Luck is a fantasy

Brothers meet in a do-or-die faceoff for a priceless bye

BY TRAVIS MORAN

In the final head-to-head of the fantasy regular season, Jaylen Brown and my Hustle faced off against my brother’s team, Triangle, anchored by fellow Celtic Derrick White. MADDIE MEYER/GETTY IMAGES

“You make your own luck,” the saying goes. Hemingway, speaking to his son, gets popular credit for that phrasing—and for the observation that follows: “You know what makes a good loser? Practice.”

I’ve put in a lot of fucking practice in life. Planting my proverbial face into proverbial fans used to be character-defining talent. Many times throughout our lives, for instance, my brother and I have traded actual blows. He’s never been a good loser, but—to his credit—he’s been extending me a buy-one-get-one-free discount for two decades. 

Here’s the thing, though: The more punches you take, the more likely you are to see one coming. Taken out of context, Hemingway’s maxim relates to readiness. Nothing births good planning like previous failure.

Over the past three fantasy regular seasons, my brother’s Triangle squad has dominated my Hustle, winning six consecutive matchups. The playoffs are another story, but the last time I beat my brother in a regular-season faceoff was exactly three years ago this week. More emphatically, in our fantasy-basketball careers, Triangle was 12-4 lifetime against the Hustle heading into Week 20. 

The benefits of a first-round bye in the fantasy playoffs are simple: 1) injured players have a chance to recover, and 2) good teams get eliminated before you come into the picture. Our league, Excalibur, had six playoff spots up for grabs with the top two seeds receiving byes. As Week 20 rolled around, though, frontrunner Wemby City Ninjas had blown us all into the breeze like dandelion seeds, leaving Triangle and Hustle locked in a tie for second. Our Week 20 matchup would decide the remaining bye.

Everything that happens in fantasy—designing a system, drafting your team, adjusting on the fly—is to get your team into the playoffs, where anything can happen. By that standard, both Triangle and Hustle managed unequivocal successes this season, but my brother deserves more credit. He lost both Zach LaVine and Marcus Smart for the year, then pivoted perfectly by snagging Coby White and Mike Conley Jr. off waivers. Triangle also pounced on Aaron Gordon after he went undrafted. Along with weekly maintenance, those three allowed him to weather sporadic injuries to Bradley Beal and Darius Garland. But the biggest coup Triangle pulled off this year is the fact that his top two picks—Anthony Davis and Kawhi Leonard—look like they’ll both be eligible for awards. That’s akin to hitting the same number on two consecutive spins of the roulette wheel. 

The Hustle faced its fair share of problems but lost no players for the entire season. Trade acquisition Desmond Bane, recently activated, did miss 29 games this winter. My team’s best weeks of the year came between that trade in early December and Bane’s ankle injury in the second week of January. But, considering Bane a draft replacement, the Hustle still boasts 10 of its 11 original picks; Triangle has had to replace five of his initial 11. Only two of my picks—a hung-out-to-dry Jaren Jackson Jr. and the now-surging Jaylen Brown—rank lower than their draft-round values (in a 12-team league). 

So, I’d be lying if I said I’d played a better season than my brother, though I believe I drafted better overall. The truth is, we both made our own luck.

Heading into our pivotal Week 20 matchup, we were both feeling confident and, to a large degree, vindicated. And the do-or-die battle for the bye elevated the week above basic bragging rights. 

“Narratively,” I told my brother, “we have potential.”