Three Players To Trade For During the All-Star Break

Antonio Losada takes a look at three players flying under the radar that would make for great additions in fantasy basketball leagues for the final stretch of the NBA season.

Finally, we have reached the All-Star break and with it mid-point of the NBA season!

You're right. That's a lie. The All-Star Game is not held at the point when we've watched 50% of the season, but rather two-thirds of it. Every team has played more than 50 games now (between 53 and 57, precisely) and man-of-steel Langston Galloway leads the league in games played with 57, two more than the 55 that have been played by 17 other guys around the NBA.

With around 65% of the games already in the rear-view mirror, it's time to take advantage of the break and look at some players owned in more than 40% of Yahoo leagues (that is, not widely available for free through the waiver wire) that you should consider trading for and adding to your team in order to boost your chances at a championship as we enter the final stretch of the season.

Three Players To Trade For

Michael Porter Jr., (SF, DEN): 47% owned

I might be biased because this is a homer pick, but everything we thought we knew about Michael Porter Jr. when he entered the draft less than two years ago is becoming a reality at the pro level. Porter was a coveted prospect and although he had to forfeit his rookie season due to injury it seems like he could end having a nice career, returning Denver a lot of value for the low price they paid for him.

One of the best things about Porter is how he's played two seasons bundled into one this year. This is what I mean. MPJ before Jan. 12: 5.7 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 0.4 apg in 10+ minutes of playing time. MPJ from Jan. 12 to Jan. 31 (he's been out since then): 14.7 ppg, 9 rpg, 1.6 apg, 1.3 spg in 25+ minutes. Now that's some improvement. The good thing for you is the fact that Porter season numbers are so impacted by his first 29 games that he looks horrific overall.

I'm not saying you will find an owner that would bite on that approach without checking what Porter has been up to lately, but given the low ownership rate, it's not out of the equation to find someone not valuing Porter for what he truly is. Assuming Porter keeps up his last 10-game averages (and even if those numbers drop a bit), we'd be talking about someone to put on par with what the likes of Giannis, Jokic, Luka, Drummond, Adebayo, and Anthony Davis are doing on the season.

Danuel House Jr., (SG/SF, HOU): 41% owned

At an incredible 6-6 of height, Danuel House might be the tallest basketball player walking around Houston these days. Now, I'm joking, but only partly. If you have been living under a rock and you missed the Rockets going all-in with their #BanBigMen plan leading up to the last trade deadline,well...Houston traded away Clint Capela for Robert Covington and is now playing the smallest of small-ball.

House isn't new, mind you. He has started 37 of the 48 games he's played, and he's averaging a very healthy 31 minutes on the season. That is cool, but what is very appealing is the fact that he's now a lock in the starting five going for runs of 35+ minutes nightly... and that he's making the most of those chances. When it comes to opportunities, playing alongside Russell Westbrook and James Harden (and now Covington too) is always going to hurt, thus his low 14.7% usage rate in his last 10 games. Even with that, though, the numbers have been great for the lowly-coveted House.

In that aforementioned last 10-game span, House is putting up 12.9 ppg, 6.5 rpg, 1.7 apg, and a pretty great 1.9 spg. More than that--as it couldn't be another way, remember we're talking Houston here...--House is hitting 2.7 triples per game (he has scored at least one long-ranger in every game going back to Jan. 22) while attempting 10+ field goals per game. He also brings double-double upside in him thanks to his rebounding prowess (two dub-dubs in his last ten games, another two matches in which he missed on the feat by just one rebound).

Marquese Chriss, (PF/C, GSW): 55% owned

First of all, Golden State isn't any good. The Warriors went from contenders to not even pretenders in the span of three short sunny months this past summer. Can't blame them, considering Kevin Durant moved East, Klay Thompson was known to miss the season, and Stephen Curry lasted healthy all of three games and change. Looking at the bright side, though, such a barrage of losses made some new names pop from nowhere and has allowed some young players to find their place in the NBA at least for the time being. Enter Marquese Chriss.

Yes, I'm talking about 2017 no. 8 overall draftee Marquese Chriss, now on his fourth (!) NBA team after not panning out anywhere (yet). Although Chriss had it tough in Golden State during the first month of the season and again from mid-December to mid-January (his minutes in those two separate spans were around 15 per game), he proved quite capable in late November and most of all from mid-January on. From Jan. 20 (when he played 20+ minutes for the first time since Jan. 2) on, Chriss is averaging 25 minutes of playing time while shooting 66.3% from the floor, scoring 14 points per game, grabbing 6.7 boards, dishing out 1.3 assists, and blocking 1.6 shots a night (11 games played).

Chriss is taking more and more responsibilities on offense by the day (his usage rate is on the 23-to-25% clip these days compared to 18% earlier on the season) and taking more than 9 fga per game in his last 10 matches. While D'Angelo Russell is out and Andrew Wiggins came in, that hasn't impacted his game much as he's had his best performances of the year in his past three games (26-9, 17-9, and a dub-dub at 18-12). Curry is aiming at returning in March, which should improve the Warriors' overall levels of performance, so I'm confident in Chriss keeping his current role up and raising his numbers even more down the stretch.

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