Matt Bonner Projected to Win Jon Barry MVP

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry. At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

Here are the top competitors in the Jon Barry MVP race, with this week’s score and season-long score:

• Matt Bonner, 1.0, 10.5
• Jarrett Jack, 0.9, 0.9
• Rasual Butler, 0.8, 1.6
• Delonte West, 0.7, 2.9
• Steve Blake, 0.6, 0.6
• James Posey, 0, 7.6
• Udonis Haslem, 0, 4.0

With only a week or so left to play, it’s safe to say that Matt Bonner will win the Jon Barry MVP trophy.  Congratulations to Matt, who will also star in an upcoming film with Jon Barry, who’s actually just one of Ali G’s alter-egos.

Meanwhile, here are the standings in my lone fantasy basketball league:

• League leader: 92 points
• 2nd place: 75 points
• My team: 71.5 points
• 4th place 68.5 points

Thus it’s also safe to project that the Hurricane and I will not win our league, after a moderately disastrous season.  2nd and 4th are both remote possibilities, but we likely finish 3rd.  Next year, when planning our draft, I plan to experiment by using Bonner, Posey, Haslem and West as examples of replacement players.

Jon Barry All-Stars, Mar. 23

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry. At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

This was the first week I looked at the Jon Barry All-Stars and said “whoa, that guy’s available?  I should pick him up.”  Chris Duhon’s been struggling lately, but on the season he’s been pretty solid.  Might add him, might now.  Here’s the list (full season score):

• Matt Bonner (8.5)
• Chris Duhon (0.9)
• Delonte West (1.6)
• James Posey (7.6)
• Joel Przybilla (0.6)

Jon Barry All-Stars, Mar. 16

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

A couple new entrants this week, as Delonte West reverses his being erased from the list due to injury by making it again.  Here’s the top five (total score on the season):

• Matt Bonner (7.5)
• James Posey (6.9)
• Delonte West (0.8)
• Udonis Haslem (3.4)
• Brad Miller (0.6)

Is Jon Barry responsible for the recession?

In thinking and writing about Jon Barry, and how he’s influenced my views of fantasy sports, I thought of the following:

As unemployment rises, the quality of the best available replacement workers improves.  This reduces the incentive for firms to retain marginal employees, since the firm can more easily hire someone good if and when conditions improve.  Thus, unemployment increases further.

By analogy, suppose that the best available player in your fantasy basketball league was not Jon Barry-like James Posey, but rather, the considerably better Stephen Jackson.  Now suppose that your team didn’t have a fixed size, but rather, you pay per player, and that you’re losing money.  Now, if you have Grant Hill or Jason Richardson, you’d be more likely to drop them, given that you always re-add them or pick up Jackson, as opposed to having to add Posey.  But by dropping Hill or Richardson, you add the list of strong available players, and make it more likely someone drops someone even better, like Andre Iguodala.

Of course, the flip-side is that when conditions to improve, there’s a run on the best available replacement players, where suddenly everyone’s rushing to add good talent…Iguodala, Hill, Richardson, Jackson all get added, and so do James Posey and maybe even Jon Barry himself.

Hopefully, this is where the economy’s heading.

Jon Barry All-stars, Mar. 9

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

This week’s five (total points on the season):

• Ronny Turiaf (1.8)
• Matt Bonner (6.5)
• James Posey (6)
• Chris Anderson (1.3)
• Udonis Haslem (2.7)

Matt Bonner continues to slowly build on his lead in the two-man race.  There are enough impressive swingmen available in the league that I think Posey probably won’t see an add.  Bonner might, if someone wants a center who can shoot the 3-ball.  For now, the Jon Barry MVP trophy is Bonner’s to lose.

Why Jon Barry matters

I’ve typed the name Jon Barry a ton recently.  I’m tempted to change the name of this blog to youlikeadajonbarry.com.  I envision Jon Barry’s mom googling him and stumbling onto this site, and being very confused, though perhaps somewhat amused.

The reason I’m interested in Jon Barry, and in Matt Bonner and James Posey, who look like this year’s Jon Barry MVPs for my league, is that they illustrate an interesting concept for fantasy purposes: they’re the best available replacement player (BARP).  There are a number of interesting observations to make about BARPs:

• They tend to outperform a lot of owned players.  Bonner and Posey are ranked 67th and 91st in my league, in which 144 players are owned.
• Presumably then, most managers would be well-served by adding them and dropping someone off their team.
• Managers generally don’t do so, and the same players appear near the top of the waiver wire all season long.

Jon Barry All-Stars, March 2

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

This week’s top 5 (total points this season):

• Matt Bonner (5.6)
• James Posey (5.2)
• Udonis Haslem (2.1)
• Erick Dampier (1.9)
• Chris Anderson (0.6)

At the top, it’s a two-man race between Bonner and Posey, who’ve been on the list every week since I started this feature.  Bonner has the edge, but either of them could get added at any time.

I’m writing a post about the significance of the Jon Barry All-Stars in thinking about fantasy sports, and I’ll also write soon about my prep for the upcoming fantasy baseball season.

Jon Barry All-Stars, Feb. 24

Each week I look at the top players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player earning the most Jon Barry points will be named Jon Barry MVP.

I’m making a change to the system I use to determine the Jon Barry All-Stars.  Too many injured players are appearing in the top 5 available players list; this week, Al Jefferson, Jason Terry and Andrew Bynum make the list, and none of them are Jon Barry All-Stars.  Had I tracked this list throughout the season, these injured players probably wouldn’t matter, but at this point they’re creating problems.  Jon Barry was memorable because he was always available to pick up, healthy (this isn’t actually true), and mediocre.

From now on, injured players, as defined by the Yahoo! little red health box, will be omitted from the Jon Barry All-Stars.  The top five ranked, non-injured players will comprise the list.  Also, I’m going to assign players points based on where they are on the list.  First receives 1 point, second 0.9, third 0.8, fourth 0.7, fifth 0.6.  I’m pulling a Nate Silver, tweaking my model, and going back to recalculate players’ scores.  Here are the new rankings (the results of the model):

This week’s rankings (total score):

• Jamario Moon (3.0)
• Matt Bonner (4.6)
• James Posey (4.3)
• Udonis Haslem (1.3)
• Erick Dampier (1.2)

Jon Barry All-Stars, Feb. 16

Each week I look at the top 5 players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player appearing most often in this list will be named Jon Barry MVP.

Another big drop shifts the race, while the leading candidates narrow to two.  This week’s five (total appearances on the list in parentheses):

Al Jefferson (1), Jamario Moon (2), Andrew Bynum (2), Matt Bonner (4), James Posey (4).

As expected, injured Delonte West falls out of the top 5.  Injured Jefferson is dropped and will probably remain on the list through the year, since he’s already put up strong enough numbers to give him good value for the season.  This makes me a little nervous, as the purpose of the Jon Barry MVP award is to recognize an active player who’s just not quite good enough to get added, but nonetheless hangs out atop the waiver wire all season.  Had I been keeping track all season, Jefferson would have no chance to win the award, and as it stands, I see Bonner and Posey as much likelier options, but I wonder whether I need to tweak the system so as to omit injured players.  For now the list stands.

Jon Barry All-Stars, Feb. 9

Each week I look at the top 5 players available in my fantasy basketball league to determine the Jon Barry All-stars, named after waiver wire favorite Jon Barry.  At year’s end, the player appearing most often in this list will be named Jon Barry MVP.

Bit of a shake-up this week as a couple players got dropped into the top of the waiver wire and one other player got picked up.  This week’s five (total appearances on the list in parentheses):

Jamario Moon (1), Andrew Bynum (1), Matt Bonner (3), Delonte West (3), James Posey (3)

Delonte West falls 3 spots, having been at the top of the list the previous two weeks.  He’s injured, so he’ll keep falling, and as soon as he gets healthy, someone will pick him up.  That leaves, as I predicted, Bonner and Posey as the favorites for the Jon Barry MVP award.  However, Moon presents a new potential competitor.  Unlike Bynum, he wasn’t dropped because of injury, but rather because of his benching.  Given that he put up decent fantasy numbers throughout the year, and that he’ll continue to get some play time, he may be able to sneak in and take the award.  Either Bonner or Posey could get picked up any time.