5:00 am

So here it is, 5 am on Thursday morning. Apparently I partied a little too hardy in the evening, passed out, and now here I am awake. Not a person is available to chat on Facebook, and I don't feel any sleep coming back on soon. Which is why it's perfect to have a blog! I'm sure we will have many posts like this in our time together.

I feel like, in order to stimulate that part of me that likes organized press, I should come up with a format for my blog posts. So when I update here, I'll use a couple different sections to discuss my specific thoughts and feelings. As the blog IS called All Those Voices in My Head, we'll call these sections a certain voice. My inside voices will be about me and my own psyche and feeling, outside voices will be for things happening in the world around me. That way we can all have a little structure to my lunatic rants and raves.

For tonight, all I have for you is an outside voice.

The elongated labor battle in the NBA is starting to drive me crazy. It might seem weird, but fantasy basketball has been a serious endeavor for me for the last several years, all through high school and college. It might be a little sad that I'm so addicted to it, but the fact is that it wouldn't be so much fun if there weren't the six or seven other regular guys that have been in the league every year with me that keep it so competitive and engrossing. It's unique when you come across a whole group of like minded people, a group you can engage in friendly competition with for so long and develop such a camaraderie that you all come back year after year to take another stab at winning a championship.

Why fantasy sports? The answer is simple: for those of us who aren't athletic enough to play those sports anymore, we have to find another way to get in depth and close to the sport we love. With fantasy sports, you get to be the manager of your own (fake) team. For me, this entails doing hours of research and number crunching to try and figure out who will be the best players for my team. The real work doesn't start, however, until after the draft.

In all fantasy sports, the draft is critically important. This is especially true in fantasy basketball (FBB) because the scoring is so diverse. This is another great part of our league, is how developed the scoring is to truly gauge the composite performance of your team. Because our league is so advanced in these regards, strategy in the draft is crucial. The addition of a single player can render certain players obsolete because of their normal statistical performance. The course of your draft can be derailed two rounds in. Because I love basketball and have followed it closely enough over the years to really get a feel for what teams and players I particular like, my own personal influence gets to show through as well. Let the record show that in this particular regard, I have never ended a season with a Laker on my roster. There was the great Bynum debacle several years back, and he was traded before Christmas. Never again.

When all this work and analysis yields success, you feel like the best. There is no true way to know what is going to happen in any given game. Stats can show trends, but how a player will perform on a per game basis is total guessing game. But then you nail it, sometimes in spite of the odds. In a way, it's kinda like roulette: it just feels good when you make the right decisions and win that jackpot. At the same time, it's also kind of like studying for a test. Did you play a guy tonight who has been fighting injury problems? Is the opponent of your starting center notorious for lock down post defense? Do I feel more comfortable starting a more productive player for two games in the week than a bench warmer with the advantage of the third game in the week to play? Without putting in the proper time studying player roles, team performance and injury news, you can shoot yourself in the foot. But after all the study, it feels amazing to get that good grade on your weekly test that is your FBB match up.

Playing the game can bring you all those great feelings. But there's a pretty big difference when you look at the payoff. If you win the roulette game or make the grade on that test in the real world, there are some obvious benefits that come with it. Fantasy basketball is the exact opposite. I am not going to put "2012 NBAFans Day 10 Champion" on my resume. There is not a single woman I know of who would find me more attractive because I had the best regular season win-loss record in '07. Hell, there isn't even a trophy that exists outside the internet realm to commemorate an ultimate victory. It's not about that though.

It's about the people I play with. As I've mentioned, we've been at it for a relatively extensive amount of time and have a pretty solid competitive relationship. To be able to win amongst those guys is a privilege, because they love it and follow it like I do. There are rivalries and personalities. We cheer each others successes and poke fun at one another just like you would your drinking buddies. Once you put our history into the mix, it makes our FBB league like a summer camp or something. You always can't wait to go and see your friends and talk shop and play the games.

Except, this year there are no games to play. No history to make. No time spent with friends. No shared experience with these guys who live all over the world (two of our guys are Russian) and for who knows how long. I've loved doing it for so long, and now the guys who I have watched and studying and followed for this much time don't have my back. I do blame the owners for this mess, yet we all know that in any argument blame belongs to both sides.

I guess it just doesn't seem fair that in a time so trying for me, I don't have that escape. There's not much to fill that void with. It's a sad situation that is likely to carry on to new lows. I just hope that if that is the case, they get there fast so we don't have to start to wonder if next year's season is at risk as well.