So instead of doing a player analysis today, I thought I’d write about something else. All of this might be more relevant to head to head leagues than roto leagues. Seeing the potential season ending injury to Andrew Bogut, what do you if a big stat guy on your team sustains a long term injury? The first question is do you hold on to him. What you shouldn’t do is immediately drop him. Sometimes the initial prognosis is incorrect and they may be back sooner than expected. So how long is too long to hold onto a player? In the end, if your team is capable of making your fantasy playoffs without the player, and the player will be back before the playoffs start (at least a few weeks before), you should hold onto him. As long as you make the playoffs, your standing during the regular season does not matter. But with our luck rare is the case that a player is back before the fantasy playoffs. Last season I lost both Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler, both were big losses to my team, considering they were averaging a combined 33 points, 11 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2 steals and 2.5 3’s a game. Those are hard stats to find on the waiver wire in a 14 team league. But I still made the playoffs as a middle seed, and pushed it into the semis and just barely lost out on getting to the finals.
So how did I replace these guys? A little bit of luck and a lot of research on players. I held onto both of them until I was 100% sure they would be out the rest of the fantasy season. It’s better to lose a week in head to head than it is to drop one of your big performers. The first thing I realized is that, players on the waiver wire usually only contribute one or two stats MAX. Out of those 5 stats I needed to replace, I found that rebounds, 3’s and steals were the ones I wanted the most. So I ignored player point production. Points are ‘biggest stat’ numerical wise which makes 1 point less important than 1 steal or 1 3-pointer. With the waiver wire being extremely thin, I initially picked up Belinelli. He was playing extremely well at the time and averaging almost 2 3pointers a game. The second player I picked up was Dejuan Blair, who I was very fortunate to find on the waiver wire. He had been having a down couple of weeks and I guess the owner got frustrated with the inconsistency and dropped him. He ended up picking up his game and gave me steals and rebounds. While I wasn’t able to completely fill up the stats I needed to replace, I came as close as I could from the waiver wire. With a combined 18 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 1.7 3’s, and 1.7 steals a game, I came extremely close to replacing every stat except points. If you are not as fortunate to find players like these on the waiver wire, the other option is to try to solidify stats that you usually win, or increase a stat you barely lose. If you need to solidify your rebounding and a player like Reggie Evans is on the waiver wire, you pick him up even though he only gives you rebounds. He also doesn’t turn the ball over, doesn’t shoot much or take a lot of free throws which makes him an only positive stat player. This will insure you never lose rebounding again and could be the difference in winning the rebounding category, and potentially turnovers as well. I know this was a long article but replacing star players is not an easy thing to do and I hope this helps.
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