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By Jon Loomer
June 1 - Prior to the start of the season, the NBA announced the first-ever "All-NBA First Team - Fantasy" Award, marking the first time a professional sports league would recognize the best fantasy players around the world.
Here we are, and now we have our team. This squad was determined through competition in our Salary Cap Challenge. The top five fantasy players in the season long game would be named to the "2005-06 All-NBA First Team - Fantasy."
As the season went on, you were given a preview of the contenders. Mike Park of Huntington Beach, Calif., won Season One of the Salary Cap Challenge and immediately became a favorite to make the team. As a part of his prize package for winning Season One, Park appeared as a fantasy expert on NBA TV's fantasy basketball show with Rick Kamla.
So did he run the table? Absolutely. Following is a list of our winners:
| Rank | Name | Home City |
| 1 | Mike Park | Huntington Beach, Calif. |
| 2 | Greg Wu | Chicago, Ill. |
| 3 | Evelyn Hu | Hacienda Heights, Calif. |
| 4 | Brian Lynch | Waconia, Minn. |
| 5 | Rick Harkins | Pismo Beach, Calif. |
We have an interesting group of people. Four of the five winners (Park, Wu, Hu, and Lynch) are in their mid-20s. Rick Harkins, at 57, is the elder statesman of the bunch. It is also apparent that California is a fantasy hotbed, as Park, Hu and Harkins all call it their home. Surprisingly, fantasy veterans did not hold an advantage in this contest as two of the five -- including the overall winner -- considered themselves fantasy rookies. Brian Lynch is a fantasy veteran and deals with statistics for a living, so his finish came naturally. We have a diverse group of winners otherwise with Park (dental technician), Greg Wu (attorney), Evelyn Hu (software technician), and Harkins (teacher) proving that fantasy experts come from all backgrounds.
That is a quick run-down of our winners, but feel free to check out their profiles.
What was their secret? For those of you who have not participated in a Salary Cap league before, an explanation is in order. Each participant plays in a league, but all are able to own the same players. Each person is given a $35M spending limit and then needs to spend that money on two guards, two forwards, one center, and a "sixth man" (any position). The "cost" of players heading into the season is determined by their performance from last season and projections for the upcoming year. As the season goes on, their value changes depending on their production.
Participants then struggle with when to buy and when to sell. Typically, you want to buy players when they are underpriced. "Buy low and sell high," they say. As a couple of our winners also point out, another key strategy is maximizing games played by picking healthy players and those whose teams are having a heavy schedule of games coming up. The problem, of course, is that each owner is limited to the number of trades that they can make. So each move matters.
So what common thread among these five winners helped them achieve this award? There are two seasons -- one before and one after the All-Star break. We compared the players owned by these five owners for both seasons -- giving us a total of 10 teams to compare.
There were three players who were owned by all five winners in each league: Yao Ming, Chris Paul, and Boris Diaw. These players were the secrets, it would appear, to success. Greg Wu found the biggest bargain in Diaw, buying him at a mere $3,945,000. Lynch was quickest to jump on Chris Paul for a bargain at $4,367,500, and he also got the best deal on Yao Ming at $5,500,000.
On the flip side, star players such as Ray Allen, Kirk Hinrich, Andre Miller, and Chris Bosh were each owned only once by one of these owners throughout the season.
No matter the strategy, these individuals know their fantasy basketball and proved that in a major way this season. Not only do they bring home some fantastic prizes, but they are the first ever to say that the NBA has announced them as members of the All-NBA First Team - Fantasy. Congratulations.
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