A Dozen Dimes: 2014-15 Fantasy Basketball Awards

Fantasy MVP

Winner: James Harden

Anthony Davis was the first-ranked player in nine-category leagues and Stephen Curry was tops in eight-category, but basically if you had either of those two guys or Harden on your team this year, you were probably a contender in your league.

For me, the fantasy MVP was the Beard for two reasons. First, he played in 81 games, making him more reliable than Davis, who only suited up 68 times. Secondly, he was a full eight-category threat, filling up box scores in every single area on any given night. Yes, Curry was a monster too, but in a guard kind of way (without any blocks and with decent-but-not-spectacular rebounding).

Harden, meanwhile, played like a guard, wing, and sometimes even a big wrapped into one. He scored more points than any other player in the NBA this year (2,217) and hit 86.8% of his league-leading 824 free throw attempts, single-handedly winning his owners those two categories on a weekly basis. He was also top-10 in threes (2.6), assists (7.0), and steals (1.9), his rebounding (5.7) and shot-blocking (0.7) were better than just about any shooting guard on the market, and his 44.0% shooting percentage wasn't even all that crippling. Sure, the 4.0 turnovers per game were tough to swallow, but that's a small price to pay for all the goodies he brought to the table.

As the biggest eight-category threat in fantasy basketball, night in and night out, James Harden was this season's fantasy MVP.

All-Fantasy Team

PG - Chris Paul
SG - Stephen Curry
SF - James Harden
PF - Anthony Davis
C - DeMarcus Cousins

You were happy with either of these guys, regardless of where you drafted them. CP3 playing in all 82 games and averaging 19.1 points, 1.7 triples, 4.6 boards, 10.2 assists, 1.9 steals, only 2.3 turnovers, 48.5% shooting from the field, and 90.0% from the line was somehow the quietest near-perfect fantasy season of all time. Curry won you threes on a weekly basis (3.6), while scoring (23.8), assisting (7.7), and stealing (2.0) on a high level and shooting close to 50/40/90 from the field, deep, and the line. Davis and Cousins were both 20/10 guys with tons of steals and blocks to boot (it's just too bad that they didn't play in more games).