Hi. My name is Elliot Smilowitz, and I'm addicted to fantasy sports.
It started innocently enough. An NCAA tournament bracket here, a friendly wager on a baseball game there. Finally, I decided that this NFL season, I would dive head-first into the world of fantasy football. League parity and the salary cap ensured I wouldn't have a clue what teams would be good, and anyway I needed a rooting interest in NFL games televised in the D.C. area.
The first thing I learned about the fantasy sports culture is the unreal amount of planning that goes on before a draft. (Depth charts, sorted by position, team and teams' bye week). Some guys put more planning into their fantasy draft than the Cincinnati Bengals do into the NFL draft (hello, Akili Smith). Luckily, I had Yahoo pre-rankings to fall back on.
Then came the hardest part of being a fantasy owner: Keeping track of all your players' stats, as they happen. Don't ask me why we do it. I recognize that I can't actually do anything during the games ,and Torry Holt will end with the same number of yards whether or not I click refresh. I just can't help myself; I need to know how "my players" are doing.
A distant cousin of the Sunday scorekeeping, the Friday lineup-setting produces drama without actually being a game. Do I start Steve McNair again and risk him finally turning into Cade McNown? Should I use a star player hobbled by injuries, or a mediocre but healthy veteran?
Eventually, you're going to have to face the prospect of your fantasy players going up against your favorite team. This happened to me two weeks ago, when "my guys" Jerry Rice and Tim Brown led the Oakland Raiders against my home team, the New York Jets. This game absolutely tore me up, especially the Jets' big fourth quarter comeback. How could I root for my team to score, then turn around and root for "my players" to get a TD? As the game went into overtime, I faced the prospect that my fantasy team might lose for the week because of my favorite team, or vice versa. Mercifully, the Jets kicked a game-winning field goal, and I collapsed, unsure if I was pleased with the outcome or not.
Much like adversity or vodka, fantasy ownership makes for strange bedfellows. I suddenly had a vested interest in the Kansas City Chiefs maintaining a perfect season, in order for Priest Holmes to get big playing time in every game. If the Chiefs go into the last week of the season with a 14-1 record and no motivation to win, they'll sit Holmes, and I'll be without my top-scoring player for the fantasy league "Super Bowl." Sure, it's a cheap reason to get on the bandwagon, but I'll take what I can get.
The way I'm talking about it, you might think I'm not enjoying my fantasy football experience. You couldn't be more wrong. In fact, I went and joined two fantasy NBA leagues last month.
This time, I did my share of pre-draft research. Unfortunately, I forgot to check the injury wire, and as a result I'll be stuck with Jamal Mashburn and Jerry Stackhouse taking up bench spots until they get healthy. I also accidentally used my last pick on a player who already retired, but let's not dwell on that.
The weekly cycle of fantasy football repeats itself on a daily basis in an NBA league. Setting my team lineups has become part of my morning routine, right after taking a shower and before checking my e-mail. I was studying at the library a few nights ago and was overcome by a sudden urge to commandeer a card-catalogue computer and check how many three-pointers Peja Stojakovic has so far.
If anything, fantasy basketball requires more fanaticism than fantasy football. In football, it's all about touchdowns and yards. In my NBA league, on the other hand, points, assists, rebounds, steals, field-goal percentage and four other stats all count equally. A specialist like shot-blocker Dikembe Mutombo or three-point shooter Hedo Turkoglu becomes about as valuable as a point machine like Kobe Bryant. I'd love to talk more about this, but I have to go make some spreadsheets. Only four months until my fantasy baseball draft.
