Fantasy Basketball Trade Advice

A fantasy team is like owning stocks.  To be successful, you need to churn and burn as often as you can.  If you stay stagnant, you will lose.  The game changes so quickly that you have to assess value and decide when to make a change or not.  For example, if you owned Brandon Jennings, last month you probably rejected every offer you got for him and now you were wishing you had pressed the accept button.  What you should have done was, reject that offer, then ask for more.  I know it's easy to look back at Jennings as an example, but it's true.  Below I will talk about guys you should consider trading divided into two categories.  One is called "Artifical Value," which discussses players who have fantasy value only because of their perceived true life skills.  If you own a player with Artificial Value, then he is only hurting your team by taking up a roster spot that could be filled by a lesser known but better fantasy player.  The second category is called "Sell High," which is pretty self-explanatory.  If you have any of these guys, trade them immediately before they lose all of their value.  I will list players who may be good targets to ask for in a return package, from the same position.

Artificial Value

1: Gilbert Arenas (PG - Was) - Gilbert is the king of artificial value.  At the moment, out of nine categories, he is MURDERING you in three categories (we'll forgive blocks due to his position).  Now, you might say that he is an all-star in four categories, but in fantasy basketball, there are three negative accumulation categories (FG%, FT% and TO).  This means that a player can lose you points by playing.  In fantasy baseball, there is one category for hitters and two for pitchers (which is why you need to draft hitting, but we'll cross that bridge in March).  He is currently shooting 40.9% from the field and 73.7% at the line at a whopping 18.9 and 6.8 attempts, respectively.  That torpedoes you in two categories.  He also averages 3.8 turnovers a game, which you can never get back once you've lost it.

Gilbert was probably drafted in the third or fourth round of your draft.  The further you get away fromt he draft, the more his value will drop.  But, the reason he gets drafted is die to the fact that he is viewed as a good player in real life.  Trade him immediately for a more beneficial player.

Good targets: Monta Ellis and Mo Williams are guys you can reasonably get in return.  If you want to reach, try to get Jason Kidd and Tyreke Evans.  You can definitely get Aaron Brooks back (who is a better player), but try to get more.  Use Brooks as a fall-back.

2: Tony Parker (PG - SA) - Value-wise, he is a level below Gilbert Arenas.  He is a great player in real-life, but provides very little in many categories, except for a huge 3.1 TOs a game.  There is nothing he does that stands out numbers-wise.  He has 5.6 assistes per game, which is low for a PG.  He doesn't shoot threes or get many steals, so he is killing you in a different way than Arenas, but just as deadly.

Good targets: Ben Gordon is a good buy-low here.  You may be able to get Jonny Flynn in a one-for-one.  Aaron Brooks and Rodney Stuckey are good targets, so it's worth a shot.  But, honestly, there has got to be a PG on the waiver wire that provides more production than Parker.

3: Dwight Howard (C - Orl) - How could I forget the King of Artificial Value?  While Dwight actually wins you one category (FG%) and dominates in two others (rebounds and blocks), he hurts you in TO (3.4) and MURDERS you in FT%.  He is currently shooting 60.1% at 10.4 attempts, which is his highest percentage in FIVE years.  This is the sole reason I would stay away from Dwight to begin with in rotisserie leagues.  On a side note, in head-to-head leagues he is a top-five player since all you have to do is win 5 out of 9 categories a week.  It's easier to build around a player like Howard and lose certain categories.  In rotisserie, you lose points by tanking a category; you need a more balanced team.  It's not too late, you can see where you are in the standings and build around your current numbers and try to come back.  If you own Dwight, you have a great chance to sucker someone who thinks Howard is actually valuable in fantasy and you need someone who's going to bring that FT% back up.

Good targets: If you can get Brook Lopez for Howard, then you hit the jackpot.  I would also try to do a two-for-one trade to get Amare Stoudemire or Chris Bosh from an unsuspecting owner.  There are guys like Nene or Horford, who I like better than Howard in a vacuum, but the goal is to restore that FT%.

4: Derrick Rose (PG - Chi) - Rose was actually drafted in the second round in one of my leagues.  Rose is definitely a player you would want to build around in real life.  He has great ball handling skills and great leadership skills.  Unfortunately, those skills don't directly translate to the numbers.  His numbers are slightly better than Parker's, but you may be able to get good value out of him.  He shoots slightly below-average percentages, gets you an average number of rebounds and assists, never hits a three and not even one steal or one block per game.  If he's not hurting you, he's definitely not helping.

Good targets: Mo Williams hits two more threes per game, shoots 11 points better from the line and has similar numbers to Rose in every other category.

5: Elton Brand (PF,C - Phi) - I'm not sure that Brand has any value at this point because he's received a lot of negative plubicity, plus he's been hurt.  But, based on his draft position, you might be able to get something in return and I would recommend that you do.  He is a huge injury risk and he's actually playing better this past month, which makes this a good time to cut bait.  That Achilles is going to come up later in the year and he's going to start shooting more jumpers to compensate and he's going to be afraid to bang as the season goes on.

Good targets: Troy Murphy is correctly regarded only by true fantasy players.  It wouldn't hurt to try this one.  Troy Murphy is always a top-20 fantasy player, but gets drafted in the fifth round or later.  It's these inefficiencies and biases you have to exploit to win.  LaMarcus Aldridge is also a good player to target, as is David Lee.

Sell High

1: Zach Randolph (F - Mem) - Zach has seen a huge spike in numbers this season and is on a 30/20 binge lately.  This can be attributed to being the main guy on a team going nowhere, but what concerns me is that his numbers are abnormally high.  He also misses about 8-12 games a season and has a history of quitting on teams.  A lot of people think Zach loves these situations where his teams lose as long as he's putting up numbers, but he's quit on the Clippers and the Knicks (the two most dysfuntional franchises this decade).  He may prove me wrong, but it would be wise to sell Zach before he starts to get hurt again.

2: Tyreke Evans (G - Sac) - This is definitely not to say that Evans is a bad player.  The concern is that his value is SKY-HIGH right now.  I have seen people offer Al Jefferson, Josh Smith or Rudy Gay in some leagues and been turned down.  His owners are really over-valuing Evans.  The bottom line is that Evans shoots average percentages, rarely hit a three and turns the ball over a ton (3.1).  His numbers this past month are through the roof, but with Martin coming back soon, now is a good time to get a lot in return for Evans.  Keep in mind, Martin may get traded later in the year, but he will be back soon.

3: Kevin Garnett (F - Bos) - What concerns me the most for garnett is his knees.  He missed 25 games next year and knees generally don't get better.  They don't especially when a guy has played over 1200 games.  he may only be 33, but he's played as many games as a 37 year old.  Expect the Celtics to rest Garnett later in the season and that's a BEST case scenario.  The WORST is, obviously, that he will get hurt again and you will get nothing in return.