1) Dark Horse. Sound the trumpets and cue the oboes, because the Horse-King reigns triumphant, still racing thru a red hot streak that started weeks ago, winning three of its past four matchups by scores of 6 – 3 or better. It’s now at least 10 games ahead of all but the strongest competition (DreamTeam) and is at least 19 games ahead of the Big Sexys and Shonuff Shamans of this league. Never has this league experienced this level of dominance. Imagine a thoroughbred in the Preakness coming down the home stretch with a 10 meter lead on all others, and you’ll get an idea of how unstoppable Dark Horse’s performance has been thus far.
2) 2) DreamTeam. This unit’s long term tactics may be the one thing preventing it from achieving greatness. DreamTeam is known for picking up injured players and collecting zeros in the hope of a brighter future rather than boosting win totals in the increasingly desperate present. The moves are a bust. The swap of Wes Matthews for Joe Johnson seems rather pointless in hindsight—Wes freakin Ley is performing as well as JJ ever did, and Wes was healthy for the many weeks when JJ was injured. To make matters worse, waiver wire additions like Johnny Flynn and Chris Kaman are either producing paltry numbers or not playing at all. Still, two straight victories of 6 – 3 or better ain’t too shabby.
3) Merlness. This season’s revealed that no matter how cold Merlness’s boys get, the fat lady ain’t singing. Merlness is like Brett Farve throwing Hail Marys in the clutch—dangerous, and likely to succeed. For example, after slumping through the majority of last week’s matchup, and heading into Sunday down 3 – 6, Merlness pulled off a crazy out-of-the-blue win on the last possible day. Merlness, DreamTeam and league leader Dark Horse share a lot in common—all three have tremendous firepower on their rosters, and very few losses this season… which means that one of these 3 are probably going to end up with this season’s ring.
4) Big Country. Don’t let the latest loss twist you—Big is one “country” that’s on the rise like the Garth Brooks subgenre in the 1990s. Big forced DreamTeam to earn his 6 – 3 victory the hard way—via a 0.01 percent difference in free throw percentage and a couple extra threes. The wisdom and waiver-wire savvy of Big’s owner is reflected in the unit’s depth. It’s so deep in quality bigmen because guys like Kendrick Perkins and Taj Gibson keep getting picked up at key times off the waiver. PGs like Jose Calderon and Luke Ridnour, whom many believed would be irrelevant this year, proved the majority of fantasy experts wrong, but Big saw their success coming. Call him the lord of the above average teams.
5) Team Canada. Owning major fantasy beasts like Blake Griffin, Dwight Howard, and Rajon Rondo forced power rankers in the past to praise this unit despite its consistent losing, but time is running out for this great Drew Don flagship. TC’s latest string of losses came at the hands of some more powerful players (Merlness, Pohn Wall) and I was so sure Canada would have to take a hit in the rankings. But there are too many mediocre teams in our league whose performances prevent Canada from falling at all. TC’s also up at the #5 slot is because of the rankers’ hatred for the bizarrely assembled Cliphairs.
6) Cliphairs. For the umpteenth time, the league is insulted by the obnoxious presence of Cliphairs within the Top 6. What happened? The rankers were so convinced that this awful team was finally falling down to the depths. Predictably, Cliphairs’ 7 – 2 hat trick is yet another laughable fluke. Not only does this team feature a collection of scrubs, but it’s now carrying injured scrubs. I don’t get this team’s strategy probably because it has none, and if it wins the ring, God save us!
7) Pohn Wall. Fresh off a 6 – 3 drubbing of Team Canada, and a 7 – 2 breakaway win against Where’s Leon, Pohn’s making his first real bid to enter this season’s playoffs. You know what? He just might make it. Yes, the supporting cast is lackluster, and yes, half the roster’s threatening to lose major minutes at any given game, but Pohn’s ability to roll with the punches of a poor draft is verging on legendary. He’s our league’s uhm… wizard, having resurrected a team that was utterly and completely dead.
8) Pippen Ain’t Easy. Pippen is the league’s most unpredictable team. He’s turning in an epic performance one week only to return to awful the next. To make matters worse, just when you think he’s figured out how to update, Pippen proves otherwise. John Salmons, Reggie Williams, and Thabo Sefolosha didn’t get off the bench last week. A disinterested owner can only take a team so far. Expect Pippen to fall fast and hard down the stretch.
9) Shonuff Shamans. Don’t look now, but Sho’s on a three game win streak and verging on playing .500 ball for the first time this season. But is it too little, too late? Sho’s done a good but not great job using the waiver. He’s finding guys like Landry Fields and Amir Johnson, but at the end of the day, those guys aren’t gonna score you major victories unless you’re facing the dregs of the league like Sho’s done for the past three weeks. Until Sho locks horns with Pohn Wall in Week 15, or Merlness in Week 16, we may not know if he’s for real.
10) Big Sexy / Repeatabull. A team in desperate need of players who don’t average single digits in points or play less than 25 minutes a game. This unit is very comparable to Sho both in its similarly mediocre level of talent, and its uber-competitive mentality. Will be interesting to see if Big Sexy can put it together in the clutch, but judging by how quickly his team fell apart, I’m guessing it’s still going nowhere.
11) Cocaine Convict. Banged up and getting kicked around like a crack fiend by his dealer.
12) Gone Fishin’. Credit for updating. You may be fishing, but you’re catching whales compared to the rest of these bottom feeders.
13) Where’s Leon. The league’s most overrated team.
14) DNP – Coach’s Decision. I am once again being a gentleman by listing him here as a courtesy, but to tell you the truth, his team actually doesn’t exist.
