"It's looking bad,
Need some hope,
Like the words
'maybe,' 'if' or 'probably'" -- Outkast, Aquemini
The holidays have passed. Your fantasy football season is over. This is a new year, and your resolutions are still fresh. The NBA season has reached the halfway point ... and maybe your fantasy team is struggling.
If that's you, what do you do from here? How do you get your team back in the mix? Is it possible that your squad can turn it around and still win the whole thing?
The answer to the last question is yes ... and here's how you can do it:
Be active, just like Adam Schefter
Why is your team behind? The answer might be a poorer-than-expected draft, or perhaps bad luck with injuries. However, many of us just didn't put as much time or effort in as we should have early on.
We were paying more attention to our fantasy football teams ... or putting in extra work at the job ... or planning big family trips over the holidays, which, if you have kids and a long trip, can be nerve-wracking, hair-pulling-out experiences that leave little time or emotion for anything else!!!
Ahem.
The point is, life happens. And when life happens, it's easy to look up and realize it's been a month and all you've done with your fantasy squad is set your lineup.
If this is you, the best way to get back into the mix is to start playing it to the bone.
Become that guy or gal in your league.
Watch a ton of basketball, stay plugged in online, do whatever you have to do so that you are always one of the first to hear about any new development. And use this to dominate the free agency/waiver wires.
For example, imagine John Wall were to go down today. When the other people in your league hear about the injury and race to the free-agency wire to grab Tomas Satoransky, their mindset should be, "I've got to hurry up and get there before that person beats me to him."
You know who's that guy in fantasy leagues? Adam Schefter!
He doesn't just work the info wires for NFL and NBA news, he also does it for his fantasy hoops teams. If you're ever in one of Schefty's leagues and Wall goes down, I guarantee you Schefty will be the one who gets Satoransky on his squad.
(Editor's note: This is true. In fact, he got ahead of the curve and added Satoransky in our league when it was first announced Wall was injured, before any talk of season-ending surgery.)
Swing for the fences like Giancarlo Stanton
Even if you aren't dealing with catastrophic injuries on your roster, don't be afraid to work the wire in active search of the next big thing.
My friend Shaun used to be that guy who would add/drop at the drop of a hat. We usually played daily transaction leagues, and every morning I'd get up and check my squad, and Shaun would have three or four add/drops by the next morning. Sometimes he'd have picked up and dropped the same player multiple times in one night, then come back to pick the player up again later in the week.
Often he'd drop players whom the rest of the league would hurry to snatch up. If I clicked on his team looking for players to trade for, sometimes I'd be horrified because I could barely find any blue-chip names. I'd catch myself asking questions like, "Wait ... who were his first five draft picks?"
But you know what?
Shaun almost always either finishes in the money or finishes last. He's like a power hitter in baseball these days: He doesn't hit singles. Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo pretty much only get home runs or strikeouts, but really, in fantasy basketball, isn't home-run-or-bust the way to go?
Shaun's methods often seem strange to me, and he's dropped or passed on a lot of talent through the years. But any time a hot streamer turns out to be the real thing, he's almost always on Shaun's team.
I tend toward conservative management myself, but the time for holding onto players because of their name value or because you expect them to turn things around may have passed if your team is slipping too far from contention. You may not be able to keep stashing Kristaps Porzingis or Dwight Howard in hopes of a late-season boost if you need production now.
If your squad is out of contention, becoming a change agent can be a good way to shake things up and make something happen.
Use the art of storytelling to make trades
You've got to talk some game if you want to win this game.
The most important part of making good trades, I've found, is communication. I don't just spray a bunch of trade offers out there and hope something sticks ... chances are nothing will. Nobody likes a cold call or spam, and if someone gets an offer for one (or more) of their best players, their first reaction is almost universally "no."
But if you've scouted someone else's team and really paid attention to its weak points, and if you've struck up an ongoing conversation in which you have made it clear that you're looking to make moves, and if you ask them what they are looking for, then you can usually make stuff happen. Make sure you structure the talks such that you're giving them what they ask for, but that you're still getting what you want (even if you don't tell them), and you'll probably be able to make deals happen.
Being involved in trades is almost always a good thing, for multiple reasons. For one, good trades generally make both teams better. So, even if one team improves a little more than the other, both teams improve with respect to the rest of the league. Second, trades beget trades. When a trade happens, more often than not, it startles other owners in the league and makes them want to make moves themselves. So, once you've made one deal, it will very often grease the wheels for another one.
At the end of a season, the teams with the most trades next to their names are often near the top of the rankings.
Get an edge with these strategies
Rotisserie: Use your games played very strategically
Most roto leagues have game limits per position. To see your pace per position in the ESPN Fantasy app, go to your team page and click the circled "i" for information.
But there's no reason you have to use those games at an even rate. And if you've dealt with injuries this season, there's a good chance you're behind in games played. If that's the case, then using those games should help your team move up in the standings.
Click here for a detailed look at managing games played by ESPN Fantasy Basketball editor Tom Carpenter.
Rotisserie: Percentages first, counting stats later
This trick is most useful as a draft strategy, but it can still be applied now.
In most roto leagues, there are teams that are completely out of the running or stop paying attention during the last couple months of the season. As such, a motivated owner can almost always make up a few points in the counting categories late in the season just by jumping over those dead teams.
But in the percentages categories, you can't really make up any ground on a dead team because percentages aren't a function of games played.
Thus, when making your adds and trades now ahead of your second-half push, concentrate on acquiring players who will have a positive impact on your field goal and free throw percentages. Get those percentages as strong as possible now, so if you need to make moves later to catch up in counting stats, you'll be able to take advantage of the dead teams for that extra boost in the standings.
Roto head-to-head: Emergency imbalanced lineups
When drafting teams, I tend to go for balance in both position and production. However, in roto H2H leagues where you only have to win, say, five of nine categories to win a week, balance isn't necessary. And if you're halfway through a season with a flawed or injured team, this approach is a good way to make your team a dark horse.
I call this plan emergency measures, because if it doesn't work, then the results can be catastrophic, so you break this glass only in case of emergency -- but if it does work ...
The plan? Essentially, you choose five categories you want to win every week and you overload your team in these categories. You completely punt the other four, making trades that essentially give your team a puncher's chance.
Here's an example: Identify your team's strengths and weaknesses by category. There are two natural groupings of categories: big-man cats (FG%, rebounds, blocks, turnovers) and little-guy cats (FT%, 3-pointers, assists, steals).
Once you've identified your strengths, look at your team and see who has the most trade value. Trade the players on your team who have trade value but may not be helping you.
For example, if you've decided to punt 3-pointers, then Klay Thompson may not have value for your team, and you can move him for someone who fills a category you want to stack up. Or, you may have hot shooters like Danilo Gallinari and JJ Redick whom you can package for a colder star player who contributes in areas of need, such as Draymond Green.