[Music] this is what they call a crowd pleaser ladies and gentlemen this is an episode that everybody went Buck Wild for last year so we're doing it again with the same delightful guest my good buddy J Lloyd we're going to Loop him in here actually screw it right out of the shoot good morning Josh how are you today oh Dan how are you it's good to be here yeah it's good to good to have you here this is old man squad fantasy basketball I'm Dan bers he's Josh Lloyd he's Red Rock bball locked on fantasy basketball basketball monster he is Grand Puba I am at old man squad I am a grumpy old man but mostly in an ironic sense leave a pregnant pause after that one um today we're talking how to win your head-to-head league and I have like an array of general questions about head-to-head format everybody knows that I prefer to play nineat Roto I play a couple of head-to head leagues because it's important to do both especially if I'm going to be talking about it all the time which I am uh but Josh you are a much more experienced head-to-head player so pick your brain on the best ways to attack it from sort of the macro like 30,000 foot view thing but before before we even get into that what's cracking man how's it going it's pretty good it's pretty good it's been busy time of year getting ready for the season you six seven weeks away or whatever it is from the start of the um NBA season so lots of stuff happening and lots of things sort of keep on top of now I'm going to like we talked before this this probably a little be a little bit dry but like I want to start this off so yesterday was on Noah's Noah rubben show and yeah you listen to podcasts and I listen to them at a fast speed because I'm crazy right but the people do that I got stuff to do I got a lot of stuff to get through and then I asked him this question he didn't know the answer so I'm going to ask you this question because the same thing applies to you your theme song for this podcast right did you deliberately choose a song that was a very very slow song so that when people listen to it at fast speed it sounds normal because what is going on because his is the same one so yours comes like like okay come on let's go what are we waiting for spit up but when you listen to it like at two times speed it just it flows it sounds good it's like up be it's bouncy so I thought like I thought maybe this is something that people should be doing playing a slower song that because everyone listens to It sped up but no it's just coincidence so there you go I'm G to stop asking people that question because it's clearly wrong every time I ask it I definitely did not I also don't talk this slowly so that people can speed it up this is just the way that I speak also uh I like that jam so I uh when I I don't know why I always look for jams that like are really tangentially related like you could kind of hear Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer if you squint your hearing just yeah uh that's like when I think of how I want to enter a show I want to enter to Sledgehammer but I can't do that because that's copyrighted so uh Isaac this awesome dude has made a couple of Beats he did the beat for U my old Jam fantasy NBA today also uh and I just I like the way it bumped I haven't listened to at fast speed but now I'm going to to and you sent me a clip of me accidentally leaving something on air after I I I thought I had not and it was me swearing at at 2X and that sounds as dumb as you'd think it would sound I always forget like if I go to share a clip from a podcast that I listen to it at fast speed so anytime I sh people go bro what are you do how you listen to all that I don't know it also is part of it is that like to to me and to uh Australians General Americans talk slowly you guys just have a slow diction we talk super fast that makes it hard to understand us at times we just don't worry about gaps between words they all just they're one word we'll just push them all together where you guys talk really slowly so when you hear like I put it at two times speed everyone's just talking normal speed this is how people speak and then yeah I I meet up with people in real life I go come on this fast forward what are we doing here what what are you leaving all these gaps for I'm a I am an habitual enunciator on top of everything else that's again that's probably the baseball radio thing where I want every word to be super clear because sometimes I don't know you're Josh you're getting into baseball these days and that means you're listening to baseball radio some of that stuff is is not good and if you can't understand what the hell they're saying then you're really in a up a creek but let let's get to some head-to-head stuff here uh I have I sent you a a basically a cursory list of the things we're going to cover and so we'll just dive in I was kind of like kicking around what order made sense now obviously talking about League settings is probably the first thing that we should talk about but I'm going to save that because it's Fantasy Draft season right now so we're just go straight into that side you have said I think and you can correct me if I'm wrong that you're really not interested in Jo lmbb this year so using that as my segue to the front ends of fantasy drafts when you're looking at the head-to-head model what are you looking to do with your first say two or three rounds of picks as it sounds like avoiding someone that could detonate your team completely is among the the list of things you're trying not to do sometimes my on this is is hard for for people to decipher because in the past Dan I have been the person who has always pushed back I've always pushed back on the injury-prone narrative I've always people like I'm never taking lamelo ball inside the first three rounds okay you're gonna screw up it's like it's not going to happen I'm not never drafting Zion he's never going to play 60 games I'm not taking K I'm not taking anthy Davis and of course all those things are predictably proven false like they all played games and all these things happen right now this year I'm not sitting here go I not taking Joel and bid in the first round go what are you talking about I thought you said there's no such thing as injury PR but my thing is and I've got there's two players that fit this criteria for me this season it's in be be and kawhai is that you have multiple knee injuries SLS surgeries on the exact same part of the same knee like twice in the last three years that to me is done like if you've torn your miniscus twice in two years and three years or whatever it is on the same knee I am not taking that risk that is not like oh my God you broke your face oh you broke your finger oh you sprained your ankle oh you pulled your hamstring I don't care about those things they luck they happen they don't happen whatever if your knee continues to tear in the same spot it's going to happen again I'm very confident that it's going to happen again to both those guys they're going to be extra cautious about both of those guys and that risk then outweighs the benefit now I say I won't take him beat in the first round if I'm picking at Pick 12 there's zero difference between Pick 12 or pick 13 so I would take him there I would take him at 12 or 13 that that is fine but any else like if if embiid hadn't had that second torn meniscus on that same knee repeat problem still looked really weird when he was coming back I would have no problem taking him in the top four I I I wouldn't be worried about any of that stuff but it's the repeat injury to the same lower body part like if you break your finger three times nobody cares but if you if you have torn and had surgery on that knee at the same spot multiple times I'm out so you're not as concerned then about some of those other guys that people all injury prone in the first round like an Anthony Davis like a Kevin Durant that kind okay so what about this concept of like groupings or pairings is that something you're particularly worried about in the first two rounds glad you brought that up Dan and well I didn't prompt you to say this I think that is something that we 100% focus on too much it is just the way that I I believe that it should be looked at is if you talk about pairings it's who which what do I avoid what pairing is bad because you could make an argument for almost any player that you take in the first round that you can have eight different guys that would pair with them in round two so we have this Focus I'm gonna grab this guy and I have to get this guy here no he don't there's other ways you can do it because then in round three if you get a different guy in round two then your decision Tree in round three changes there's a million ways that you can do it and we have this hyper focus of this is the pairing you need it's not really it's more like what is what would be a terrible pairing that's what I'd rather avoid the bad one versus like hyperfocus on here is the narrow pairing that you must get to make it all make sense now I'm very big on on punting in head-to-head leagues I do think there is a significant advantage to doing it but in the end the way that you win head-to-head leagues I believe is you just end up accumulating value and whether that's value through guys that are synergistic combinations that make sense all through the draft getting someone who was off the waiver wire who turned into top 50 season that's all value it's not about this like there is only one player that goes with this player and that is the way we must do it I think that is a very narrow way of looking at it and it leads to tons of mistakes yeah it feels like and I've even even on the punt side do you do you decide on your okay so like there are one or two players I guess where maybe the answer to this is yes but do you decide on your punt after your first round pick that feels very early to me in general it depends like it's a little bit hard for me at times to to answer that question succinctly I'll try my best because like you don't have to I got time I I I and and anyone who sort of sits and and does and lives this stuff all the way through like I have a very strong understanding of every single player and every single player's statistical profile skill set whatever so like if something comes up I go oh I just I'll take him and he'll fit in here I don't have to have that necessarily pre pre-planned but that's not what everybody's able to do I think there is a value in having an idea of who the player you grab in the first round and what their um deficiencies are and whether you want to lean into that or or what you want to do I don't think that there are people who are like not you never punt you just take the three best available players and or five and then you see what happens and then decide after the draft or there people like no you must decide around one I think the answer is somewhere in the middle there because like another one thing is going to come up in this sort of idea Dan is people will say take the best player available right you you hear that all the time I'm sure I've said it I'm sure you've said it as well yeah and then my but my like retort to that is okay who decides who the best player is Who who how do you know who the best player available especially when you get like past round two or whatever when the difference between the 25th guy and the 45th guy and the 45th guy and the 80th guy is like a bees Dicker there's no difference like there's no difference but it's it is a very small difference so if you're saying man this guy at 46 is definitely better than the guy at 47 well you're going to be wrong and that's where it comes more into it's not even necessarily like an aggressive punt strategy is like well if this guy at 52 provides me some assists and I don't know where else I'm going to get them and I'm at 39 take him that's fine like that makes sense because there's no such thing as best player available definitively in those positions if we talk a lot mostly it's the majority about category leagues right but if you want to even look at from a points League perspective and I think this is an easy way to find definitive values of players I've been doing a lot of work on this if we look at like last year's top 12 players the difference between pick one and pick 12 was about 15 fantasy points per game right and then between the top and the bottom of every other round after that the difference in fantasy points was between one and three between 12 players right so you can tell me best player available like one point difference per game that's making one extra three per week the changes that so you can't no one could I'm not going to sit here and have the um self-confidence or false bravado to tell you that I know who the best player is cuz I don't and you don't either so like this idea of like you just got to take best available is another thing that I think gets you into a trap it's got to be a blend of the two I I think to really you be nimble be be able to to change your mind because the that you very strict I must take one guy to pair for my punt or I have to take best player available neither those things is right who was the um you mentioned uh pairs to avoid are there obvious ones that are on the board right now that's I think less in the past there used to be some real obvious ones right like pairing like a James Harden and Andre Drummond in round one and round two would make no sense you take the biggest free throw percentage contributor in the NBA and you pair him with the worst guy and you cut out all of Harden's Advantage right that's that was a that's a bad head-to-head pairing it's okay in Roto because it does balance you a little bit but it's a bad pairing at this point there's not as many this is just a complete negative pairing I think it more comes into like wouldn't take embiid in round one and then Kawai in round three like that's not a pairing that would make a huge amount of sense to me to do it that way but in terms of unless your playoffs were in December yeah yeah that's that's true the other like jannis jannis has got his bad free throws right but there's no one that that I really see in like round two who's just like unbelievable this guy is just dominating through in free throw percentage and it would make no sense to put those two guys together there's no one that really or even the opposite way is there like a terrible like if I took Trey young in round one with his low field goals and sabonis in round two with these high field goals that doesn't that's not a bad combination that that makes actually quite a bit of sense it's not those those absolutely avoid pairings aren't as clear and I think it more comes down to it maybe the avoid ones after two or three rounds where you've built up certain strengths and certain weaknesses and you go well yeah my team is going to be last in blocks let me just grab this guy and I'll be second last yeah what's would it be do what's the point of that like that's that's that's probably a bad idea because that doesn't that doesn't actually lead to your winning percentage increasing enough I think yeah and I in my eyes at least and not to weigh in too much here um when you lean so hard so heavily into like you take Trey young and and a lot of folks are just like well I have to punt field goal and turnover right now you don't you don't like there's a lot of paths you can take that get you out of punting those things you don't know what you're going to like maybe a couple picks down the line like you said you start to see okay my team really is quite bad at field goal percent or my team is very bad at rebounding or something like that and then you start to follow like you said that decision tree but you talked about the next chunk here that is going to be our segue to the middle of drafts but before we do that talking to Josh Lloyd Redrock bball Josh what uh what's on the promo docket these days um we're doing positional tiers at the moment and then I don't know D there's a there's a lot of stuff on my list I don't actually know what's coming out when but there is tired when you said it I I swear to God I'm looking at my calendar and I've got seven shows scheduled for yest yesterday which I only did two so yeah that's going well I got another seven scheduled for today another another four on Friday so I just got I probably just got to move a couple things around to get to get him to my sense i' say so basically folks should just subscribe follow you on social Follow You Follow the show and you'll get somewhere between seven and 49 shows over the next week and thing is I I haven't even looked at my schedule to add what I'm supposed to be doing coming up in the next week so that that's part of the plan coming up as well so that yeah it could get it could get a little crowded they say yeah well we're very grateful that you carved out some time for old man squad given you know you probably had to punt show seven to tomorrow so that it's very kind of you um let's talk about the middle rounds a little bit so now you've got your your early rounds you're taking guys that again make sense good basketball players take guys that you value take guys that like don't worry that much about fit because the the brutal fits are not as obvious right now are certainly not as as many of them uh we're not in Ultra late Flyers you and I have talked on this show about what to do with your later picks which is upside hunt hard hard hard what about that that creamy middle in between you know the four I know the fourth round through the ninth round or something like that what are you looking for in that zone okay so this is what I I've also been seeing a lot lately and I think it's probably the way we're talking hit- to-head leagues and and approaching is it like often that you'll draft someone in round one whoever it is and then by the time you get to round seven or eight you look at that play and you go huh I'm actually not as strong in that guy's strengths as I thought I was right which is which is okay because I think part of the way that we can look at punting and these ideas of building teams is often you have to sort of early on you have to go opposite and that'll be like okay so if I'm really looking to punt away field goals I got to make sure I get some blocks and rebounds early on like I I have to find these somewhere and then the board will open up with all these other guys who fit those other categories I need later on cuz I'm not worried about that gigantic deficiency in field goal percentage that makes others swear away from them which so I can sort of clean those guys up towards that back end so in in the middle rounds I think it's maybe more important to start you're bringing in those strengths that you you've got and you've built through your first round and and putting putting stuff and stacking stuff on top of that because if you get to that situation and you run into all problems with you know punt rankings and turning categories off to see how a play looks because then you'll if you always follow those you'll end up with situations where no matter what you do you punt um the all three small categories or all three big categories it's almost POS impossible to avoid that unless you say go I'm taking a bad field goal guy guard in round one and I go big big big and then guards and wings after that but you can't go guard guard guard guard because then go how am I possibly going to get blocks and rebounds I have no shot we're punting all of those categories now so I think that let's say six to 10 area of a draft becomes that bit we maybe Circle back to help reestablish those advantages from your round one guy with a lot of players that others pass on and then you start to throw rankings or ADP out a little bit because your valuation of someone who someone my I'm not taking this guy he 130th because he shoots 41% from the field you go man I don't care I'll take his 5 and a half assists and 1.6 steals that works perfectly for me and then grab him there because like we said the difference between those guys at that point it might be 80 ranking spots but it's not like it's it's the the difference between 2 steals or whatever it is the difference is so small that it's um it's really important to you know to know that difference I think a great way that it's Illustrated I don't know if you ever go on the dunsen 3's website with the EPM EPM stat is is shown on the right hand side it's got a distribution graph of of where the players sit in EPM and it does really apply to Fantasy as well where it's got the top guys is like one dot and one dot and one dot and then like 300 players will s sitting in the middle and that's basically how fantasy works I think yeah um so does it it just to just to go a little bit deeper on on that kind of like transition between the early mid and the late mid that you were talking about do those guys later so in this example I'll just try to put some names to it just to see if we can work through it so you end up with Trey young in the first round second third fourth whatever you're looking to sort of address some maybe not all of his deficiencies but a couple of them he's weak in field goal he's weak in rebounds he's we weak in blocks maybe you find some bigs that are good at say two out of those three things and don't hurt the stuff that you've built up already like you don't want to put a big hole in your free throw but then as you get towards those later rounds and you need to make sure that you rebuild on top of Trey young do those players become like can't miss types at that point like if you don't get the ones that are say like scoot as a weird very very example of this like if you don't get him towards the end did you then fail to build on top of the strengths do those guys become guys you have to take a little bit early because of that uh not necessarily I think what it the the way that it works is that it opens up way more opportunities for you towards the end of finding these different players and look maybe maybe you do go slightly earlier on someone like that but if someone takes scoot you can't be like oh my God I'm done like my my season's over example yeah but like I I I get what you're saying because and I've had had this mentality in the past as where man I just have to get this guy and no it's fine like something else will appear and someone else will appear or do this or and there'll be other players that step up and you're never got to find a a 10 assist player at the back end of a draft so scoot is an interesting player who could get us be seven assists maybe maybe he could right but there's going to be something around that there and you do open up many different opportunities versus like so often the players that people take in round 12 or 13 if they're not really hunting up so I'll use this guy because I love talking about him in the senses kav's CW Pope right he'll get you 12 points and he'll hit two and a half threes with three rebounds and two assists and 1.3 Steals and that's all well and good but like who cares like that's it's fine the value is solid it's doing what it does but I could pass on that and get someone who might be let's say let's say TJ McConnor maybe he plays 20 minutes but he might average five assists he might get 1.3 steals the other stuff will be worse than what kcp does but if I want to supplement those things and I want to grab two or three of those guys with my last two picks and I get those players who then contribute 11 and a half or 10 and a half assists between them that's okay versus taking that guy who theoretically is better but doesn't really give me any any level of boost there you know where I like kcp is if I've taken uh unhealthy un unhealthy if I've taken risky players early or in like a draft only League that's where I feel like he makes a lot of sense because you don't have to like think about it draft only draft only definitely changes that that idea yeah like because you we just finished yeah we just finished the draft only league and like I was looking my last pick in that one I think I was looking at Noah Clowney right and I was like yeah I'm I'm really excited to see what Clowney does but in a draft only League where every player contributes all the time I I don't know what's going to happen early on so you know what I I would never probably take this guy I'm just going to take Russell Westbrook here because I'm pretty confident he's going to play every game I think he's going to play 20 plus minutes every game and that's good like it doesn't matter if he like Clowny might play 30 minutes in March but you might play 12 minutes in November and December and that kills you and that 30 minutes become useless because I'm not using it so that does change your idea of what you do there so how do you then look at the the last few rounds I know we're chasing upside but how do you and and my goal with this podcast is always about simplifying the fantasy game what are sort of like the quick hitter criteria for even just isolating a group of players that might be worth looking at what are like for me I always like to say like are you looking at for minutes opportunity like these these these quick things that you can maybe fit together in a puzzle and it's never going to be that simple but if somebody had an hour to do it instead of 30 or whatever how do you begin to isolate those late targets the easiest thing down in the most basic rule I think is if you were towards the end of a draft what you want to look at is this is there anyone here who is a starting point guard with above 20% usage who plays 30 minutes if that guy exists that's upside right that that's that's Kobe white that is why I took Kobe white last season because okay he's going to start he's going to be above average usage there might be shaky but where do I find that player where does he come from K George is going to be that guy this year he's going to be the starting point guard who plays 30 plus minutes he might have some bad field goals but he also might not he might shoot 44% but I'd rather that than go oh well here's Max's 16 usage and he averages 10 points and which is fine but 25 maxusers will appear at other points in the season 27% 30 minute starting point guards do not and these guys might not work out right that that they might not work out they might be terrible and it might be a real drag on your field goal percentage and it might be like he's doing these things turning over five that all that stuff might happen but I they I can't just find that player just appearing all the time whereas I can find the guy who is drick Jones Jr I can find Naji Marshall playing 26 minutes and going 95 and two I can find those guys everywhere they they're going to appear every 5 Seconds Nick Batum will pop up and have a stretch where he shoots 70% from three for two weeks and I'll use him in that spot the high usage by high usage I just mean like there are starting point guards who might start at point guard and average with 17 usage with four assists it's completely useless that doesn't help me at all but a 30 minute guy with 20 plus usage as a as a point guard bank that is just if you wanted the simple rule if that person exists get him because that has that is upside y Jinx you owe me a coke uh what if that guy doesn't exist is there a second like batch of names to look at yep then the next one is which is the easiest translatable fantasy thing I think is who's a big man who blocks shots with high field goal percentage who's got that that chance to come out there play 24 minutes block Two Shots shoot 67% Derek Lively from last year Carlo Movic maybe it's this season maybe it is Daniel tys like is there an opening there who's going to start a new LS I don't know but one of these guys will get some minutes and that opportunity is there one of the things that the NBA loves right is switching Wings they play the two they play the three they play up to the four they shoot a little bit they can defend a little bit and that's great but in fantasy that transl nothing if a players are starting small forward and he gets hurt they don't just go all right back up small forward you're going from 15 minutes to 35 minutes they go we've got seven guys here who will play an extra three minutes a game and you'll all step up and you all do your little bits and pieces and that's great for winning basketball if a starting point guard goes down what do they do the backup goes from 18 minutes to 30 minutes if a starting center goes down the starting center played 28 minutes the backup comes in from 18 he goes to 27 minutes bang you get this gigantic increase at those two positions so they're the two things that I want to try and find at the end of the draft these other and you'll know this from drafting is that like shooting guards small forwards it's very sparse until you get to the last rounds it's like every play has a shooting guard or a small forward in those last few rounds because they average 10 points and they hit two threes and they have four rebounds and they have two assists and they get a steal and you go that's all so well well and good and that's great and for a rooto league that adds up during the season but they all all of those players on the Warriors too by the way every single one of them ex yep thisy if Kyle Anderson plays 28 minutes he'll do this and Buddy he will do this and de Mountain will do this and there's a million guys who do that but when's it ever taking off like it's it's all well and good if you want to just strictly look at this stuff from a well this will just accumulate over the season but that's not really how A head-to-head League works I just want to see what happens and if you don't take a flyer on someone in that last round or not even last round like I think once you get into your bench just start taking ping of guys because you there's going to be randoms that pop up all through this here's a question for you I I don't know the answer and you won't know the answer maybe you do maybe you're unbelievably brilliant how many players do you reckon in a standard League get used through the course of a season we've got 156 guys on a roster as a general say one I slot which pushes us up to like 168 can be on a roster at any point how many players do you reckon from the NBA total player pool get used during a season I haven't a clue uh there's 570 players or whatever that usually get into an NBA game I would say in a standard League we use we definitely use over 250 I would say it probably does push to probably to 300 which is basically double the amount of players that get Dr yeah meaning like most these a lot of these draft guys are ending up on the wire and then the next chunk of 50 below that and then the next chunk as we rotate through all of them yeah I mean this like the last few picks it's fun too if you look at the end of your year and just look at the last three rounds go back and look at the draft it's it's embarrassing it's like two out of 36 are on the roster at the end of the season it's man i grabb m f at 110 I'm set okay cool that really well that was man Cole Anthony what a sensational pick yeah okay for two minutes I'm going grab Tim Hardway J he's going to hit three3 okay that's that's I hope that works out for you because it won so like we're just gonna move on from nearly all of these guys so you just take the upside like would you have rather drafted sadique Bay or Jaylen Johnson you know obviously Jaylen Johnson yeah we sort of even though ba was the starter and I was picking baay in a lot of drafts last season because I thought Quin actually likes him he can do something I hate him as a play think he's really bad but I thought the opportunity was there that was terrible he was bad he's always been bad and I got fooled by my own stupidity but yeah there's there are certain ways to look at this yeah like I I always get sucked into it like two years ago I was like man I actually think the Pacers are gonna play Chris here I think he's terrible bad draft pick I don't know why they would do it but he might get me 1.4 Steals and 2.4 threes and then he played about 10 minutes for the year too hard on yourself because we all did that with like everyone on the Pacers that year should have just believed in myself and said DTE was [ __ ] oh well here's sadique B yeah he's also terrible ah but don't worry Josh I'm sure you're wrong again I'm sure he's actually really good he's actually bad again I wonder who that's going to be this season for me that I actually just adamant is terrible and then I convinced myself into picking I wonder who it's gonna be we all we all have our things and all and then like sadique Bay was in in that big chunk of players that I refer to as doesn't matter range between 120 and 160 it's like you play him you want I don't care like new AG Harrison bonds yeah he is is the new Harris although he's out for a while so Harrison Barnes is back to being Harrison Barnes again yeah Harrison Barnes and cin Johnson can have a battle to see who's gonna be the new Harrison bar new Harrison bars he won't give up that damn title so fast um okay so let's do a little bit of a lightning round thing here do you Josh change your Approach at all as you uh get near the playoffs in in head-to-head leagues playoffs um yeah you have to because we could sit here now Dan and we'd be 20 weeks away from playoff starting well not 20 weeks you know once the season starts with 20 weeks away you get to the start of March and you're two weeks away there's no longterm there's no all hole there's no stash there nothing it's like it's now it's happening right now so it turns into how would you approach a week what's the schedule look like how do I stream guys in how do I maximize what I'm doing what's my opponent doing this guy hurt get him out of here I don't need him on my team if he's going to play one game of 25 minutes there's no holding there's no stashing there's no wh ifs right you have to change your approach and the quicker not the quicker the time that you change your approach depends on where you are in the standings just sitting up the top and it's January the 16th you can still Coast you can still stash you can still hold it doesn't matter if you're 7th and it's January the 30th and you got four weeks until your playoffs start sorry to tell your playoffs started right now like you need to win every game you need to hyperfocus on these individual matchups just to get there because if you're like oh well if I just hold this guy in five weeks he'll be ready for the playoffs ass I'm sorry you're just not going to be there so there's there's probably some formula about you know the inverse relationship to standings positions and dates is how quickly you got to transition that mode across but whatever like if you're up the top you're good if you if you're battling you got to start moving into I gotta go hard I got to stream all my Max moves every week get everything out of it cut dead weight do whatever you got to start to do that earlier do you ever lean harder into five categories just try to win 54 in the playoffs in that situation yeah look that's just going to depend also on the way your team looks have a look at your past results like are you just constantly winning these categories because there's also ways we can look at it and I do projections this is what I do right but you can go in there and look at projections and projection matchups and projected standings and go well I'm projected to win this 63 and then the difference between threes is five threes for the week okay that is a coin flip right that is like if something is a coin flip don't count it as a win be very either hyperfocused on getting it or just see what happens see the ones that you think you're really close to being yeah I'll tick that off as a as a clear win lock those away and then work on the other stuff that way so yeah like if you need to start narrowing down your focus there's no point I don't think once you get into playoffs and go well yeah know there's probably seven categories here could go either way well that just means you're yeah you're just coin fli it you're on the way out 50/50 you got know you're not putting your best foot forward to say that you're going to win so even if you're competitive in these categories yeah stuff can go wrong and he can have someone sit out and miss a game randomly but you know what can also happen then so can you and that's like your that's Razor Edge stuff and I'd like to be able to guarantee something and then still have a couple of those coin flip things versus just leave everything up to oh well we'll see last couple of extraordinarily quick questions for the great Josh Lloyd Redrock bball uh when should your head-to-head League end how many weeks do you cut off the end March 23rd is the date that is three weeks of the regular season left three weeks playoffs before that as well uh yeah look do whatever you want with your playoffs but yeah if you have two you three that's not my problem like you can make that decision however you want to do it but finish finish on March the 23rd I don't I tell you what we need to get away from doing I know the NBA instituted this and and Yahoo started doing it and everyone started doing it down we we do need to get away from the way that we name weeks because it is going to be incredibly confusing because not only do does this year we have I'll say it's week 20 or 19 and 20 is combined into one week to become the F the allstar game right so it gets combined there so we can say well this is week 20 of the NBS is but it's actually week 19 of the fantasy playoffs what week should I end in my fantasy playoffs well it's 21 if you use this calendar and who cares we got to use dates but now yaho is also combining the week around the inseason tournament finals so I think it's week six and seven or might be seven eight I don't know is combined into one week so we're going to have two of these combo weeks so we're going to hit week 22 and it's going to be named week 20 and we're going to be over the shop that's an extra level of confusion dates March 23rd we' got to use dates dates March 23rd uh and I forgot my last question so you may have actually just gotten off the hook because Dano has the brain uh filled with warm mush come on Dan it's in there I oh I remember uh iil slots do you go I or ilil plus and how many zero reason for I absolutely no reason whatsoever I I would want to into like if you're running a fantasy league why do you want to put something like that where there can be arbitrary situations designations rule changes timings put in someone else's hands hey give me the I I need the I this guy's been out for three games well actually he's only been missing five days yeah but you gave it to this guy eliminated why you worried about whoever's running that at yaho I don't know who it is I know it's not our friend Dan Titus is doing that but someone's doing it and they're going to cop and I've I've told I've told them this I've told Dan this and he i w say that he agrees because you we can have conv but um it's like eliminate your problems like the amount of abuse these Yahoo accounts get hey put this guy in eliminate it but just stopping that being the default setting or getting rid of it like there is no need for this I to wait for this decision to when this guy gets that and this guy gets it before lock and then the other team gets their guy after lock and it changes what you can do for that matchup and it impacts all of that there's no reason for that and people say well there's an il+ scam where you can put them ahead of it like the way limit that is you have a limit on the amount of ads you can make for the week and then you can't scam for unlimited games because you've got a limit on how many ads you can make and if someone is sitting in your IL spot that you put there on Friday earlier in the week well and then they become healthy well then you'll have these illegal lineups that you can't actually make the moves it's really not I don't think that's that complicated the answer to your question down I know you want to short yeah it's I plus I would put three I to me the fewer you put the more unbalanced your league becomes the less competitive your league becomes because like we just said the team that's at the top on January the 1st and they're cruising and someone has to drop a second round player because they're out for five weeks and they just need a spot to compete and they don't have their because their first round guys out as well well that first guy grabs him sits on him they can afford to lose for three weeks they get that guy back and they're unbeatable what's what what's what do we want that why do we want that to be the situation like if an NBA team loses their best player they don't have to be like I know we're not playing real life basketball but if they lose their best player sorry sorry Katie we're going to have to let you go um we actually just need a healthy body this week you're going to have to go and then like he goes and signs with a minimum with the Celtics and like that's it like what's what's four like just have have there's to me there is zero downside oh makes the waiver wi more fun I just I just don't agree with that all it means is that the top teams get better the bottom teams get worse they give up earlier more unbalanced matchups through the season Le more people disillusioned with the game yeah no I'm in total agreement with you on that one and and like it's weird that people say that they they want great players sitting on the waiver wire I do not understand it it's wacky and then everybody also wants the teams near the bottom to stay competitive longer this is a way to guarantee they don't like I exactly in any event uh my more mush brain did remember that last question so that was good for me I feel Pat myself on the back uh Josh thank you so much for teaching everybody how to win a damn head-to-head League you're the man uh Red Rock bball again just just follow locked on Fantasy Basketball you're going to get a crap ton of shows coming Josh doesn't know exactly how many but it's going to be many uh can I get you back here in a couple of weeks I I'll come up with a few more ideas I am sure that I will be I'll be sitting in the studio I know that much to answer yeah absolutely I'll send you a link and if you click it you're coming on the show how about that I'll be here with a microphone and just we'll see what comes out thanks Josh that was the inimitable Josh Lloyd Redrock uncore bball you guys know Josh he's the lead fantasy basketball Analyst at basketball monster he is the host of locked on fantasy basketball and by the way and you guys see me throw like rank boards up on the screen on this show that's basketball Monsters free player rank page that is free it's a terrific resource um it also loads really fast because it's basically just numerical data they have not inundated dated their pages with um you know autoplay ads and what other nonsense sometimes you guys see me like a basketball reference which by the way also a very good website but there's ads playing there's Graphics flashing same things happening on Yahoo all this stuff basketball reference does a really nice job of of pairing things down to that exactly what you're hunting for and uh definitely makes it easier for me to throw up on a video screen here uh thank you to Josh that is how you ladies and gentlemen win your head-to-head basketball league it's so simple I kid uh obviously there are a lot of steps along the way this is why we're going to talk you guys through all of this uh adnasium here during the fantasy basketball runup during the season we're going to be hunting for great pickups things of that nature uh and we'll talk to Josh again probably in the next few weeks three four weeks uh you guys know I always run my nine cat industry Roto League um because you know at my heart I'm a roto guy and Josh will likely be a part of that as well uh we will do a roto strategy show that will probably be mostly me because I nobody wants to hear me talk about Roto it's uh it's like listening to a freaking sonnet the way I think about it um and that'll be coming up probably a little bit closer to the start of the season but I wanted to get this one out there because everybody's booting up their head-to-heads uh head-to-head leagues right now and uh so everybody's getting themselves ready coming up here on old man squad fantasy basketball we will be doing a mock draft tomorrow there is no question about that there have been requests for 10 teamers there have been requests for points League mocks we'll get those going at some point I want to get through each kind of team build before we sort of venture out into the other types of league so we still haven't done a wemi build Believe It or Not Adam King did on the show but I didn't do it myself I haven't done a sha build yet we haven't done a halberton build yet we haven't done a Tatum build yet we haven't done a KD build yet uh and I think that's basically your sort of like standard first round names did I do an embiid build no but we did a whole show with Rhett on how to work around Jo andb it doesn't necessarily need to be a mock draft to kind of understand the general idea there so we'll get mock drafts going we still got 75 through 100 to cover on the redone Yahoo board we've got some draft results that were sent in from uh nfb KC leagues we're going to go over there those on the show uh and it's time ladies and gentlemen for the next round of guest interviews as well lots of awesome stuff coming up here on old man squad and I thank you all for listening please take a moment to like rate subscribe you guys know the drill at this point follow Josh on social follow his pod follow me on social at Dan bers and Oldman Squad again those subscriptions and those reviews they really do go a long way uh thank you all so much again we'll see you guys tomorrow [Music] [Music] [Music]