Round Four
A screen turns on and we see a black background with the words ‘Hot Takes with the Sim Devil’ written in bold red block letters. Flames emit from the logo, crackling all around it. An animated red devil cartoon dances into the frame and on top of the logo as “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones plays.
The animation fades out and we see a studio set with a camera crew facing a large desk with monitors behind it. The monitors are all showing the animation of the cartoon devil dancing around among crackling flames. At the studio desk, we see user benhoidal. The cameras zoom in until all we see is benhoidal and the monitor behind him.
“Hello! Today's show, ‘Hot Takes with the Sim Devil’ is brought to you from the depths of Sim Hell, and is presented by Slash Torture Chambers. If you’re looking for the best torture and bullying service that SIM Hell has to offer, Slash Torture Chambers has you covered.”
benhoidal shifts to a different camera.
“I’ve been making the rounds lately on a few notable basketball podcasts and shows and well, I’m sick and tired of talking with people who don’t know anything about sim basketball, or basketball at all for that matter. The Bill Simmons podcast I was on was particularly frustrating. Don’t think I’ll be invited back to that one. So I decided to do my own show.
I’ll be wrapping up the fourth round of the recent ODL draft, but I’m not here to sugar coat things for you. Today, I’m coming right at you with the hottest takes from SIM Hell. I’m going to tell you exactly why your picks all suck and why when all is said and done, the only one dancing at the end of ODL 80 will be the SIM Devil himself, me.”
benhoidal let’s loose an evil sounding cackle.
“First up to start round four, ysw128 takes Tom Boerwinkle. First, he doubles down on Kawhi Leonard by taking Pippen, and now he doubles down on Joakim Noah, by taking Boerwinkle. This team will make the playoffs as soon as ysw finds the shift key.
copernicus started the draft with an incredible Rodman, Whiteside pairing. If you can get great usage in the next three rounds, you’re all set. Bledsoe and Conley are normally wonderful picks. That’s a pretty good point guard rotation. Unfortunately, you’re done with four rounds and still don’t have a leading scorer. Maybe you can find one in the fifth, as long as you don’t take someone awful like, I don’t know, Myles Turner.
Montrezl Harrell comes off the board next as jcred5 continues to take players with very high efg% and mediocre defense. You better hope Capela gets a D bump in the next week or you aren’t stopping anyone!
jhsukow takes Danny Green who is a very reliable role player with the exact same stats as someone you could get after the draft is over. He also plays the same position as your second round pick.
6theluckyone decides to draft Terry Porter, another player who can’t rebound to pair with AD and Klay. I’m sure that will turn out well.
albiband0 actually sent a bunch of proxies this draft so I won’t rag on him too much. Also, don’t tell anyone, but I actually like his picks so far. A little early on a few guys, but nothing crazy. Tick-tock.
Is anyone else disappointed that cjok1051 didn’t keep drafting white guys? But seriously, four high usage players in the first four rounds. That’s a lot of money and not a lot of rebounds.
Then thomcat takes Richaun Holmes who is just a worse version of Chris Boucher who is still available. Great front court D, but now he’ll have to draft a SG that can defend three positions. As long as it’s not someone like Jason Terry, he should be fine.
Alright, finally here’s someone who knows what they’re doing. Shawn Marion in the fourth? To pair with Dwight Howard and Damian Lillard? This team’s going to be dancing deep into the playoffs.
Jackedjamie takes Chris Boucher, who is an outstanding pick. Pairing him with Gobert and Walton is an awesome trio upfront. Now he just needs good guard picks with usage to go alongside them. Wait, did he really pick Zach Lavine in the third round??? There are SGs who are almost as good as him who go completely undrafted!!
That new Jaylen Brown season is pretty nice pharrop, but four rounds without a center or PG is insane. Wings are a dime a dozen, and three of them after four rounds leaves you with thirty cents and no championship aspirations.
ashamael takes Samuel Dalembert to pair upfront with the Admiral. Donyell at SF is a perfect fit, even if my phone keeps wanting to correct his name to Donald. The lack of front court assists probably either pushes Kyrie to SG or eliminates his best season. Dalembert is pretty underrated, but also a pretty boring fourth round pick.
Next up, robusk has the first of his two fourth round picks and selects Derrick Favors whose new season is a wonderful small forw… wait he picked Christian Wood last round whose new season is also awesome at small forward. Why did he pick two small forwards? Oh nevermind, he clarified it in the comments by saying Wood will be backing up Shaq and Favors will be playing the other post spot. So now, not only is Wood only playing at 99%, but you have three below average rebounders in the front court.
gerryred takes Derek Harper who is the most boring SIM player of all time. What makes it worse is that he already has Magic at point. You don’t need another point guard this early!
Alright well that means Rob is up again and I’m sure he’s going to take someone really good with 20+ dreb%, lots of defense, and maybe some threes if he’s lucky. Oh. Khris Middleton. Better hope Butler gets that D boost or you’re toast!
Midge takes Bobby Portis next who is an excellent 6th round pick. Or he would be if he didn’t play the exact same position as the last two guys you drafted.
Andrew Bogut goes next and he is just perfect for this league. Excellent pick by whomever just drafted him.
jhsukow is up next for his second pick of the round. He takes Al Horford which gives him a bunch of decent role players around Giannis, without a true second banana. Just like the Bucks the last two seasons, this strategy will leave him just short of where he wants to end up. And by that, I’m assuming he wants to make the playoffs.
NotoriousJ is up next and takes Joel Przybilla who grew up just a half an hour from me. Przybilla joins Andre Drummond for the worst defensive front court in the league. At least they’ll clean up all of MJ’s missed mid-rangers that you’re paying an arm and a leg for.
Okay, next is redbooda. After taking KD, Luka, and Zion, booda decides the thing he needs most is the most expensive player left. This team is headed for 17,000 minutes of nothing but scoring. If we didn’t already know who was going first in every division draft, we do now.
tau1624 takes Bill Russell, giving him the most expensive duo in the league along with Wilt. As if Domantas Sabonis wasn’t a bad enough 2nd round pick, now he has to play SF the whole game despite being at 95%.
Buddy Hield goes next to sappy. Buddy just won the championship as my starting SG, so you’d think I’d be high on this pick. Of course, he was good for me because of his value as an UNDRAFTED extra. 4th round for Buddy freaking Hield is a joke!
24kpyrite grabs Jarrett Allen who finally gives him a rebounder. I’ve always said that the best way to build a Curry team is to draft a second point guard and make sure he only has 13 creb%.
With the last pick of the round, dh555 takes Bobby Jones. Considering I stole the idea of overly critical evals from him, I think I need to give him the harshest hot take yet. LeBron basically guarantees you a playoff spot and a chance to win it all. That is unless you also draft a higher usage, less efficient player, especially if that player is only eligible at center with 60D. If that D boost doesn’t come soon, you’re out of the playoffs. Also, The Sixers aren’t making it past the conference finals.
Well that’s the end of the fourth round, but if the three governors who traded out of it thought they’d be spared, think again.
jkaye24, your team is way too expensive for the ODL. Better luck next season.
tarheel1991, Jokic at 12??? 12???
rjk2781, Moses and Wade are too expensive and not nearly efficient enough. Larry Nance Jr. was obviously better for your team than his pops.”
benhoidal turns to a different camera and gives another maniacal chuckle. The studio fades out of our frame and is replaced by the devil dancing atop the show's logo once more. The devil starts to laugh, mimicking the chuckle we just heard. He abruptly thrusts his pitchfork forward at the front of the screen, which shakes quickly, then goes black.