For those who doesn't know sports or in this specific case, basketball, those are actually very impressive numbers. However, a more important question is who really cares? Until recently, about 5 months ago when the NBA 2004-2005 season started, I didn't care either. Don't get me wrong, I'm a die hard New York Knicks fan since the early 1990's during Patrick Ewing's hopeless years with the Knicks. I love basketball. I play basketball weekly trying to get into shape and enjoy watching the New Jersey Nets. So why am I praising a New York rival Paul Pierce from Boston Celtics?
Before I answer the first question, have you ever heard school kids or you fanatic colleagues spitting out obsecure and ever changing stats of a NBA superstars? "Allen Iverson really deserved that All-Stars NBA MVP because he unselfishly dished out 12 assists." Lets be realistic here. How does knowing that useless stats going to help you in your school work or your career? Those numbers are not easily memorized since it changes every night. Why do people even bother memorizing them? Will it ever help you oust Ken Jennings? So why waste your precious time gathering and learning these numbers? These were my exact questions and I was clueless until recently. Its Fantasy Sports.
Towards the end of October 2004, a friend, knowing that I enjoy every aspect of basketball, asked if I'm interested in joining his Fantasy NBA league. It'll cost me $20 to join and the top 3 winners get $130, $80 and $30 respectively. It wasn't the $20 that I'm concern with, but the amount time I will be wasting. He assured me that I won't waste more than an hour a week if I don't want to. Sure enough, he was right. I could've just spent 21 hours to manage my team for the 21 weeks long season, excluding the playoff, since my team is guaranteed not to make the playoffs had I only spent an hour a week. Before the season even started, I already found myself immersed into the fantasy part of this game by spending hours sorting out my draft picks lineup. Before I knew it, I was addicted, spending at least 2 hours a day managing my team, learning the names of the players from other teams, their positions and who's injured and who's in the starting lineup. This was time consuming since I only knew the Knicks and a few guys from the Jersey's Nets and superstars like Shaq, Yao, Kobe, KG and Paul Pierce.
Needless to say, my drafted team sucked. There was this other unfornate manager who got to picked last happened be first place now with guys with names I have never heard of, Marion, AK47, Arenas and Kidd. These 4 names are top 10 players in the NBA. Now I finally know who's who in the NBA. With the help of a friend, my team is now 4th and will soon be 3rd before the end of the season. This is pretty good since just last week, I was 6th place and risking the playoff spots, the prize money and of course the bragging rights since we all work for the same company.
So is spending 2 hours daily to earn a chance to win $130 or even $30 worth it? Of course not! That's almost 300 hours for the season! But it was never about the money. Its more like $20 for 300 hours of fun. That's equivalent to a movie ticket, popcorn and a soda in the theater for only 2 hours of entertainment or about 1.5 hour of bowling with equipment rental. Some people enjoys watching 2 hours of TV, reading a book, watching soaps, playing video games, downloading porn or blogging daily. I leave it to you to decide what's worth it. Now that the season is almost over, I might be blogging instead of managing a fantasy baseball team. It was sure one heck of an experience. Will I do it again for the 2005-2006 season? As much as I don't want to waste those precious hours, unless I have something else better to do with my time, I'm looking forward to next season.
For those who read this blog, thanks. This is my first and it won't be my last. I just want to ask what do you do in your spare time?
1 comment:
I recommend you spend more time on other free activities such as playing starcraft and writing blogs. $0 = 300 hours of fun. Now, that's a savings.
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