Once More Into the Void

 Gents,

Some quick injury/lineup news and then some fun

• Draymond's out. Don't worry, OMT has already benched Chris Paul
• Jose Alvarado will miss the season opener, so good call on not drafting him
• Vanderbilt's out for the season opener, so we won't learn much about that PF rotation for the Lakers just yet
• Booker and Beal are questionable. If you've got a Sun, stay vigilant
• Thybulle is starting for the Blazers
• Josh Richardson is uncertain for Wednesday
• James Harden, still away from the team. I would think they start Melton, but they could go with Pat Bev. We'll see more clearly tomorrow
• Tari Eason's out 2-3 weeks, so Cam Whitmore may just crack the rotation
• Detroit Bogdanovic is out for the opener, so we won't resolve Detroit's insane starting lineup situation yet
• Steven Adams is gone for the year. Tillman should start, but keep an eye on flexibility with their insane number of young, big wings
• Frankie Smokes fractured his tibia. He was set up to get some minutes, so that opens up either Nick Smith Jr or, woof, James Bouknight
• Rudy Gay is once more a free agent after being dropped by GS. If they didn't want him, I don't know who will
• Justise Winslow Hive stand up! He signed with the Raptors
• Finally, Haywood Highsmith will miss two weeks, so get ready to learn some names off this Miami bench

Okay, the fun

The season is finally upon us. Let's look back and see if we can't learn anything from last year. Isaac, consider this your victory lap

1. Transactions Matter, to an Extent: Two of the top three finishers in the regular season last year made the most and second most roster moves (96 and 87). As a foil to that point, the winner of it all made only 58
2. So, How Many Roster Moves Should You Make? Well, league average was 52. Old Man Team reached the most and earned the least by making 86 moves and finishing 7th, while Steven's horribly-named team made the most with the least by making only 38 moves and finishing 4th
3. Chase Double Doubles: They're heavily weighted. 1st and 2nd place in the regular season notched league-high 55 and 54 double doubles last year. As a counter, 9th place finished with 44, which ranked third in the league, shout out to Bobby Portis. Obviously, triple doubles are worth chasing, too. Just good luck getting them now that Russ is starting
4. Turnovers Are a Good Thing? Isaac won the league last year with over 100 more turnovers than second place, coming up just four shy of 1,000. Kenny lost the league with 90 fewer turnovers than ninth place, and was the only team sub 500. What does this mean? I think it plays into the next point
5. Assists, Baby: The top three teams in assists were the top three regular season teams. The only two teams to not register 1,000 assists missed the playoffs. So ball movement > chucking
6. Threes Aren't Everything: Despite how the league has gone since Steph hit the scene, making threes in this league is good, not great. Old Man Team hit the third most threes in the league last year and finished 8th, barely scraping into the playoffs. Will finished 7th in made threes but second in the league
7. Stocks: The only team to finish the season with 500 blocks and 300 steals was Will, who finished the league second. Cody missed it by 9 steals, no one else was particularly close. Only one team finished with fewer than 300 steals, obviously Kenny. The goal for steals seems to be 400, as four teams landed in that range. Blocks were much harder to come by. Three teams were in the 300s, four in the 200s. Your bottom three were stuck in the 100s
8. 600 is the Magic Number: Five teams averaged fewer than 600 fantasy points per week, five averaged higher. Four teams were in the 600s, and realistically Isaac is only in the 700s because of that cosmic event of a championship week. The two teams who scored in the 300s missed the playoffs

Goodbye and good luck