First off – take that, BV! I got to use my Dalembert headline before you. Ha! (This has been something we’ve been discussing since the beginning of the season.) But there’s a reason besides sticking to BV (wait, that doesn’t sound right) that I’m writing about Dalembert. It’s because something very rare happened a few days ago. I made a trade. And not just any trade … a trade with BV! Actually, we’ve been trading partners before. I find that fantasy basketball is a lot like the real thing, at least in terms of dealing with other “GMs.” In real life, there are certain guys that just avoid each other and know that no trades will ever happen. For whatever reason, you just can never see eye to eye. But BV and I have had some success in the past making deals, I specifically remember trading for Tim Duncan a few years ago. Anyway, here’s the deal, and you folks out there can let us know what you think.
DM gets: Jason Terry and Samuel Dalembert
BV gets: Brevin Knight and Yao Ming
Here’s the background you need to know. Right now there is one dominant team in our 12-team, 8-category league. He’s been over 80 points for the past month, hovering between 80 and 85, with a consistent double digit lead. He’s got an incredibly strong team, no fewer than 8 points in any category, and is going to be tough to beat. BV and I are two of three teams within striking distance, hovering between 65 and 70 or so points. Since we’re at the season’s halfway point, it’s time to make a move. I initially offered Brevin Knight for Dalembert straight up. BV’s weakest category is steals; I need some help in blocks. He countered with the deal I ended up accepting. I say “ended up” because I spent a full two days deliberating over it, crunching some serious numbers.
I often say that trades in fantasy NBA are tough because you almost always end up trading from a strength to address a weakness, but you end up creating a new hole and things usually balance out and you don’t see a gain. And on the surface, this seems to be one of those situations. Getting Terry and Dalembert gives me a big boost in FG% (Yao’s great there, but Dalembert is no slouch while Terry instead of Knight is a huge gain), 3s and blocks. But I would take a huge hit in FT%, assists, steals and points. So I examined the standings. At the time of the trade I had 8 points (out of 12, again) in 3s. As of today I’m already up to 10 points, with 411 3s, while first place (the team we’re all chasing) has 421. Having Terry instead of Knight should give me about 80 extra 3s over the second half of the season. That should be enough to lift me to first in that category, getting me those points. And since one of those points would be from the first place team, that’s even better.
Blocks is another category I need a major boost in. It’s a category where one player can make a difference, and Dalembert is obviously one of those players. I sit with 7 points and 285 blocks right now. Above me it goes 324-336-343-353-384. I have lots of work to do there, obviously, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be able to make a big leap. I crunched some numbers and figured the following. Right now I’ve used 411 games, almost exactly half of my allotted games. And I have 285 blocks. So, in theory, if everyone repeats their first half performance, I should end up with 570 blocks. But then you have to take into account that I’ve been playing with one center for much of this time and have some games in hand there. Let’s assume that Yao comes back soon and averages 1.8 blocks in 35 games over the rest of the season – perhaps that’s being a bit generous. That’s 63 blocks. And let’s assume Dalembert averages 3.2 blocks (lower than what he’s averaging now) over 40 games. That’s 128 blocks, so that’s a net gain of 65 blocks. Add that to my 570 and that gives me 635 blocks. But assuming everyone else doubles their first half numbers, it’s still not enough to get me any points. Since I have those games in hand at center and have three centers to rotate (Rasheed Wallace, Pau Gasol, Dalembert), I will need to fill that PF slot that Gasol was in with someone who can get me some blocks hopefully. It’s a risk, but playing for second place is pretty boring, right?
Now, ignoring categories for a second there’s still the issue of breaking what appears to be cardinal sin of trading: buy low/sell high. I absolutely sold completely low on Yao while buying ridiculously high on Dalembert. I freely admit this. I let Yao sit on my bench for a month and now that he’s ready to come back – with an effective McGrady taking pressure off him – I dealt him. This could really come back to haunt me, especially if Dalembert doesn’t continue his sterling play. And that’s certainly a possibility; consistency has not been his forte in his brief career thus far. But I feel like I balanced this out by selling high on Brevin Knight and buying somewhat low on Jason Terry. I love B-Knight (the inventive nickname Steve Buckhantz made for him), but he’s injury prone. He rarely gets to 70 games in a season and he’s been fighting through some nagging injuries lately. Meanwhile, Jason Terry is a top 40 player when he’s on his game. I crunched some more numbers on assists and steals, since that’s obviously where I’m losing with this exchange. I currently have 1584 assists; second place in that category has 1473. It’s a nice lead, but certainly not totally safe with half a season left. Using Terry instead of Knight, I should lose about 175 assists or so. So if you double my number and take away 175, that gives me right around 3000, which should still put me head of the next person if you double this. This is all very rough, but I figured with Terry and three other PGs plus Pau “Assists” Gasol on board, I should be able to hold steady.
As for steals, I’m currently second with 458. First place has 495 – he looks solid. There are five teams within 50 of me, and losing the top steals man in the league will certainly hurt. This is the category I’m most worried about, especially because it means that I’ll likely have to leave Marko Jaric in my lineup most of the time. Ouch. But like I said, it’s a gamble, and there’s not much fun playing for second place.
So, thoughts? I know that I didn’t give BV’s side of the story, so maybe he’ll want to chime in there. It really is a pretty even deal, with both of us addressing our weaknesses and hoping for some good luck. Will it help us get to the top of the standings? Time will tell…
In week 2 at least they’ve gotten back in their lineups. Both have slumped in several categories (FG%,pts,assts,rebs) compared to their pre-trade/pre-injury #’s. Meanwhile D.Howard has played amazing the past 2 weeks, increasing his pts,rebs,fg%blks.