Hello readers. My name is Kent and I am thrilled to introduce a new weekly feature to Rotoballer, a segment that we’re calling Roster Doctor.

Fantasy basketball strategy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Some decisions are easy – if they offer you Stephen Curry for your Evan Fournier, you take it and run, you don’t need anyone to tell you that. Most trade offers and waiver decisions are not that black and white however, and the answer is very context dependent – it’s hard to give an answer without a big picture look at your team and your league first.

Each week we will be taking a team from one of you – our readers – and doing a full analysis of the team compared to the rest of your league. We will look at the strengths and weaknesses of the team, at where they sit in the standings and what the expectations are going forward should be. We’ll then focus on what kind of moves can help this team position itself better to succeed in their league. Our goal is to show our readers how to assess those “Should I take this trade?” and “Should I pick up this player?” that don’t fall neatly into a yes/no answer.

Team of the Week

Our team of the week comes from Howard L., from Toronto, ON:

Team Name: JL8

Current Record and Position: 29-22-3, Fourth Place

League Settings: 14-team Auction, 6-team playoffs, Standard 9-Cat, PG/SG/G/SF/PF/F/C/C/Util/Util

Current Roster and Standings:

Z-score stats courtesy of www.basketballmonster.com

Diagnostic:

Right off the bat, we see Howard’s team having some pretty well defined strengths. His superstar guard tandem of Curry and Westbrook gives him elite value in both assists and steals, projecting him as a top four team in those two categories relative to his league. Howard drafted Curry and acquired Westbrook in a pretty shrewd buy low deal, sending LaMarcus Aldridge and Jeff Teague to a struggling owner while Westbrook was mired about 30 spots below his ADP due to his struggles hitting free throws to start the year.

Howard made a second trade later on, sending Carmelo Anthony and Eric Bledsoe to acquire Ben Simmons and Jayson Tatum. Ben Simmons has been fantastic and projects as a legitimate second round value going forward, but despite acquiring the best player in this deal, this trade may not have been the best fit for Howard given the context. Simmons’ poor FT% and lack of 3s are a drag on a team that is looking to win the Guard stats, causing him to actually project as a below average team in 3s despite owning the highest 3V player in the league.

Howard currently sits in a playoff spot, and projects solidly as a playoff team, so we will look at the other strong teams in the league and figure out what categories he should be working on moving forward.

Opponents:

Z-score stats courtesy of www.basketballmonster.com

The first thing that stands out is that points looks to be a very polarized category, with 2 clear punt points teams and 3 teams that are elite in it. This means we can pretty much ignore attacking points with Howard’s team – we won’t beat the elite teams and we don’t lose to the punting teams either way.

Steals is another category that looks to be heavily polarized with 2 punt teams and 4 teams, including Howard, being elite in it. While it may seem like we wouldn’t want to focus on steals, Howard may need to if he wants better match-ups against the top teams in his league.

Gameplan:

The clear categories that we want to target are 3s, steals and FT%. While FG% looks like a category we could possibly contest, it will be hard pressed to make up Westbrook’s -1.49 fgV on a team that wants to win off a guard heavy strategy. In fact, FG% actually looks like the most logical punt category here, as we are already a heavy underdog vs 5 of the top 6 teams in that category without much chance to make up ground. Unfortunately, punting FG% means we will probably not be able to improve our rebounds too heavily, but having Russ’ out of position boards can still give us a chance to compete in that category.

With Curry as an anchor, Howard can easily become a top team in 3s with a few moves, so that makes sense as a category to target. Steals we mentioned above, based on the context of the league, Howard needs to be even better in steals to have a chance to compete with the other top teams. With FT%, Howard is stuck in a cluster of teams that sit above average in that category. Even a small boost can give him a solid edge against his field.

In terms of addressing the target categories, let’s look at a game plan:

Trade Ben Simmons: The first logical move would be to move Ben Simmons for a PG that fits better with his team. Simmons actively hurts two of the three categories we are targeting, and we can look to gain back some of the stats he provides in the trade. I would target someone like Kemba Walker, Kyle Lowry or Jimmy Butler in a deal dangling Simmons. All three of these trades make sense value-wise, and would give us a huge boost in 3s and FT% while not losing too much in rebounds and steals.

Move the old guys for specialists: While Wade has been playing great of late and Nowitzki still has use, both players possess skillsets that are more flat across the board, rather than being able to swing categories. Given the league's texture, I would rather focus on picking up 3-pt and rebound specialists for the bench to provide a different angle of attack depending on the opponent. Someone like Trevor Ariza could easily swing a playoff match-up, and that is the type of player I would target in a deal.

Trade Willie Cauley-Stein: Willie Cauley-Stein definitely has value in a 14-team league but is an awkward fit for our team. I would target a good rebounder who can provide some 3s sitting around that mid to late round value, someone like Marcus Smart, Taurean Prince or Ryan Anderson would fit very well with our strategy and wouldn't be too much to ask for.

Outlook:

All in all, Howard looks like a solid bet to make his playoffs, and can position himself nicely to make some noise once he gets there with a few moves. With a few moves, his team shapes up to be an elite guard-centric team that can still contest rebounds due to the out of position contributions from his two superstars. Good luck!

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