I’ve been waiting at least a week now to write about Ron Artest. The idea would be to wait until he got moved, and then go over the plusses and minuses for each player involved and a couple of ancillary guys as well. Then last week came and went with no deal. Now it looks like we’re still a little bit away from a deal. And while Artest isn’t on any NBA courts near you, he’s still filling up a precious roster spot for an owner in your fantasy league. And the longer that Donnie Walsh waits to move him, the longer Artest will contribute nothing to your fantasy squad. However, just because Artest isn’t playing doesn’t mean that he can’t have value for your fantasy team – even if he’s not on it.
Let’s get back to the basics for a second: when you’re playing fantasy sports, you’re gambling (like I needed to remind you). Even if you’re not in a pay league, you’re still gambling. You’re betting that over the course of the season, the players on your roster will combine to play better than everyone else’s players. And the way to do that is to accumulate the best talent – based on YOUR analysis - over the course of the year. What that means is that a certain player can have vastly different value according to each owner in your league.
Now, most of the time, a player’s value will be perceived pretty similarly across the board. No one is going to mistake Dirk Nowitzki for a second-round value, and no one would consider, say, Eddy Curry as a third-round-value kinda guy. So every time you see trades involving those players, both owners involved in the trade are pretty aware of what the other guy is thinking.
Still, there are some players where one owner will vastly disagree with another. You see this a lot on draft day, as you see owners reaching high for picks that they clearly value higher than other owners. But usually after the first couple of weeks shake out, everyone is pretty much on the same page.
However, every once in awhile, in the middle of a season, a player’s value will come into question, and we’ll see that disparity in owners’ opinions that is usually reserved only for draft time. That’s what’s happening right now with Artest. We’re getting plenty of questions about him, meaning that his perceived value is all over the table.
With all that in mind, let’s get back to how to handle Artest. The first thing you need to do is figure out how YOU value Artest. For me, I’d say he’s about a fifth round pick, with the following reasoning: He’s generally a late second/early third round value. However, because we don’t know when he’ll actually return to the court, or what sort of situation he’ll be in, I’m going to dock him 2-3 rounds of value. But that doesn’t mean that you or other owners in your league don’t see him as still having 2nd round value, or that others don’t believe he’s worth more than a 7th rounder right now.
Now, it’s time to take that opinion and put it to work. If you’ve got Artest, and have a relatively low value for him (i.e. 4th rd or lower) you should be offering him around the league right now to as many people as possible. If another owner in your league is valuing Artest as a third rounder, you’ll get him to bite.
If you don’t have Artest, and you have him valued relatively high, then by all means make an offer for the guy. You’ve got to gauge how his owner values the troubled star, and the only way to find out is to go after him. And if you get him – well, you know what you’re in for. Good luck.