Today we’ll look at some of the most pleasant surprises of the first half of the season and try to figure out if they can make it last for the rest of the year. These players are all in the top 40 of the player rater, meaning they all have serious trade value. If you have these guys on your team (hello, BV!), you could get serious value for them in return. So, should you explore that?

Caron Butler
Butler has easily been the surprise star of the fantasy season. Maybe other players came from more obscurity to be solid contributors, but Butler has gone from consensus mid-round pick to absolute star. Look at the names above him on the rater – Marion, Arenas, Nash, Garnett, Nowitzki, Kidd, Wade, Brand, Bryant. Every single one of those picks except Kidd was a first rounder, and Kidd was a second rounder. And Butler is right there with them. Take a moment to appreciate that. It would be pretty unreasonable to expect this to continue, and I’m not so sure that Antawn Jamison’s injury is going to help him too much. Butler is a career 43.6% shooter who is shooting almost 48% on a career high 16.2 shots per game. Now. Butler’s jumper is incredibly accurate, but if that percentage comes down – and history suggests it will, at least a bit – and the shots increase just a bit, that could have a bigger impact on his value than you think. He’ll continue to see around 41 mpg, which obviously cannot be discounted. Only Allen Iverson and LeBron James are playing more minutes than Butler this year. Because of that (and, of course, barring an injury), his cumulative numbers should remain around the 20/8/4 level, along with the tons of steals his owners have grown to love. But there might be some 7-for-18s in his future, and if those add up, your FG% will suffer. Tuff Juice is for real, and you probably still won’t get equal value if looking to deal him, but you might want to think of finding someone to help balance what could be a fairly significant drop in FG% in the second half.

Emeka Okafor
Okafor’s only nine spots down on the player rater from Butler, although it’s a big statistical gap between the two. Okafor’s breakthrough has come courtesy of him fulfilling his block potential that we all thought he had coming out of college and by shooting the ball like an actual big man. He shot just 41.5% in his injury-plagued season last year, which I don’t need to tell you is just awful for a center. And that came on the heels of a not-quite 45% rookie season, so it was starting to look like he might be a Jermaine O’Neal type, a big man who just didn’t help you at all in FG%. Unlike O’Neal, though, Okafor doesn’t settle for too many jumpers, and he doesn’t take all that many shots to begin with, so while his 53.5% from the field this year is certainly surprising, it’s not shocking. One reason I like Okafor to hold his ground in the second half of the season is that there is still room for his offensive game to grow. His FGA are slightly down from last year, 12.2 to 11.4, so it’s possible he can carve out a bigger role in the offense. Granted he’s got lots of shooters – or, rather, people who like to shoot – surrounding him, but a bump up of a couple of ppg isn’t out of the question. But since most of his value is tied into his blocks and rebounds, he should be pretty safe. He simply delivers in those categories basically every night and throws in monster performances pretty regularly. He hasn’t missed a game yet this season, and that might not last, but if he plays in 75 games I’d expect to see him finish the season in the top 25.

Manu Ginobili
I really don’t know how Ginobili is doing it. We preach minutes above all else here, and then you’ve got Manu who is averaging a mere 28 mpg yet sits at #27 on the rater. Pretty unbelievable. We should give some credit to both Ginobili and Gregg Popovich for proper handling here. Ginobili is a guy who crashes around the floor and has a tendency to get banged up. The Spurs have at least decent depth at his position with Michael Finley and Brent Barry, so why not limit Ginobili’s minutes with the hopes of keeping him healthy? It’s worked beautifully so far as he has missed just five games and been brilliant while on the court. No numbers really jump out at you – 16.3/4.5/3.3, 1.6 3s, 1.7 steals, 45/86 – but there’s no weakness to be found. But you have to think this is as good as it gets for Ginobili. You get the feeling that as the season wears on and the Spurs start facing reality and preparing for the playoffs as a #3 seed that Ginobili might take some games off. He missed 17 last season and 8 the year before, so expect him to sit out a few more. And those minutes will be kept in check, too, as Ginobili just isn’t a 30+ minute player under Popovich on the Spurs. He’s a fun player to watch and easy to get attached to, but if I could afford to give up the steals I’d probably look for someone with a better track record of health and big minutes.

Ben Gordon/Luol Deng
We’ll group these two together since they are teammates. Both of these players are having legitimate breakout seasons and – noticing a trend here? – both are using career-high shattering FG% to lead the way. Gordon is shooting a remarkable 46%, way up from the 42 and 41 of his first two seasons. He’s also become one of the most valuable in the game from the free throw line. His 87.4% on 6 attempts per game puts him behind only Dirk, Kobe and Kevin Martin in value in that category. Breakout seasons are almost always tied into increased value in percentages, it’s just the way it goes. Gordon seems to have corrected the fluke of playing much better off the bench than as a starter, as he’s averaging 23.4/3.3/4.9 in the last nine games and is up to #28 on the player rater. Deng hasn’t disappointed in what I thought would be a big season for him. Again, it’s the shooting – 52% up from 46% – as most of his other numbers are right where you’d expect them to be given the slight increase in minutes. What I really like about Deng is that he seems to know his strengths and weaknesses. In his rookie season he shot just 26.5% from long range while attempting two per game. Last year that percentage stayed the same even though he attempted just one per game. He might still discover his outside shot later in his career, but this year he has eliminated it from his game completely, attempting just 3 on the season, but that plays a big role in his increased FG%. Both Deng and Gordon can continue contributing at their current levels provided that Chicago doesn’t make a big trade. On most teams these players would have be the first and second offensive options, but that’s how it is in Chicago. The complete lack of any interior option means that no matter how any game is going, these players will get their looks and have the ball plenty. There are only two games in the past month in which Deng has taken single digit shots, and Gordon fires at will and is seeing 36+ mpg as a starter. Bring Pau Gasol, Zach Randolph or someone like that into the picture and suddenly the hierarchy changes.