The NBA trade deadline is just around the corner and fantasy basketball trade deadlines are a couple of blocks just beyond it, give or take a few weeks depending on your league's settings. Anyway, it's this time of year that trade rumors get people's ears buzzing as NBA teams look to make their last major deals and adjustments to their rosters that will dictate their direction for the remainder of the season and beyond.

How should these trade rumors, if at all, affect the fantasy basketball world's managers? How much weight should us managers put on these rumors in terms them affecting our own fantasy trades and FA pool pick ups? Should we wait and see what happens first? Sometimes it's too late to wait for things like that to materialise first.This is indeed the time of the season when a good number of fantasy basketball managers get those itchy trigger fingers. How can we capitalize on that?

I consider this to be an important topic for fantasy, so I assembled some of the most brilliant minds in fantasy basketball to address the issue. Well that, and I was feeling lazy to type out 1,500 words myself just to talk about trade rumors. So I sent them messages saying that if they chose to accept the mission of contributing their thoughts on the matter, they should email me back right away with a paragraph or two; otherwise their naked toddler pictures would be posted on sites deemed illegal in several states. Sadly, I didn't know how to program the email to make it self-destruct after 30 seconds upon reading. The good news is they replied anyway.

On tap we've got Brendan, of that other equally awesome fantasy basketball blog on the Bloguin network, 2nd Round Reach; and of course what would a fantasy basketball pow-wow be without my boys and blogmates, Nels and Patrick, from GMTR?

Thankfully, these guys took some time out from their busy schedules from finding the cure for the common cold and male pattern baldness through fantasy basketball. Thankfully, because as far as the field of modern medicine is concerned these guys are unmatched in their knowledge of and acumen in, well, fantasy basketball.

Patrick considers trade rumors as important considerations as far as fantasy basketball is concerned. Obviously, the topic of trade rumors cannot be mentioned nowadays without talking about the NBA's hottest trade commodity on the market, Amare Stoudemire:

"Trade rumors ARE an important consideration for fantasy basketball managers, because there are always a few that happen every year which dramatically change the fantasy value of a player. Just looking at the major trades from February of last year, Pau Gasol went to the Lakers, Mike Bibby to the Hawks, Shawn Marion to the Heat, and Jason Kidd to the Mavs. In each of those cases, the value of the traded player was quite a bit different on his new team than his old. Gasol and Bibby improved (or you could say started playing hard again), while Marion and Kidd declined.

This season, Amare Stoudemire is getting a lot of trade rumor attention. Since he's been dogging it a bit this season due to his unhappiness with the Suns, Amare would seem to fall into the Gasol/Bibby camp of guys who would improve if/when traded. So, Amare seems like a good target to buy low on in a fantasy trade.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Suns have been shopping him around for a while without much luck, which leads to a potential problem of focusing too much on trade rumors: over thinking them. With all the trade rumors that fly around – Amare has been linked to Portland, Chicago, Toronto, New York, and probably 15 other places – we have no idea where he's going or even if he's going anywhere. So, while it's certainly important to consider that Amare might be moved by Phoenix, it's still a crap shoot whether it is going to affect his fantasy value in any way."

Nels likes the more conservative approach and looks at trade rumors more from the perspective of the consequent ripple effect of trades coming to fruition on the FA pool. He also would not personally like make any rash moves until trades have actually fallen through. Here's what he has to say:

"If we are speaking in the present - i.e., 100+ days out of 170 down - I think trade rumors are one of the more important factors you can consider when making Free Agent pickups (assuming you're one of the few, the proud, the brave who are still making Free Agent pickups at 100+ days). A lot of the injuries have already been sorted out, so you have to start looking somewhere else if you're going to get an edge on the competition. When there is something as big as an Amare Stoudemire trade being talked about, then you have to look at what it means for someone whose name keeps coming up. The big name guys like Amare are already taken, though, so you have to look at the influence on the other guys, like perhaps Tyrus Thomas (in this example). He's probably still available as a Free Agent, but on the Bulls, is he really worth picking up? Probably not. But, is he worth picking up in case he gets traded to Phoenix where he'll be competing for PT with Louis Amundson and Jared Dudley? Certainly makes it more interesting...

Honestly, I like to just wait until a trade actually goes down and then pounce as quickly as possible and hope I pick the right guy and get him before anyone else can. It's probably not as successful of a strategy, but it cuts down on a lot of the uncertainty, and also lets you look at guys who aren't in the trade rumors at all without having your judgement clouded by something some guy with a Twitter account sent out into the tubes."

And of course last but not the least, my bro Brendan, has some nasty strategy to make the most of trade rumors and how to "milk" those managers who have itchy trigger fingers:

"First and foremost is the fact that trades are actually fairly rare in the NBA. We can look to last season's flurry of moves, and high-profile swaps like Iverson-Billups are still fresh in our memories, and it's easy to forget that this is true. But generally speaking, players of such fantasy value that they'd feature prominently in a fantasy deal only happen a couple times a year or so, and usually well before the trade deadlines of either the real or fantasy worlds. Likewise, If a player has an expiring contract and doesn't want to stay on a rebuilding team, it isn't really "news" to anybody in February. It IS true that certain commodities are always at a premium for NBA teams. Usually these are role players who correspond to "role" categories (shooters like Mike Miller are often buzzed about, and he's usually a three point bonanza, for example), but these players are bait that anybody can see coming a mile away, a truth often factored into estimations of their fantasy value preseason at draft time.

That said, I think a certain segment of fantasy owners in any given league are particularly susceptible to trade rumors, and this is just asking to be exploited. These tend to be owners who are in playoff position, but not likely to win more than a round (if that) and have a player who is supposedly on the block. Them's ripe for the pickin', my friend. Ply them with questions as to the news on said player, and see which scenario they're convinced is soon to go down. Spend the next two or three days dropping subtle references to something you read on Fanhouse or BallHype and then wait. If they don't make you an offer, send one of your own, justifying it with "I don't know, I don't need Amare to ever average 2 blocks to make use of his percentages..." They'll click "accept" so fast that it'll be next week before they realize that Zach Randolph is still totally... Zach Randolph.

A job well done."

Gosh, they said a mouthful.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, I personally consider trades and their preceding rumors close to the trade deadline quite important as well. They marks the last major wave of player value volatility, save of course for those unforeseeable injuries.

I fall into the category of guys who scour the FA pool 100+ days into the season constantly tweaking and twinking my team to make it better.

I'm also one of those trigger happy managers.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I grabbed Ramon Sessions from the GMTR readers league FA pool on the merit of his upside during the time that rumors were circulating that he may be traded to the Grizzlies. That deal didn't fall through and at this point I have my doubts that it will, but somehow things worked themselves out to skyrocket his fantasy impact and value, nonetheless. Now he can shine and show EVERYONE how absolutely AWESOME he is. Scott Skiles, these next 4 weeks are a testament as to why Ramon is > than Luke. I may have just gotten lucky, but it was the decision to grab Ramon that lead to it in the first place.

I grabbed Tyronn Lue in the GMTR Monster League (20-man) the moment it was announced that he was headed to Orlando, so far that wasn't as sweet an investment.

Moral of these stories? Well acting on trade rumors, swiftly and with wanton disregard as to who you are throwing to the pool to or giving up in a trade to acquire certain players; is or at least should be a calculated risk. Unless you have Phoenix Suns owner, Robert Sarver, on speed dial and are certain as to if and where Amare is headed; be careful in trading him or for him.

If things pan out the way you predict as far as acting upon trade rumors are concerned, then BOOM! - your team is better and you look like a brilliant fantasy manager. On the other hand, act too soon and give up too much based on trade rumors alone and things don't wind up going your way... Well buddy, you just bought yourself some tickets to the next Jean-Claude Van Damme Rock Concert - Yup, you're now all alone and it looks like pretty much everything you've seen on Bloodsport!

Thanks again to Brendan, Nels and Patrick for chipping in their 2 cents and sweetening up the content of this post. Guys, your naked toddler pictures have been forwarded to your girlfriends' and wives' inboxes as a pre-Valentine gift. I hope they get you some! ...Unless you're too basketball-geek and decide to watch the All-star events on TV instead.

Disclaimer: In the event that any of the above mentioned gentlemen's wives or girlfriends are subscribed to Points in the Paint - which would be cool, or read their boyfriend's Fantasy NBA filled Google Readers - which would be kind of weird; I would like to say that unfortunately there are no naked toddler pictures of your man in your inboxes and that you will have to manually ask them to strip down for your viewing pleasure.

Cheers!

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment