Mid-Year NBA Fantasy Update

Posted by Dan Dragicevich.

The toughest part about managing a fantasy basketball team is finding out where your team stands midway through the year.

For fantasy basketball owners whose teams are struggling, stay positive because one of the best times of the year is the all-star break. This is a vital period of time because it gives you a week to rest up your players and to try and get your injured players back in the rotation. The all-star break is also the perfect time to try and figure out where your weaknesses are and to resurrect those issues by hitting up the free agent market. The first thing you need to do is to find out what categories you’re consistenly losing and to make sure the players you pick up can help you out in those areas. For instance, if you’re losing in assists you don’t want to pick up someone who scores all the points on the team. Seems pretty simple right? But the tricky part is the two shooting percentage categories. If you’re losing in field goal percentage, most people tend to lean towards picking someone up who scores a lot because they think they are good shooters. Wrong. Usually the players who score a lot tend to have lower field goal percentages because they love to shoot, but in reality they make up most of their points from the foul line because they attack the rim. Now that it is a little trickier, let’s take a look at some possible players to pick up.

Field Goal Percentage:

Nikola Pekovic- A recent up and comer, Pekovic really has come on strong as of late scoring double digits in his past 6 games and shooting an amazing .609 from the field.

Free Throw Percentage and 3’s made:

Channing Frye- Someone who was supposed to be picked up in the draft, Frye had struggled early in the year but is playing well now. He is shooting .913 from the line and has made 32 3’s on the year. A big man who can shoot and rebound is vital in leagues.

Rebounds and Blocks:

Bismack Biyombo- The youngest player in the NBA, Biyombo is someone who can be a tremendous defensive asset for a team. His rebound numbers are a little low because of the minutes he’s getting but on the flip side his blocks are extremely high for the minutes he’s getting.

Assists:

Ramon Sessions- The Cleveland point guard has been dishing the ball out well as of late, tallying 16 and 13 assists in his last two games. He is averaging nearly 6 on the year.

Steals:

Iman Shumpert- With 47 steals on the year, the New York Knick guard is averaging 2 steals a game which is pretty high for a category like that.

Points:

Jordan Farmar- The key to finding a player who can score points coming off the waiver wire is not looking at who has the highest total, but to find out who is on a hot streak. In this case I would say pick up Jeremy Lin but pretty much everyone has discovered the new sensation so now I would say Jordan Farmar is next in line. Farmar has scored double digits in 11 of his last 12 games and has been playing well as of late.