG13 and a lower usg 82-83 Bird, I felt high usg backups behind PG13/Bird would be important. Middleton has everything I was looking for except the defense and that gets covered up nicely with the rest of my team. I decided I liked the backup options to Ayton better than the backup options to Middleton and pulled the trigger.

8. Deandre Ayton - Look who's sitting there for me in the late 8th. Fuuuuuck yea. Defense sucks(of course, it's the 8th) but hes got amazing paint scoring with the perfect amount of usage I was looking for and he's got very good oreb as well. Things are starting to look up.

9. Samuel Dalembert - Sammy and Clifford Ray were my top targets for a Rodman backup since I made a list of them back around the 5th round. Didn't think I'd get either of them. Sammy's best 09-10 season will pair nicely with 95-96 Rodman.

10. Mel Daniels - Mel was a target since the Okafor pick. I knew I could probably get him late but wanted to take him on the 8/9 turn to make sure. There was no way I was passing on Ayton or Sammy D though so I was thrilled to still see him there with this pick. He's one of those guys who could go undrafted or he could be a jethro pick in the 6th. You just don't know with Mel. His two usable seasons fit nicely on the teams where I needed an extra boost on the boards from the center spot. I had forgotten just how good his 70-71 season is since it's not really good enough for a single season draft league anymore. But in Savage, in the the later rounds for a team desperate for center mins, it's a great pick. Starting to feel a little optimistic now about breaking into the top 10.

11. Cedric Ceballos - Now I kinda regret the Mel pick. Not Mel himself, but taking him in the 10th instead of the 11th. I probably still get him here and I would have been able to take Blake Griffin before ben grabbed him. I really liked Griffin as a Bird backup. Love me some Cedric tho. He's got 55% and 57% efg seasons that will fit in nicely with Middleton as backups to PG13/Bird.

12. Danny Granger - Not sure how I feel about this one. I picked him to use his 08-09 season to pair with 19-20 PG13 so it would free up the awesome 19-20 Middleton to backup 20-21 PG13 on my best team. I stuck with that plan but have usable Middleton and Ceballos seasons on that team as well. It might have been a better use of the pick to find someone else to add to the Center rotation.


After a ****** start I thought I rounded out the team very well. Caught some great breaks along the way. This team has no shot of winning Savage but I wouldn't be shocked to see it sneak into the top 10 with some division luck. Most likely I'll be in that 12-16 range though. I stacked one team and kind of spread out the better seasons for the other 4 based on team needs. When I sim tested(does it work? who knows but I still love doing it) the teams, my best team performed poorly while the other 4 did okay. Not good. On the plus side, expect Savage 9 to start a lot sooner than 8 did haha.

I’m higher on your team than it sounds you are. I get wanting new builds, been there. I don’t love Bird at SG but with Rodman and lower minute George those could be pretty good teams. You will miss a lot of perimeter shots, but you also have great D and pretty good offensive boards. Not a lot of teams have been able to put together as much 3 and D as you have. Like some of the guys you grabbed later as well. Deron, middleton, some good centers. I think you’ll do well

After seeing the teams, I have ben, tarheel, chewy, and ncm ranked pretty highly, with ash earl, and jcred in a tier below them followed by dh and dbkc.

I drafted a little differently than I normally do.
I decided I’d trade into the middle of the draft and just draft whoever falls every round for the first ~4 rounds, and then after drafting the BPA for 4 rounds, I’d draft for need for the next 8.

So BPA for 4 rounds, draft for need and make it work with the next 8.

1 (14th) - Karl Malone. This guy has been drafted as high as 3rd before (granted that was when the big 3 were banned, but that would still make him 6th) and usually goes around 10th or 12th. He provides 5 opportunities at the playoffs, and one really good season (96-97) that I feel good about winning a chip with. Good usage, good D, low TO/Fouls. High minutes. He can pass sometimes. Good building block.

2 - D Wade. I don’t love the fit with K Malone, but he’s way too good to still be around in the middle of the 2nd. Now I have the basis of a good defense, and Wade is flexible in being able to play PG or SG, which I can figure out later.

3 - Nash. Just like with my first two picks, he shouldn’t be around this late. The assists nerf didn’t affect non-state farm teams very much, his stock shouldn’t drop any if at all. Nash and Wade are a great pairing. This gives me a good source of 3s. I’m glad he dropped to me. I think I can make this work.

4 - Joakim Noah. This guy was the big faller this round and honestly he fits what I’m doing perfectly, so I get BPA and need here. I have PG/SG/PF, so I need SF and C. Here’s a guy who plays SFs 2 seasons and C 3. His high passing seasons will allow me to start Wade at PG (Nash 6th man) for a couple of seasons. His high D and rebounding (well, high when he’s a SF) are welcome additions. He has a 100 D season which means he and Wade will make life tough for opponents in one world…

Okay time to switch gears and draft for need.

PG: No need. I decided to draft no more PGs. Nash will get his full minutes in all 5 worlds and Wade will get the remainder of the PG minutes, sometimes as a starter at PG.

SG: medium need. Wade is great but will only play 2/3rds of his minutes at SG so I only have about 50% of my SG minutes.

SF: big need. I have 2 good Noah seasons, so I have about ~ 25% of my SF mins covered.

PF: small need. Malone plays about 38 minutes per game in all 5 worlds. Just need a good backup with usage.

C: big need. I have 3 Noah seasons, so I have about 40% of my C minutes covered.

Stats: I do not need usage. I do need 3s. I want as many rebounds and as much D as possible. Would like passing from C to help in my Wade at PG worlds when Noah is on the bench.

The result:

5 - Bogut. Felt like a reach but he and Noah combine to make a great C rotation that gives me passing and D. Bogut’s high FG% also makes me feel better about Noah’s low FG%

6 - Boucher. Low minutes but wowwwww he’s good when he’s on the court in a couple of seasons. I feel like if you were able to make a player out of Boucher’s seasons plus Noah’s 2 SF seasons, it’d be a late 2nd/early 3rd type of guy. Same with Bogut + Noah’s C seasons. So I feel like I traded my 4/5/6 for a late 2nd + early 3rd in a way.

recalibrate: now I have full minutes at PG and (mostly) C. Good minutes at SG/SF/PF. Time to draft an actual backup for the first time. Might as well get a 5 season guy to backup my first round pick.

7 - Kevin Love. He’s gonna play about 10 minutes per game as Karl’s backup in 4 seasons and….start at SF in one world with his new 100% SF 21-22 season. High usage Bucks Bogut will be Malone’s backup in that world. Love also helps with 3s and I can play with him at backup C if some of my teams aren’t winning. Always like the ability to tinker.

recalibrate: now I really just need a bunch of SG/SF minutes and maybe a C to play a few minutes in a few worlds.

8 - Jamario Moon
9 - James Johnson
10 - Bill Bridges
11 - Miles Bridges
12 - Joel Przybilla (sp?)

Boom.
PG: Wade/Nash
SG: Wade/JJ/Moon/M Bridges
SF: Boucher/Noah/B Bridges/Love
PF: Karl Malone/Love/Bogut
C: Noah/Bogut/Joel P

Posted by dh555 on 7/17/2022 7:34:00 PM (view original):
Waaaaaay late to the party, but wanted to share my draft thoughts on my team...

1. Larry Bird - Boooooo. I already drafted at 14 before and I've already used some of the top targets at that spot(Maliman/Harden/Bird). Happy to make the trade with dbkc to 21 and am now targeting AD, Kawhi, Timmy, or DeAndre. Larry falls to 21 and now I don't know what to do. I get cold feet on Duncan(mediocre efg% - stupid btw, Bird isn't that much better) and end up choosing Bird over DeAndre after convincing myself it'll be much easier finding low usg reb/def than high usg scoring later in the draft. So much regret. One of the things I love about Savage is exploring and using the different seasons of players I would only use 1 or 2 seasons from. My initial plan with Savage was to use 24 different 1st round picks before I repeated one. I didn't even make it through 8 before a repeat. Pathetic. Don't get me wrong, I love Larry Legend and have him ranked in a higher tier then the other options available, but Timmy and DeAndre were perfectly fine options to start with.

2. Dennis Rodman - You can't win Savage after your first two picks, but you can definitely lose it. My chances of Savage glory ended right after this ****** pick. To be clear, I thought(and still think) that Rodman was the best player available with my 2nd round pick. BUT, that's only if you use him at SF! I already have Bird locked in at SF. WTF was I thinking!?! I initially explained it as liking the fact that his oreb% and defense at the 3/4 meshes well with Larry. That might be somewhat true but it's an awful reason to justify taking Rodman here. Bird's defense isn't even bad! But I'm most mad at myself for not realizing the huge problem that was gonna create for me at center. Rodman doesn't provide any paint scoring and he can't cover centers on defense without taking a huge chunk out of his defense. So now I need to find a center with good defense that also provides good paint scoring with some usage. It's basically Ewing or Zo and now I gotta sweat about rebounds and towels. Looking back, I might have been better off going with Ewing in the 3rd and targeting someone like Moncrief or Alvin at SG.

3. Paul George - While I probably should have been considering Zo or Ewing here, I was laser focused on a guard. Soooo many good options. I figured I would be picking between Frazier/Lillard/Nash/PG13/Jrue/Kyrie/Manu/Billups. I got pretty excited when Payton started to fall and had a full on WIS boner when Klay was 1 pick away. I think he's an exceptional pick in the late 2nd/early 3rd if you have the right guys to cover the lack of ast/reb. jp sniped him and I went on tilt. The reasons in my head for the PG13 pick(mainly the 3pt/def/dreb combo) made sense but I regretted it almost instantly. I used to love Nash but I've become so rigid in my thinking of getting defense early that I won't even take him in the 3rd now? Awful. Kyrie is a better scoring guard than PG13 but I won't take him because of said defense concerns and lower mins(PG13 has two low min seasons idiot!!!)? And let's not forget, I used him just last season. So boring. Rodman was bad...this one might be worse.

4. Mookie Blaylock - Oh hey, look it's another player I've already used before. Now I'm a Mookie stan and think he's highly underrated in Savage. Awesome defense, plenty of 3s, pretty clean, boards decently for a PG. It's a great spot to get him. But this is now a lot of bricks I'm throwing up from my backcourt and I have no paint scoring at all to balance it out and my SF doesn't hit the orebs that hard. Love the player but he may not have been the best pick for team. The right pick was Willis Reed. He's got two heavy min seasons with good boards and defense that would have got me off to nice start in fixing the center problem. He was my top target for round 5 but I never even gave him a thought in 4 after Mookie "fell" to me.

5. Emeka Okafor - This is where it really hit me that I hated my team. There would be no fixing the center spot. I'm screwed. I desperately need some paint scoring but I also really want some oreb and def to go along with it. McAdoo and Lanier stand out with their one really good seasons. But they also don't score as much in the paint as I thought and don't really have the oreb I wanted. Not to mention their other seasons are pretty underwhelming and I probably don't need that much usage to add to Bird/PG13. So when I go to the player search page and put in C eff 99+, usg 18-22, paint% 50+, oreb 10+, efg 50+ and def (sigh) 50+. Okafor pops up a few times and he's the pick. When does Savage 9 start?

6. Deron Williams - Another thing I love about Savage is the fact that unlike every other league I've played in(besides BOWIS), I can feel completely satisfied despite not finishing 1st. The competition is so tough and the draft/season is such a grind that I take great pride in finishing in the top 10. I'm still battling to the the very end to see how high I can climb up final standings. There's also great pride for me in winning a Savage World title even if it doesn't move you much in the final standings. Deron falling to the late 6th put a huge jolt back into me and I was excited again about this team to see if I could sneak them into the top 10. He was a perfect pick for me. His two best seasons will start in place of Mookie's two worst seasons and he's a much better 3rd scoring option than Mookie on teams where Bird/PG13 need some help(like 82-83 Bird). This was a huge break for me.

7. Khris Middleton - After the Okafor pick, my two main targets at center were Bynum and Ayton. Bynum went before the Deron pick so I was all set to take Ayton here. Then I started to do some second guessing. That can backfire sometimes but this time it worked out beautifully. With two low min seasons from PG13 and a lower usg 82-83 Bird, I felt high usg backups behind PG13/Bird would be important. Middleton has everything I was looking for except the defense and that gets covered up nicely with the rest of my team. I decided I liked the backup options to Ayton better than the backup options to Middleton and pulled the trigger.

8. Deandre Ayton - Look who's sitting there for me in the late 8th. Fuuuuuck yea. Defense sucks(of course, it's the 8th) but hes got amazing paint scoring with the perfect amount of usage I was looking for and he's got very good oreb as well. Things are starting to look up.

9. Samuel Dalembert - Sammy and Clifford Ray were my top targets for a Rodman backup since I made a list of them back around the 5th round. Didn't think I'd get either of them. Sammy's best 09-10 season will pair nicely with 95-96 Rodman.

10. Mel Daniels - Mel was a target since the Okafor pick. I knew I could probably get him late but wanted to take him on the 8/9 turn to make sure. There was no way I was passing on Ayton or Sammy D though so I was thrilled to still see him there with this pick. He's one of those guys who could go undrafted or he could be a jethro pick in the 6th. You just don't know with Mel. His two usable seasons fit nicely on the teams where I needed an extra boost on the boards from the center spot. I had forgotten just how good his 70-71 season is since it's not really good enough for a single season draft league anymore. But in Savage, in the the later rounds for a team desperate for center mins, it's a great pick. Starting to feel a little optimistic now about breaking into the top 10.

11. Cedric Ceballos - Now I kinda regret the Mel pick. Not Mel himself, but taking him in the 10th instead of the 11th. I probably still get him here and I would have been able to take Blake Griffin before ben grabbed him. I really liked Griffin as a Bird backup. Love me some Cedric tho. He's got 55% and 57% efg seasons that will fit in nicely with Middleton as backups to PG13/Bird.

12. Danny Granger - Not sure how I feel about this one. I picked him to use his 08-09 season to pair with 19-20 PG13 so it would free up the awesome 19-20 Middleton to backup 20-21 PG13 on my best team. I stuck with that plan but have usable Middleton and Ceballos seasons on that team as well. It might have been a better use of the pick to find someone else to add to the Center rotation.


After a ****** start I thought I rounded out the team very well. Caught some great breaks along the way. This team has no shot of winning Savage but I wouldn't be shocked to see it sneak into the top 10 with some division luck. Most likely I'll be in that 12-16 range though. I stacked one team and kind of spread out the better seasons for the other 4 based on team needs. When I sim tested(does it work? who knows but I still love doing it) the teams, my best team performed poorly while the other 4 did okay. Not good. On the plus side, expect Savage 9 to start a lot sooner than 8 did haha.

I like the beginning of your draft better than you do (though I've been personally burned by PG13 too many times to go back to that well) but it's funny that your self-analysis of your draft is basically the opposite of mine of my draft. I think I nailed my first four picks (AD, Erving, Capela, Lowry) but didn't do a great job with the rest of the draft. It will be interesting to see which works better.