Fantasy vs Reality

I traded Steve Nash in my fantasy basketball league last week.

Yes, that Steve Nash.

The two-time NBA MVP and still one of the top point guards in the game.

In our league, the mother of all fantasy leagues, we have a salary cap, performance raises, a rookie draft and three websites.

If you are into fantasy sports, it is paradise.

If you are not, it is pathetic.

Actually, fifty steps beyond pathetic.

But we love it.

And we have been loving it since 1993, when the league started.

And every year, a bunch of us act like we own a real team.

My team name is the Dunkin' Donuts.

And it has been since the beginning.

I have always been searching for corporate sponsorship.

And I deserve it.

I have won eight championships in our 16 years.

The last five thanks to Mr. Nash.

If you don't follow basketball, let me tell you, this six-foot-three dude is incredible.

But even with all his success, the reality is that my team has no chance to win our fantasy league this year.

Zero.

The top four teams finish in the money and quite frankly we are not good enough.

And since you can’t fire the owner, you need to trade the players.

**** NERD ALERT ****

So I decided to deal Nash and his $69.05 salary, which was 21% of my total salary as one of the 16 players on my team, even though he still shoots 50% from the floor, 40% from 3 and 90% from the line.

**** NERD ALERT ****

That, plus he's almost 37 years old.

Which is like 900 in basketball years.

Now if I've learned anything from being let go from my last two jobs, it was:

• Why pay a talented experienced person a lot of money, when you can pay an inexperienced person little-to-nothing.

It’s the American way.

And since Nash is Canadian, I figured it was better to deal him away a little too early than a little too late.

As much as that broke my heart.

I offered him to pretty much every team in the league and negotiated with the teams that made me a good offer.

And that negotiating experience was very handy.

That’s because, while I was living in fantasyland, we were also trying to find a real place to live too.

A new house for our family.

And as luck would have it, around the same time I traded Nash, my wife and I found that house.

The perfect house?

No.

A nice house?

Absolutely.

The right house?

Not sure.

I went to look at it four times.   She saw it twice.

And after speaking with our real estate agent, we decided to put a bid in.

I’ve been looking at homes since I got back from New York.

And we kept hearing, “it’s a buyer’s market out there.”

Out where?, I say.

Not here.

Sure, there are a lot of homes for sale.

And some of them are affordable.

But as William Shakespeare once said, “nobody is giving nothing away.”

Our real estate agent ran the comps for the neighborhood so we could put in the proper bid.

Webster defines the comps as the comparable homes.

And we define the proper bid as “the lowest amount possible.”

So we did.

And a few hours later, the sellers came back with their own version of the comps.

And their version of the the proper bid.

We went back and forth, just like when I traded Steve Nash, and we eventually agreed.

Agreed to disagree.

Unlike my fantasy dealings, we were never able to seal the deal on the house.

We think they were asking for too much.

They think we were not willing to offer enough.

So after a weekend of heavy negotiations, we still don’t have a house.

And even more devastating, I no longer have Steve Nash.

Talk about a lose-lose situation.

P.S.   In case you have no life, like me, and you couldn't sleep without hearing the actual details of the trade:


     --  Dunkin' Donuts traded Steve Nash, Tyrus Thomas and Donte Greene to Drivin' Miss Daisy for Roddy Beaubois, JaVale McGee, Al Thornton, Amir Johnson and Daisy's 2012 first round pick.    Then I traded Amir Johnson and Chris Andersen to In Denyle for Anthony Morrow, Denyle's 2012 first and second round picks.




Now back to reality.