Okay, I’ll admit it: fantasy basketball is about the most useless thing ever, right along with YouTube basketball mix tape videos. But you know what? I LOVE YOUTUBE BASKETBALL MIXTAPE VIDEOS!!!I love nothing more than watching slow motion high definition slam dunks to horrible music and I sure as heck love playing fantasy basketball. But this time it’s far from frivolous because 11 of the greatest and most elite fantasy basketball competitors who were able to pass the rigors of sending me an email within a reasonable amount of time have decided to battle it out in a no holds barred steal gage death match known as 12-team, $200 auction, head-to-head fantasy basketball in order to achieve the greatest glory of them all. I present to you: The Saucy.

After the jump, a running diary of the Unofficial Sactown Royalty Basketball Draft presented with special holiday cheer and links and stupidity for everyone (don’t be afraid to click on the links on the player names within the text of the post because they are a bunch of stupid links and may include a ninja or two). Let the games begin!

Participating in this draft, in addition to myself, were J.R 50, LightningStrike5, Juan Primo, ASSN, clicc916, tomroadrunner, sillysill, rise_to_mediocrity, Aykis16, the Just, and a fellow lurker who for our intents and purposes will just be called The Lurk (and really needs to sign up under that name if it’s available). The draft took place at 7pm on Wednesday, December 21st. Here’s how it went.

Round 1 was a little weird. Unfortunately, Lightning was going to be late because of work and clicc916, sillysill, and tomroadrunner were MIA. Not the greatest start ever; however, Lightning was prepared, setting the computer to bid a little higher on Rose. There were obviously a lot of real good players flying off the board early but the most interesting thing was that 3 teams jumped ahead early and grabbed 2 picks in the first 12 bids. Of particular note, The Lurk threw down a whopping $155 of his budget in mere minutes on the Lebron/Wade combo and was left with $45 to spend for the rest of the draft.

Then there was Aykis and his unquenchable thirst for nominating Kings players and Lightning’s pre-set values going head to head with Marcus Thornton going for a shocking $16 in the first round. So far, felt pretty good picking up Paul.

Round 2 saw LightningStrike5 pick up two more quality players in Deron and Gay. The good news is that the guys he picked all fill different needs and the computer can no longer overbid for him. The bad news is that he only had $12 bucks left to pick up 8 more players and was only 24 bids into a 156 bid draft. And the poor guy is rushing home hoping to be able to make the draft and doesn’t know there is no need to hurry.

Meanwhile, Aykis bids $42 on Monta Ellis for the sole purpose of making someone else pay for him. Of course, as always, it backfires. Meanwhile, the bots sold clicc916’s soul for Kobe Bryant. Aykis again threw out another Kings player, nominating Reke. ASSN was able to nab him at $40 which was overpaying but not nearly as bad as I was imagining. J.R 50 was able to make it to the draft and began to jump into the bidding, filling his swing positions nicely with J Smoove and KMart. Juan Primo and ASSN clearly show signs of bargain hunting, only bidding under value on guys like Pau Gasol and picking their targets methodically. Those two guys are dicks.

Speaking of dicks, Round 3 was about the time I felt the need to nominate Lamar Odom. Noticed the day before in a mock draft that the bots were bidding high on Odom and we still had dead teams with money and I still had a lot of mine so figured I would drain them a little. I don’t recall honestly when clicc96 finally showed up (and I know he did around this time) but he certainly did not mean to get tagged for $24 on Odom and by the end of the round he’d be down to his last $47 with only 9 spots left.

Again, a Kings player gets nominated by Aykis and DMC is up for the bidding. A fairly mild bidding war ensues and rise_to_mediocrity picks him up for $16. This is the point where we all are starting to feel the hits in our pocket books. Pretty sure everyone but tomroadrunner was present at this point. On a personal strategy note, Juan Primo bids a reasonable $28 on Iggy and wins it and I get stuck with $27 on Joe Johnson because of it (huge drop off after Ginobili and Pierce). Hawsome.

Round 4 I got lucky and was able to get one of the big steals with Jrue at $20. Juan Primo began to make his presence heavily known, nabbing up Lee, Gortat, and Manu Ginoboli. At this point he was fielding 5 quality players who if healthy can make things pretty scary for everyone, and he still has $78 bucks left. We might all be in trouble.

Other than that, Aykis made some nifty moves, grabbing up Tony Parker and Gerald on the cheap. At this point, most teams have 4 to 5 players and we can start to see what type of teams we are all building. I only have 3 and no big men to speak of and unfortunately some of the others with money are going to target the same players. Need to save the cash.

And of course the first thing I do in Round 5 is go get Lowry. What can I say; I am a sucker for point guards. In fact, this round was fairly pivotal for me because once I nabbed Lowry I was now stuck either where I would be consistently underbidding on guys I want, maybe get one and wait for bargains that fall through the cracks or be willing to seriously pay to get two or three of them and wait until I am staring at the bottom of the barrel for the rest of my players. So I ended up bidding big on three consecutive picks and nabbed four players in this round (just under a third of my entire team). So what if that’s too much for Danilo Gallinari, I needed a two position wing. And hey, sure Lopez doesn’t rebound but he gets you points down low and is completely risk free health wise. And Ibaka … actually I didn’t overbid on him at all, I was giddy with that one.

Tomroadrunner ended up sucking up three of the other picks while ASSN outbid everyone for Chris Bosh and ruined all hope that The Lurk would complete the Heat trifecta. Speaking of The Lurk, he finally ended his sabbatical and picked up Javale Mcgee and Juan Primo nabbed up Lawson.

I was broke so figured the best way to make others broke in Round 6 was to nominate Jimmer for auction. Unfortunately I did not take into account that we all were broke and Aykis was able to pick him up for $6. Aykis16 rejoiced and we all hated him.

This round was full of value and overbidding. Everyone’s favorite sleeper Monroe went for a shocking $18. Okay, in any regular auction perhaps Aykis16 overpaid for Jimmer but you can’t knock the Bogut and West pickups. Clicc916 played it safe with Kyle Korver and was happy to get him at $1. We all made sure to let him know we all had zero problems with him taking Korver at $1.

In Rounds 7 and 8, we start seeing rookies flying off the wall. Kemba Walker, Irving, Rubio and Derrick Williams are gone. Meanwhile, Juan Primo is picking and choosing whoever he wants. Aykis and TheJust pick up sneaky quality with Harden and Conley. Rise_to_mediocracy nabs every single guard under the sun. Brand and Garnett were also highly underrated last year and at their prices it’s still worth it given the schedule.

Lightning (who was safe at home at this point and online) finally got his first non-computer pick and it was J.J. Hickson at $3. Within about 4.8 seconds, Lightning began to question that decision.

I hated Rounds 9 and 10. Every sleeper or lower ranked guy I was targeting was unattainable due to my $12 budget and I still had 6 holes in my roster. Dudley, DeAndre, Jameer, George, and Sammy D all nabbed up. After nabbing up Batum and Jamal Crawford, clicc916 finished the day with Affalo for $14. It seems excessive when reading it but it was his last player. He and Juan Primo were both done. The Lurk is officially picking the scraps to fill his roster. Will be really curious what happens with Andre Miller.

Rounds 11, 12, and 13 were bargain bin fun. Of special note it looks like Aykis lucked out with Favors (this was before Okur got moved). I filled out the rest of my bigs and was stuck with Omri as my third wing option. Sillysill was being run by the bots and picked up both Oden and Hayes which was brutal at the time but at least now we heard some good news on Hayes. And that is about it. According to ESPN, Juan Primo has the vastly superior fantasy team and we are all just posers running around in his world. Who do you guys think is going to win the Saucy?

(Hat tip to Pookey and ASSN. Happy Holidays everyone and have a safe weekend.)