Our second annual Dropping Dimes Experts League had its draft last night. Ron Chow and I are co-managing a team this year. What follows is a log of the draft from our perspective but something more important comes first.

Ron is taking a leave of absence from Dropping Dimes. One of the original four writers here, Ron will be missed. He was a regular contributor to our mock blog and during the season helped out with our rankings and wrote a feature called “Injury Impact.” He says it’s a break, but it feels like when a girl tells you that and it’s actually a break-up. So cheers to you, bro, and good luck with everything.

Ron was an usher at my wedding and a pallbearer for my grandmother’s funeral. Our friendship extends way beyond the boundaries of fantasy sports. It was Ron though, who got me back into the game after a long hiatus. He was the commish of our main league as our friends and us ventured into Yahoo fantasy sports for the first time. Years later, we tag-teamed writing fantasy basketball articles at another site. We did something called “Fantasy Battleground” where we basically transcribed our conversations/debates about two similar players. After doing that for a season, we joined Dennis as he started Dropping Dimes and have had lots of fun working together. Ron keeps the team here grounded. He is not one to chase the limelight, and was always the first one to volunteer when someone (i.e. Dennis) needed something done quickly around here. He always tried to help, even if it meant rearranging his other plans. One of the most fun we’ve had here was last year during our first mock draft blog. Dennis wanted to write about Shawn Marion, so Ron graciously took Dirk Nowitzki even though Matrix was the logical pick. Dennis then punked Ron a bit about it, so Ron and I dug for pictures of Marion (whom we both like, by the way, who doesn’t?) getting punked by the players we drafted. Good times, bro. Hopefully after some time away, you will make it back to the team. But for now, I am glad that we can co-manage this team so that you can still keep tabs on us here.

So here is a time log of last night’s events. Our site hopes to have full draft results and reactions from all the participants posted on here very soon.

8:20 pm: Ron is over at my house. He spills beer all over my nice dining table. The above sentimentalities are thrown out the window. I cuss Ron out. He gets all red in the face and apologizes profusely while wiping up his mess. It is mad fun pushing a man at least three weight classes above you to the brink of crying just by making a mad face and raising your voice.

8:30 pm: Our friend, Peter, begged to watch us draft tonight. Our main league drafts at the end of next week. He was supposed to be here by now. Ron calls him. He is close by and says he is bringing “a special guest.” I’m hoping for someone like Raptor GM, Bryan Colangelo. After all, it’s draft night! It turns out to be his wife. Thumbs down on the “special guest” build-up, but great to see his wife, a dear friend of ours.

8:46 pm: Dennis lands the first pick overall. He is the commish. This thing is obviously rigged. Last year he drew the second pick, ended up with Shawn Marion in a roto league, ended up winning, and now incessantly brags about it. So here we go again. Sarge gets to pick second, and Matt Satten gets third. What about us, D?! We are two originals, after all. Guess that is not worth much anymore.

8:47 pm: We check out the rest of the draft order. Dr. A. from Rotoworld/NBC Sports is fourth. Kelly Dwyer from ESPN/TrueHoop is fifth, then Neil Tardy from ESPN. Neil was in our league last year. James Quintong, from Sports Illustrated garners the number seven pick. Okay, all bitterness aside, the draft order was totally random. Emry Downinghall from SLAM magazine picks just in front of us. I remember years ago, when I worked a low-end student job at a community pharmacy. I took a break and walked to a nearby gas station and saw this new fly mag with Larry Johnson aka Grandmama on the way to crazy jam. So being in a league with someone from SLAM carries a certain level of hype for me. Excellent. After us, Sergio Gonzalez from CBS Sports, Brandon from Fantasy Lounge and now also Dropping Dimes, Ryan McNeill from HoopsAddict.com, our friend Nels from GiveMetheRock.com and Jed Berger from DIME magazine round out the field.

8:48 pm: D declares that he is taking Kobe with the first pick…or Matrix…or KG…or Jorge Garbajosa. Nels ignites a brainstorm on ahem, heavy set basketball players. Because D ain’t exactly a featherweight. And he wet his pants the first time he met Ron and me. The only reason I bring that up is I am still bitter at his horseshoe butt landing the first pick.

8:49 pm: Khalid El-Amin leads to Tractor Traylor which leads to “The Big O,” Oliver Miller. Someone wonders whether Traylor is in prison. “Does anyone say no to Traylor in prison if he needs some love?” D asks. I would rather not think about that, D, thank you very much.

8:52 pm: D updates us on our pre-season positional rankings, which are appearing on both this site and Sports Illustrated. Someone e-mailed D ranting about how Steve Nash should have been the top point guard, not realizing these were fantasy rankings, which is why we gave the love to Agent Zero. D was nice about it in his response and the guy ended up apologizing. I take a mental note to rescind my revenge tactic and cancel his subscription to a male gigolo messageboard.

8:53 pm: We learn that Kelly Dwyer is participating in his first actual draft. Rounds of de-virgination jokes run rampant.

8:54 pm: Sarge pimps his football blog, First and Ten Inches. D has taught you well in how to whore yourself, Sarge.

8:57 pm: No sign of Satten yet. C’mon Matt, time to represent!

8:59 pm: Almost draft time! Matt makes it just in the nick of time. Ron and I have never been in a 14-team league before. Two centers each means 28 centers need to be active. It’s a weekly league so rotating players in and out will not be possible. We figure taking one, maybe two centers, in rounds one and two, given our draft position, might be the way to go. This is how the conversation goes.

me: “We should look at Yao in the first round.”

Ron: “Yeah…or Josh Smith.”

me: “We can even go fanboy and take CB4.”

Ron: “Yeah, yeah…or Josh Smith.”

me: “Amare and Gasol are out there too. 14 teams means they are first rounders for sure.”

Ron: “Yep…or we could take Josh Smith.”

me: “If any of these guys, or Tim Duncan, drops to the second round, we snatch them up.”

Ron: “JOSH SMITH!”

Ron has a thing for J-Smoove.

Meanwhile Brandon who I believe is in Arizona sends a shout-out to Sarge on the baseball front. They hope for a Diamondbacks/Indians World Series. It is strange to say this, but I hope the Red Sox beat Cleveland. Sarge has suffered enough this year with the Buckeyes losing twice to Florida, and then the Cavs getting swept in the Finals. So nothing against the Indians, but go away. Let my boy, Sarge grieve another day. Last thing I want is for him to jump into a vat of chemicals and go Joker on us.

9:00 pm: Draft time! Someone asks, “Who’s taking Allan Houston?” Nice. D goes with Kobe. Nice.

9:01 pm: Ron and I wonder for a second if Sarge is going to go with his local boy, er, King. Nope, he takes KG, and maybe hope he gains center eligibility?

9:03 pm: Matt takes a long, long time to pick. Dude, it’s only Round 1, Pick 3! Is he doing it on purpose trying to throw our distinguished field off their game? Cuz over here, it’s working. Ron is going nuts. I tell him to shut up. He shuts up.

9:04 pm: Dr. A does not want to pick. His time ticks down too, after Matt goes with Dirk Nowitzki. I imagine this is his 10th or 15th draft this year. He writes something on the messageboard along the lines of going with his “heard” which means he must be truly conflicted because he cannot even distinguish his “head” with his “heart.” In the end, I do not know if he just throws his draft kit out the window, but he takes LeBron. Such pain it must be to end up with ‘Bron, Ron and I wish for that pain.

9:05 pm: The first surprise of the draft comes early. Yao Ming goes #5. Darn, we were hoping for him. Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas and Shawn Marion predictably go off the board next. Marion dropped quite a bit in this draft. So we are on the clock. Ron starts shouting…“AMARE! AMARE!” Pre-draft we both expressed concerns about Amare and his injury history. We are supposed to take solace in the fact that this recent surgery was on his other knee? Yeah, right. Gasol, Duncan, even Bosh, our hometown star, seem like safer picks. But Bosh tweaked his knee the other day. Ron is past the point of no return. “Amare! Amare! AMARE!” I accuse him of tanking it because our main league drafts next week. He says he’s on the level. I grudgingly click on Amare’s name.

9:10 pm: Fantasy draft mainstays Steve Nash, Gasol, Duncan, Chris Paul and Jason Kidd finish out the first round. Interestingly Jed from DIME goes with Kidd and Paul Pierce as his first two picks. It is going to be a long time before he gets another crack at a center. One of my faves this year, Andre Iguodala, gets taken by Nels. His Paul/Iggy combo looks nice. We miss out on Bosh. Ron starts to get tunnel vision again about adding Josh Smith. Smith gets taken right before us. We know it’s early, and there are more proven options out here, but we go with Al Jefferson. We are pretty happy with our duo at center, even with the injury risk.

9:16 pm: It is now a long wait. If you are reading this, you must be pretty hardcore about hoops. Everyone says not to pick Dwight Howard, right? He kills free throw percentage and turnovers, right? Can’t say for sure, but I think Dr. A. has mentioned that before. Dr. A is one of the few guys who writes hoops in the summer, so I give him respect. Still, it’s a tad funny to see him take Dwight in Round 2. We play Dr. A in Week 1, and with him having ‘Bron and Dwight in tow, we should win FT% easily.

9:18 pm: To comment on some other picks briefly, D likes Neil’s pick of Gerald Wallace with Pick 2.9. Sarge calls Marcus Camby‘s name near the end of Round 2; I guess the reality of a large league and two center spots to fill is finally settling in. Dennis take Carlos Boozer (boo!) and Brandon Roy at the turn, proclaiming that he didn’t think he (Roy) would get back to him. That’s probably true. I like Roy, but he is an injury risk. I wonder if he will end up having a career like Grant Hill; excellent skill set but not a crazy, crazy athlete, and injuries keep him from being an all-time player.

9:19 pm: The significant others are upstairs watching “Private Practice.” Reviews have been thumbs down all around, yet they have still tuned in every week so far. TV is a tough gig. You either have to hit it out of the park within the first twenty minutes of your pilot episode, or you have to suck, but not so much that people never tune it again. It has be just that perfect level of bad so that people 1) talk about it with their friends and 2) tune in the following week to see if it can suck a bit more. “Grey’s Anatomy” is giving this show a longer rope than usual with this particular audience.

9:21 pm: Sarge banks on the smell of money will keep Baron Davis healthy. We’ll see.

9:24 pm: Dr. A. takes LaMarcus Aldridge with his third round pick. Wow. At this point in the draft, you must be banking on two things. 1) He is not going to make it to you by the next round (probably true) and 2) he is going to check in with at least 18-20 points, 9-10 rebounds, and 1.5-2 blocks a game, plus 50% shooting (debatable). Dr. A admits to throwing his draft guide out the window and it’s only Round 3! I like that he is willing to try something different.

9:26 pm: After a seemingly slowish start, the picks are being made at a good clip. Ron and I high five after being able to snag our combo multi-talented guard available at this point in a draft of choice, Joe Johnson. I will have to dig out my knock-off Joe Johnson jersey our buddy, Jeff, bought for me last Spring because Joe was on my fantasy team last year.

9:27 pm: Nels takes Luol Deng. Yes, us experts will take studs from our team.

9:28 pm: Nels takes Kevin Durant. I like his top four picks but wonder how he is going to fill his center slots.

9:30 pm: Ben Wallace gets taken right in front of us. It seems like a bit of a reach. Ron’s man crush, Mike Bibby, was taken with the pick before that. We hold a debate of choosing a point guard versus the “best player available” which in our eyes right now is Jason Richardson. J-Rich should have a huge year. Peter has been watching intently and tries to give us some input. Ron barks at him immediately. “You’re just here to watch! You ain’t an expert!” After letting him wonder for a while whether we’re being serious, we let him speak. We decide to add a point guard, since Johnson has point guard eligibility, but won’t be a top ten assists guy. We go with the low bust potential that is Kirk Hinrich. D remarks that Nels sheds a tear with the pick.

9:33 pm: Dr. A. ends up with J-Rich. Andrei Kirilenko was taken before him by the fantasy virgin. “Party like it’s 2004,” Kelly writes on the board. His team so far is Yao, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson and now, AK-47.

9:35 pm: Ron and I hope Rasheed Wallace drops down for us because he has a nice mix of skills that suit our team. Alas, Sarge takes him. D then takes Ray Felton and Sam Dalembert. Apparently Sarge had both queued up, which leads to some accusations of D implementing some spyware onto Sarge’s computer. The group invents a new stat, “the piss off pick” where the player you pick leads to another GM getting pissed off.

9:37 pm: David Lee gets selected by Neil. Zach Randolph gets selected right after by James. No one makes a joke about this.

9:38 pm: Ron likes Mike Miller but I’m not feeling it as much. It does not matter, because Emry takes him right before out turn. We tell Ron to stop focusing on one player, because they’ve been taken right in front of us a couple of times now. Ron has purchased the NBA.com magazine and is basing all his opinions on their projections. Having recently done some work on a season preview publication as well as our own work here, Ron and I both know how arbitrary projections can be. Still, he is sold. But, we finally agree on something. The draft has become an exercise in grabbing sleepers early, so let us do the opposite and secure some solid players. We take our third point guard, Tony Parker. Yes, it’s boring. His good FG% will fit into our team well. We were talking about a hometown pick in Andrea Bargnani, but felt it was too early. Maybe not though, because DIME magazine finishes the fifth round by calling his name.

9:40 pm: The next level of desperation re: centers sets in. Darko Milicic and Shaquille O’Neal are drafted. Nels is still holding strong without them, and has now added Danny Granger and Ben Gordon. Nels is frickin’ awesome. Check out his blog, folks and learn a thing or two.

9:42 pm: Peja Stojakovic and Ricky Davis get taken right before us. We have a bunch of swingmen that we like at this point, but the bigger point is that we have a bunch of them. I defer to Ron here and we take a third center, Andrew Bogut. Chris Wilcox, Chris Kaman and Brad Miller were taken later in the round, so in this one case, foresight and hindsight both see the same.

9:47 pm: D adds Charlie Bell to his team to start the seventh round and repeats the same line he used with Roy, and how he did not think he would come back to him. I answer on our team’s behalf, “Yes, he would have.” D does not respond. Ron and I enjoy the fact that he does not respond.

9:48 pm: Sarge finds the fanboy in his soul and adds Zydrunas Ilgauskas to his team. Dr. A takes T. J. Ford. I If we hadn’t taken Bogut, Ford was on our shortlist. We’ve passed on all the major Raptor players. Maybe it’s better this way.

9:51 pm: Not too many of our swingmen have been taken. Sarge took Manu Ginobili at the end of the sixth, and Satten took Rudy Gay in the seventh. It seems like everyone is banking on upside, so we discuss whether a solid player like Richard Hamilton will slip another round. It’s been nice having this kind of banter. It’s like a work meeting only it’s fantasy hoops so it’s fun! I’m so thrilled by it still, I cannot help but be cheesy about it. Anyhow, we decide not to risk it and draft Rip. Tayshaun Prince, Jameer Nelson and Larry Hughes follow and then Nels takes Al Horford as his #1 center. If he gets the playing time and puts up 15-10 with blocks, Nels’ team looks

very

solid.

9:52 pm: My inexplicable man-crush, Stephon Marbury gets taken to end the seventh round. I probably would have pushed for him in Round 8, but I like our stable of guards. We end up getting the guy we considered just before when we took Rip. We need some moneyballs so we grab Ashton Korver. We considered ex-Rap, Mo Peterson, and Satten takes him later in the round.

9:55 pm: D finishes Round 8 by taking Elton Brand. My brother-in-law ruptured his Achilles’ a couple of years ago. It took a long time to heal and an even longer time before we were ballin’ together again. It’s a weekly league, so D can afford to wait and see what happens but I would’ve drafted a healthy player. We are still drafting starters for our team at this point.

10:03 pm: The rookies and deeper sleepers are going fast and furious now. Mike Conley Jr.. Tyrus Thomas. Luis Scola. Acie Law IV. Mike James. Channing Frye. Two solid veterans in Shane Battier and Anthony Parker end the run. We are surprised to find Raja Bell still kickin’ around. Rip, Korver and Raja were in our little tier, and now we’ve landed all three. It’s not something to throw a party about, but still we are happy with the mini-coup. Brandon cusses us. One piss-off pick for our team, hooray!

10:05 pm: Someone starts a “So where is everyone drafting?” thing on the messageboard. Ryan writes that he is from Toronto. Word. Jed writes, “Where’s Toronto?” in response. Let me tell you something about Torontonians. We are more passionate than you think, we take every slight personally, and we never forget about it. So the following is my own opinion and not necessarily those of anyone else on the Dropping Dimes staff…I’ve never read DIME magazine and now I plan never to. But I do hope to buy it the week after our team wipes the floor with their team and kicks major ass. G’yeah. I’ll even make the drive to Buffalo and buy it because our dollar is kicking some currency arse right now. Maybe I shouldn’t be too harsh. After all, Jed had the bad fortune of drafting last, and ended up drafting Tyson Chandler at the end of the third round as his #1 center.

10:10 pm: With a pretty solid line-up, we take a flier on Al Thornton. I feel like making Satten’s face go red, so let me state that I agree with D in that the Sixers should have taken Thornton instead of Thaddeus Young. Oh man, instant regret. I’m going to get at least 10 e-mails on the subject now from Matt.

10:15 pm: We miss out on the banter for the next few minutes as we talk about our next pick. When we finally tune in, we discover that the set-up of our league is being changed. An extra utility spot is being added. We protest. The draft is more than halfway done. D ignores us in favor of our guests. I’m not sure how the logistics of it work, but if it can be done, we’ll roll with it. After all, what choice do we have? At least it’s not like last year when he tried to change the league from roto to head-to-head.

10:17 pm: I consider betting money that Dr. A is going to take Steve Francis. He’s mentioned Franchise a couple of times in his weekly articles. But no, he goes with Mark Blount! He must know something we do not. Francis gets taken right before us, and we express mild disappointment. We go with Luke Walton instead to shore up some assists for a forward roster slot.

10:19 pm: Brandon takes Walter Herrmann. For some reason, it’s the biggest piss-off pick of the night!

10:22 pm: We take another flier with our last, well, now our second-to-last, pick. Jeff Green. Hopefully he will get close to starter minutes. Zaza Pachulia gets taken right after and Neil makes several comments that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel now. Here’s where a championship is won, deep within the depths of the rankings. Hit on your bet, and your team instantly becomes so much stronger.

10:23 pm: D finishes the draft by taking Ryan Gomes, whom I think is a pretty good last, I mean, second-to-last, pick.

The draft was a blast. It was probably the most banter I’ve seen from start to finish. Ron and Peter, good times. We play Dr. A in Week 1. At the risk of sounding like I’m kissing ass, Dr. A is the man. Why? He’s already written something about the draft. Check it out here. I wouldn’t exactly call drafting LeBron “betting on the farm” but it’s a good read.

Thanks to all of our guests for taking part, and looking forward to a competitive league this year.

Peace.