You may now kiss the trophy

On this special, special day, I will celebrate my championship fantasy team.

Rolling through the head-to-head playoffs, posting a resounding 7-2 over Mark's team and 6-3 against this guy named Metro Stars (verdict: metro), my team, Cho-do, is the champion of Fantasy Pickup.

Final line-up: Brevin Knight, Josh Smith, Reggie Miller, Josh Childress, Drew Gooden, Lebron, Przybilla, Dalembert, Shaun Livingston, Iguodala, KMart, Gazuric, Nene.

Players used over the whole season(in order of perceived contribution): Camby, Bobby Simmons, AK47, Kyle Kover, LaFrentz, Earl Boykins, McInnis, Eddie Griffin, Sura, Troy Murphy, Mo Williams, Shane Battier, Doug Christie, Anthony Johnson, Mike James, Brian Skinner, Earl Watson, Dale Davis, Brendan Haywood, JWill, PJ Brown, Dan Dickau, Jamaal Magloire, Jason Hart, Lorenzen Wright, Donyall Marshall, Joe Smith, and a big big applause to Michael Olowonkandy and Keith Van Horn.

Now, for the end season's award:

MVP: Lebron. Doubters?

Coach of the Year: Me.

GM of the year: Me. For drafting Lebron in the second round with the 15th pick; signing free agent producers Iguodala, Simmons, Kyle Korver, Boykins, and Brevin Knight; big time waiver steals of Camby, LaFrentz, and Troy Murphy; trading away Van Horn for Dalembert (a so-so move trading an over-rater for an under-achiever); productive short-term renting of Mo Williams, Sura, and Griffin; and timely late-season lineup shufflings with Reggie Miller, Joel Przybilla, the Josh's, and Shaun Livingston (Go Clips). 43 moves in a season seems a bit of an overkill however.

Strongest categories: steals, blocks, rebounds. I don't think I ever lost those 3 categories over the season. Who says you can't win fantasy with defense?

Weakest categories: 3-point and free-throw. Not even Kyle and late-add Reggie can save that.

Defensive player of the year: Camby. Though played in only 66/82 games, Camby still averaged 10, 10 and 3 blocks with plenty of timely monster games that saved the week.

Would-be defensive player of the year: Andre Kirilenko. 3.3 blocks plus a steal and a half is nice, wish you could've played in more than 41 games though.

Draft steal of the year: Lebron. Easily the 2nd best fantasy player of the year behind KG. Again, 15th pick.

Free-agent steal of the year: 3-way tie between Bobby Simmons, Andre Iguodala and Brevin Knight. Hard choice: points from Clippers (16 and 6), all-around defensive consistancy (6rb and 1.5stl from G/F) or assists from Stanford (8.9 for the season, are you kidding?). I love you guys more than everybody else, apparently.

Underachiever of the year: 2-way tie between JWill and Dalembert. Not much to say about these 2.