Summertime is almost here, and that means life without fantasy hoops. How to slog through the off-season with nary a block, a steal or a board?

I am absolutely not kidding you, I once seriously contemplated joining a fantasy cricket league as my methadone for the summer. I even made a spreadsheet for the player stats.

But until they invent some sort of cryonic procedure to put you in suspended animation for five months, I have no idea how to make that time of year anything less than a harrowing ordeal of searing pain.

(BTW: if you’re looking for an up-and-coming orthodox off-spin bowler for this season, give Graeme Swann a hard look.)

In any event, the clock is ticking down on the season. It’s the special time when we get to see the games that are simultaneously the least important for the real NBA players and the most important for the fantasy players. Here’s hoping your star doesn’t sit out the last three games of your finals with a bee sting or a dry scalp.

It’s time to continue with the end of year awards. Today I bestow three coveted pieces of hardware: the Ira Newble Award, the Donyell Marshall Trophy, and the Jason and Jarron Collins Ribbon.

First off, the Newble award. Of course we all remember the legendary Ira Newble. No? Then certainly a look at the numbers for his career year, 2001-02, will jog your memory:

IRA NEWBLE	MIN/G	FG%	FT%	PTS	3P	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	SCR
2001-02	30.3	.492	.857	8.9	0.9	5.3	1.1	0.9	0.5	1.2	-1.46

Are you telling me you still don’t remember? Funny, because we in my league will never forget. The reason was that Ira was the top bubble player of the 2001-02 season. You know, that dude who’s seemingly always the best available and unclaimed player out there. Ira factored into many free agent decisions in our league, particularly on Saturday night. And because he wasn’t truly any good, he ended up on, and off, and on, and off, and on and off and on and off many fantasy teams.

We in my league may use the term “Ira Newble” as a noun, as in referring to a Paul Millsap or an Anthony Morrow as “The best Ira Newble out there.” Or it may be a verb, as in “I’m going to Ira Newble Courtney Lee for Sunday to pick up a few steals.”

To name this year’s Newble Award winner I counted up the guys in my league who were picked up and cut the most times, causing the most disappointed groaning and cursing on the part of me and my fellow owners. And without further ado the winners are:

Player	Adds
battier	7
conley	7
flynn	7
miller,mike	7
butler,rasual	6
dunleavy	6
hill,george	6
varejao	6
gooden	5
hawes	5
lee,courtney	5
millsap	5
morrow	5
odom	5
robinson,nate	5
wallace,rasheed	5

Mike Miller was once actually decent before he stopped shooting (check the stats – it’s quite remarkable how that happened). Perhaps some owners in my league held out hopes that something would jog his memory and he’d recall what he was supposed to with that orange thing that occasionally got thrown his way.

Johnny Flynn was a source of assists for owners desperate to fill in that hard-to-find category, but his putrid overall game quickly landed him back on the waiver wire over and over. Battier is Battier: the all-around guy who you pick up because you decide he gives you a little bit of everything, but then when you have him on your squad you decide he gives you a whole lot of nothing and send him back to the free agent pool.

An interesting case here is Conley, who actually turned it on late in the season and shed his journeyman status. I’d recommend grabbing him next year on the grounds that his game has evolved, except check the splits for 2008-09; he also went on an incredible post-all star tear last year, only to completely regress for the first half of this one. Fool me once, shame on you...

We proceed to the Donyell Marshall Trophy. This is awarded in honor of my beloved Donyell, frequent contributor to my DireWolves squad and a terrific player whom coaches simply would not give the minutes he deserved.

Donyell averaged 26.2 minutes for his career. So the Marshall award goes to the best player of the year who averaged less than 26.2 minutes. The winner is:

PLAYER	MIN/G	FG%	FT%	PTS	3P	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	SCR
oden,greg	23.9	.605	.766	11.1	0.0	8.5	0.9	0.4	2.3	1.9	0.82
azubuike,kelenna	25.7	.545	.679	13.9	1.1	4.6	1.1	0.6	1.0	0.8	-0.12
batum,nicolas	23.9	.544	.895	9.9	1.4	3.6	1.2	0.6	0.7	0.7	-0.22
dalembert,samuel	25.8	.542	.759	8.1	0.0	9.5	0.8	0.5	1.9	1.5	-0.24
randolph,anthony	22.7	.443	.801	11.6	0.0	6.5	1.3	0.8	1.5	1.5	-1.16
wallace,rasheed	22.8	.401	.802	9.0	1.1	4.1	1.0	1.1	0.9	0.8	-1.72
gooden,drew	24.8	.473	.858	10.7	0.0	7.8	0.7	0.6	0.9	1.5	-1.75
thornton,marcus	24.5	.451	.818	13.8	1.6	2.8	1.4	0.7	0.2	1.0	-1.80
andersen,chris	22.5	.565	.700	6.0	0.0	6.4	0.4	0.6	1.9	0.8	-1.85
villanueva,charl	23.8	.437	.813	11.8	1.2	4.7	0.6	0.6	0.7	1.0	-2.11

 

Take a look at who dominates the pack. Yes, Oden’s injuries make him stand out as a bust, but when on the court he has definitely shown flashes of what made him the most hyped player entering the draft since a guy named LeBron. High risk/high reward here, but definitely worth a flyer next year if the price is right.

Speaking of tips for next year, definitely don’t neglect Thornton, who was already getting big minutes and making the most of them for my squad at the end of this year. And of course, Anthony Randolph will be back to tantalize us with his terrific potential.

To see how these guys stack up against the great Marshall, I picked Donyell’s best year when he would have had few enough minutes to qualify for the award, 2004-05. His numbers:

DONYELL MARSHALL	MIN/G	FG%	FT%	PTS	3P	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	SCR
2004-05	25.3	.443	.791	11.5	2.3	6.6	1.2	0.9	0.7	0.6	1.27

 

So Marshall of the 2004-05 vintage would have won his own award this year going away. They’ll never make another Donyell.

Finally, there is the Marshall award’s inverse, the Jarrod and Jason Collins Ribbon. The Collins Ribbon is named for those talentless twins who somehow managed to run up and down the court while having almost no relationship with the fact that a basketball game was going on around them. Jarron was the worse of the two, so let’s consider the “better” one, Jason. His career year:

JASON COLLINS	MIN/G	FG%	FT%	PTS	3P	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	SCR
2004-05	31.8	.412	.656	6.4	0.0	6.1	1.3	0.9	0.9	1.1	-4.20

One would think that with 31.8 minutes on the court Collins would have gotten more points and boards just from the occasional ball that bounced off the rim, accidentally hit his head and went in the basket. But there it is.

The Collins ribbon goes to the worst player who got 31.8 minutes (like Jason’s best year) or more for the season, and managed to chalk up the most anemic stats. And the “winner” is:

 

PLAYER	MIN/G	FG%	FT%	PTS	3PM	REB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	SCR
hamilton,richard	33.7	.409	.846	18.1	0.9	2.7	4.4	0.7	0.1	2.5	-3.57
young,thaddeus	32.0	.470	.691	13.8	0.7	5.2	1.4	1.2	0.2	1.9	-2.50
butler,rasual	32.4	.416	.847	12.0	1.8	2.9	1.3	0.4	0.8	0.9	-2.23
hinrich,kirk	32.8	.400	.740	10.3	1.3	3.5	4.5	1.2	0.3	1.6	-2.15
stuckey,rodney	34.7	.406	.838	17.0	0.2	4.0	4.9	1.4	0.2	2.3	-2.03
diaw,boris	35.5	.480	.754	11.2	0.8	5.1	3.8	0.7	0.6	2.2	-1.97
kaman,chris	34.5	.485	.755	18.3	0.0	9.2	1.6	0.5	1.1	3.0	-1.88
gordon,eric	35.9	.447	.747	16.9	1.9	2.6	2.9	1.1	0.2	2.3	-1.87
artest,ron	34.2	.418	.673	11.2	1.4	4.4	3.0	1.4	0.3	1.6	-1.85
westbrook,russel	34.3	.420	.764	16.1	0.3	4.9	8.0	1.4	0.4	3.2	-1.77

 

Looks like Rip Hamilton was in a deeper sleep than Rip Van Winkle this year. Also of note is the fact that I had two of these bums on my squad this year. Even more interesting is the fact that not one, not two, but three Clippers came in in the “top” 10.

You’ll note that even the worst high-minute players of the year, though, don’t even come close to matching the epic season of the great Jason. So it’s up to next year’s competitors to try to unseat the player who played more like Jackie Collins than Doug Collins.

And that concludes the awards from this season. Good luck with the next one…