Seven stories of fantasy heartbreak

Right now, there’s a nation of confused fans wishing on any Monkey’s Paw they can find for sports to return. As that paw unfurls, it carries with it the reminder that sports brings fantasy playoffs, and fantasy playoffs bring pain.

Few other hobbies require the hours of research and tolerance for misery, where one bounce of a ball, or one missed tackle on a CJ Spiller catch in 2015, can haunt the poor losing sap forever.

We spend our free time trying to predict the performance of sports built on chaos, and yell and scream when this chaos ends up in a loss. Without any active sports, we’re missing out on this misery, but the memories never fade.

I asked you, the subscribers, to share some of your most memorable bad beats, and I added some color and research to find out who’s the unluckiest.

Using anger for educational purposes

Have you ever taught yourself a skill only to calibrate the appropriateness of your rage?

We’ll start with a brief trip down the humble author’s own miserable fantasy existence. As documented in my interview with Joseph Mamone, fantasy basketball is served best when done in a dynasty format. In it, you’re combining your basketball knowledge with the foresight and forward-thinking vision needed to compete multiple seasons into the future; a loss today might hurt, but not as much as the knowledge that you’ll never contend again.

Last year, I took on the league commissioner/supervillain in the semifinals of our playoffs, aiming to upset the then 19-1 behemoth beyond a ragtag squad of then-rookie Luka Doncic and Serbian prince Nikola Jokic.

Thanks to a combination of injury and scheduling luck, I managed to take an early lead, and just needed my steady shooting guard Klay Thompson to come through with a mediocre game to clinch the upset.

Instead, he dropped one of the worst games of his storied career.

Klay missed nine of thirteen shots, including all four of his three pointers, and barely added any other counting stats—his total of 11 fantasy points marked a devastating and untimely low, and clinched my eventual 901 - 894 loss.

I was apoplectic. In the impotent nerd rage only caused by fantasy losses, I pulled every single game of Klay’s career and built out a simulation of a million fictional games. I had to see exactly how badly we botched this, and, in the alternate Mike universes, which ones ended up with the victory.

Here is that simulation. The peak is the most commonly occurring score, with the height corresponding to the percent of games that produced that point total.

In my timeline, Klay had 11 points. He outscored that total in 96.6% of these fake games, with an 85% chance he’d get 18 and at least tie the game for me.

I’m still bitter in 100% of my real life.

Kickers, the cruelest of all

Friend of the program Joe sent in a story on behalf of the guy he beat, a truly elite flex.

Joe, who seemed to commit the cardinal sign of playing a New York Jets player in a meaningful fantasy football game, managed to overcome many decades of Gang Green incompetence to spring an upset on his poor opponent. The vehicle for this pain?

Nick Folk, the Jets’ kicker.

Folk played for the Jets for seven seasons, peaking with this game-winning field goal against the Colts in the playoffs. He averaged 7.4 fantasy points a game for his career, and found surprisingly consistent employment as Joe’s fantasy kicker.

No one ever finds joy in a fantasy football loss, but no defeat stings worse than a shocking upset on Monday nights. For Joe’s poor opponent, he woke up Tuesday to a nineteen point, five field goal night from Saint Nick.

Here’s how every Folk game turned out, and where the one Monday in hell for Joe’s opponent landed.

More evidence for the movement to ban kickers forever.

Months of work lost to a rounding error

Reader David chimed in with this story, lightly edited below.

He managed a team in the most brutally competitive version of fantasy basketball, a thirty team league with strict salary cap restrictions on its players. In these category leagues, your team must be capable of production across a variety of stats, scoring but also maintaining efficiency and counting stats outside of points.

These leagues rely on managerial ingenuity and guile, but also on luck; David’s ran out right at the the start of the playoffs, with his first two picks injured and ruled out.

He cobbled together a makeshift team and clawed his way into the final day of games, where he lost by a 0.02% margin on the free throw line and two total points scored. This margin? Easily solved by one foul call on any of his players.

A rare instance of rooting for the referees.

Injury apocalypse

Another friend of the site, @HiddenUpside, shared his own category-based misery. After a season dominating with three superstar guards in Trae Young, Damian Lillard, and Devonte’ Graham, he’d secured top seed entering into the playoffs.

All three of these foundational pieces ended up injured and/or missing time, and he quickly fell to the eighth seed. Upsets and injuries ravage fantasy squads often, but rarely to that extent. Young, Lillard, and Graham produced 18.9 win shares this season, per Basketball Reference.

In terms of on-court production, that sum represents the 2019-20 Lakers losing LeBron James and Anthony Davis right before a series against the moribund eight seed.

Self-inflicted wounds sting the most

Sometimes, the blame for a loss starts and ends with the player in charge. Reader Eric shared his own moment of self-sabotage.

Eric’s player in question was Marvin Bagley III, who did get a steal in that mistaken lost game.

Losing in the finals once might make you question your faith and God. Losing three consecutive times, once by a lineup mistake, and indirectly causing a league to fold? You’re either cursed forever, or the Buffalo Bills.

A surprising hero comes along

History may remember the winners, but fantasy addicts will never forget the role players who morphed Super Saiyan-style into unbeatable statistical demigods at the exact wrong moments. I once made the finals of an odd fantasy football league in part by Sammie Stroughter, the return man for the 2009 Tampa Bay Bucs and producer of special teams points.

These midseason transformations haunt twice as much when you’re on the losing end of them. I heard from @Kanowins512, who fought the supersized version of JaVale McGee in another intense salary dynasty league.

McGee, a journeyman big known for his athleticism and public beef with Shaquille O’Neal, turned into a dream killer in March of 2019. Kano’s opponent picked McGee up on a whim before their two week matchup, and this one small choice in a season full of similar decisions ended up deciding the finale.

Per game, McGee doubled his career points and rebounds totals in this month, all while shooting over 67% from the field.

A career stretch for the bench player earned McGee a second contract with the Lakers, and cost Kano $200. The guy who once dunked on two rims managed to dunk on real and fantasy teams.

Haunted by a Madden cover

Finally, we end with a powerful story from another friend of the program, Steve, who signed up for the Peyton Hillis roller coaster without any safety harnesses.

Somewhere, Steve has a collection of broken Madden 2012 discs, their covers burnt to a crisp.

If you have a great fantasy story and want to share, email me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.

Hope you and yours are healthy and doing well!