February 7, 2018

Milos Zvekic's buy low, sell high trade advice for Week 17 of fantasy NBA. His buy/hold/sell recommendations for Lou Williams and Eric Bledsoe in fantasy basketball leagues.

Picking the right moments to buy, hold or sell your fantasy players can prove to be the difference come the end of a fantasy season. If you managed to sell your guy who was on fire just before he went cold again and get someone back who was slumping at the time, but is now back to his old valuable self, that could give you a significant advantage when fantasy playoffs start. And with the Trade Deadline looming, this is the right time to try and get away with some of those moves.

The Clippers made it clear that they are not looking to compete this year with them trading away their best player in Blake Griffin. It is quite possible that the Blake trade is just a gateway to more trades. And the players that are featured in almost all the Clippers' rumors are DeAndre Jordan and Lou Williams. And while DJ should keep his value wherever he goes, as he does not need ball in his hands to be productive, and he will be utilized by any team that is willing to trade for him, it could prove difficult for Lou to hold on to this usage and therefore fantasy value on most other teams. More on what to do with Lou is coming up shortly.

The Bucks have just had two of their point guards fall victim to injury. Would you believe it, not one of them is Eric Bledsoe!? If you're interested in the probable outlook for Bledsoe for the rest of the season and my take on his value going forward, keep reading. Welcome to our Week 17, Buy Low/Sell High column right here at Rotoballer.

Buy Low, Sell High Advice for Week 17

Are You for Real, Lou Williams?

The former NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award winner Lou Williams found himself traded to the LA Clippers in a deal for Chriss Paul last offseason and, with Patrick Beverley, Austin Rivers and Milos Teodosic all in the team's backcourt, figured to once again be the offensive force coming off the bench, but not much more than that.

But all three of his aforementioned teammates have been having trouble with injuries. Beverley is out for the season, Rivers hasn't played yet in 2018 and Teo is healthy now, but has missed over half of the Clippers' games so far. All this has Lou riding the biggest usage % of his career at 30.1%. The increased opportunity translated very well into fantasy output with Lou averaging 23.3 PTS with 2.8 3PM on 43.9 FG% and 90.0 FT%, 2.5 REB, 5.3 AST, 1.1 STL, 0.2 BLK and 2.9 TO in 33 minutes a night. He is a top-35 fantasy asset in most formats with this contribution.

So what's to keep Sweet Lou from keeping up this magnificent form?

Well, the rumors are heating up that the Clippers are looking to get younger and are shopping their older, valuable players to accomplish their goal of competing in a few years instead of right away. Lou fits exactly into what teams that want to win now want, and what the Clippers are looking to sell. With Griffin's deal going through, it seems like there's no time like the present for Clippers to pull the trigger on a deal for Lou. And there aren't any spots where Lou can land where he can keep getting the kind of run he's been getting so far. Likely suitors for his services are quality competing teams who already have strong rosters, and who need Lou mostly as a strong bench player, not the leader of their offense, which is his role on the Clippers at the moment. So any trade away from LA would have him lose at least some of his fantasy appeal.

What if Lou stays? Even if the Clippers are unable to find a satisfying deal for Lou Will, it is still unlikely that he will be able to keep it up at this level. Griffin is out of town, but in that deal, the Clippers received a guard, Avery Bradley, who can eat up some of Lou's minutes, and a high usage guy in Tobias Harris. In the two games with them in the lineup, Lou's usage is down to 28.2. So even if Williams was to stay a Clipper, he wouldn't be guaranteed the minutes or usage to keep producing at a top-35 pace.

If you own Lou and have an owner in your league with faith in him to stay in LA, or to keep up this sort of production, it could prove a wise move to try and sell at a high price. Most players from the top-50 have safer ROS value than Lou and I would probably take a guy like Khris Middleton, DeMar DeRozan or Robert Covington if I was offered one of them.

Baller Move: Sell high

Time to Panic on Eric Bledsoe?

Apart from his career high 2.1 steals per game and a somewhat decent (for a guy who takes almost five threes a game) 44.3% from the field, all other fantasy-relevant stats are down from his previous years. This is expected since he's been playing "just" 30 minutes a night, which is a three-to-four minute drop off from his previous years in Phoenix. But with his biggest competitors for minutes out for a couple of weeks (Malcolm Brogdon 6-8 and Matthew Dellavedova 3-4), Bledsoe should get all the run he can handle.

Expect his 16.8 points, 1.5 threes, 3.5 boards, 4.1 dimes and also his 2.9 turnovers per game, all to rise with the increased opportunity he is bound to get. Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and Bledsoe will be running the offense so it's difficult to imagine that he will still be limited to 13.5 field goals per game with almost 14.5 shots being up for grabs from the injuries of Brogdon and Delly.

Do be careful though, Bledsoe is quite an injury risk. He has missed less than 15 games in just three of his seven NBA seasons so far. And with the burden of injuries to his peers falling mostly on his shoulders, and Bucks in the midst of the battle for NBA playoff seeding, Bledsoe probably won't get rested enough and his body might not endure the effort.

While I would advise caution, I still believe that Bledsoe can be a decent fantasy, and can really up his value from his current top-75 form. If you can obtain his services for a player in that same range but with less opportunity or a worse outlook for the rest of the season I would certainly advise you do so. Jonas Valanciunas, Harrison Barnes, and Evan Fournier have all outperformed Bledsoe fantasy-wise this season, but all have lower ceilings and, barring any injury, should have less value the rest of the way. So if you own one of these players and Bledsoe's owner doesn't trust him, it would be a mid-risk high-reward move for you to make the swap.

Baller Move: Hold or buy low

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