You Must Draft Joel Embiid on your fantasy basketball team, and here's why! (with Rhett Bauer) 

Yeah that's definitely a special way to do it. To get 3 first round guys haha

Can I get an invite to your league? What on earth was everyone else doing on draft day!?!

Thanks for watching and the well-thought-out reply! Love good comments!

The funny thing is, I'm not taking Embiid at 7 either in a league I care about! Lol but 7 is where Yahoo has him right now, and I believe I said in the show that the further you are from the turn, the harder this sort of thing is because of what can happen in between your picks. So I went as far from the turn as I could while still being reasonable, and made it happen the best I could Fair on not being sold, but I'm going to try again because I really appreciate the thoughtful reply and would love to see what my blindspots might be 😅 I do think you are somewhat missing the reason behind the strategy. First and foremost, you shouldn't really have a build decided (at least not fully) in the first round. Even in my example, I said that you could punt assists, threes, blocks, and even probably FG% if you wanted to and it might work whether Embiid plays or not. Because ultimately that's the goal, insulating yourself from your best player missing the 20-25 games we expect at the wrong time, plus whatever on top of that we didn't Trying to chase volume in that position is almost impossible because you're missing who was supposed to be the best player on your team. That's the beauty of this build, you have a path to winning any given week without a single player scoring over 20ppg. Chet, FVV, JDub, Tobias, Jrue, Hartenstein, Herb, Draymond, Amen, Conley, Gafford is a combination of some hilariously low usage guys, but I'd be willing to bet that squad can hang with any opponent, on any given week, and Embiid coming through as a positive in rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and percentages would make it even more lethal Even after talking about it for almost an hour today, I'm pretty sure I could write a dissertation on the aspects I DIDN'T discuss... Lol I guess I'm halfway there as it is, but I get excited when there's a genuine conversation about insane ideas, so thank you for the time listening and responding!!!

Didn't try it in an auction format, but that could potentially make it even more viable if you threaded the right needle of value for those "old man" type guys

Good luck!!

@@rhettbauer I had punt pts last year so the strategy on being efficient as the back up makes a lot of sense for riskier picks or if a top pick goes down

Yeah, we're getting weird today and I hope it's a fun exploration for everyone!

Going to do some 14-team mocks, and then will think through how best to approach deeper league strategy too!

@@OldManSquadcould you also do a points league 12-14 team mock?

@@1OF1QUIS Will probably do a points league mock on a weekend at some point. They have a much smaller interest level but I definitely don't want to ignore 'em.

Don't they all???

I would argue not enough efficiency or boards/assists but I see your point.

Agree with the old man here, I'm not sure PG is enough of a value in the 2nd to make me feel good about him and Maxey on the hope that they each step up at the same time with Embiid out I would consider PG in the third if I took Chet in the 2nd though, that could work to offset some of the volume we'd be missing...just not sure on PG over some of the other options

Haha, you may want to just hit up Rhett on Twitter

@@OldManSquad okay 👍. Thank you!

Not regularly. I'm trying to change that! :)

Bear in mind with this argument you could also just draft KD and not worry as much but do the same build

glad I could make you think! Far from a lock to go into draft night with, since there were plenty of mocks that I wanted to get Embiid where I ended with AD/Giannis/Haliburton at 8 even...but I think it makes for a much more interesting discussion about who goes where

I love the insanity

@@OldManSquad I might go for this build I like crazy builds like this 😂

@@rafisarhan2336 It's wacky for sure. Could also work with other well-rounded 1st rounders

I see this strategy somewhat an extension to the extreme of punt points.

@@caml17 I see that

He's missed more than 14 games once in the past 5 years. About half the players in the top 100 missed at least 12 games last year. He's not an iron man but most players aren't

@@shahud1890 Yeah even last year he missed a bunch of time early but then was almost 100% healthy ROS. He's generally in the "okay to slightly better" area.

completely fair, but the Booker/Kyrie/Mitchell group all fit into the "efficient on elite volume with well-rounded everywhere else" bucket, with Harden/LaMelo/Trae/Edwards not being that efficient in one/both ways...tough to find the right balance for sure I considered Edwards, especially if you take Embiid at 7 and end up with pick 18, just because you're valuing implied durability+hoping for a jump from last year, but haven't found a draft where I liked that over the other options

But see, that's the old fashioned way of thinking. If Embiid goes down there's no amount PG can do to cover up what you lose. It's better to attack the categories that could survive without him

This is something I tried actually! Trying to keep Maxey as a target in the third with the assumption that any time Embiid goes out, we see a usage bump that might cover up for it...I just didn't find a board where I liked that path opposed to others, though I'm sure there are cases where that pairing can work in the same way the late Drummond handcuff could

Could kinda do it with almost anyone, really

@@OldManSquad that’s why I don’t like to punt one of the percentages, I believe that the non-volume stats are very important, especially in a weekly H2H without games cap

@@rommizrahi2292 And often overlooked too!

Yep even as Rhett was saying it out loud it was registering as wise in my mind

It's one of my favorites, but I do think the volume of efficiency in the first couple picks matters quite a bit. Maybe gives you more leeway for like a Dejounte, Reaves, LaVine kind of guy later

I think Rhett mentioned a few targets: Chet is for this build, Harden, Sabonis among others

@@OldManSquad Appreciate the response, if I could get a curry or DMitch I should probably take them right

@@ice_wallow_come1509 If Curry's still there I bet that could work. Mitchell maybe a bit more of an injury hazard, but remember you really want to maintain efficiency where you can.

When he's healthy he's 1 of the most incredible combinations of size and speed in NBA history. The foul-baiting SUCKS, I agree, but don't let it completely color your opinion of him

Maybe put your feelings aside. If you remove fouls he's still Top 5 in points. Stop being a sheep.