Buy Low On This All-Star

Over the last week or so I've fielded more and more questions from readers looking to rid themselves of the services of David West. I could understand their frustration given his slow start and inconsistent play of late. However as the cries grew louder I decided to look a little further into Mr. West's numbers. As you've probably gathered by now, I'm big on anyone playing alongside CP3. That is, if you are a reasonably decent basketball player, and you play with CP3, your numbers go up, especially scoring. David West is the best player that plays alongside Paul.

Alright so we like his team situation. And the two have played together for long enough to build some serious chemistry. Thus I'm signaling the alarm, it's time to Buy Low on Mr. David West. Let's take a look at the numbers:

DAVID WEST - F - New Orleans Hornets
CAT 2008 2009 Career
PTS 21 16.2 15.4
REB 8.5 7.1 7.2
AST 2.3 2.4 1.7
STL 0.6 0.7 0.7
3's 0.1 0.1 0.1
BLK 0.9 0.7 0.8
TO 2.1 2.8 1.6
FG% 47.2 46.5 48.2
FT% 88.4 85.5 84.1

As you can see, David is slightly better than his career numbers, but pretty far off his 2008 season which was an impressive campaign. Two factors at work for the current slump, a slow start to the season coupled with an injury to CP3. I dug deep into West's career, looking into his game log's for both the 08 and 07 seasons. It's noticeable that he often starts a little slower, and definitely performs better in late December through January than he does in November.

Basketball players, like baseball players, can be streaky. There's plenty of varying reasons for this occurrence, we don't need to concern ourselves with them. Instead, it's best to try and identify those streaks and use them to our advantage. I imagine the current cost in a trade for David West would be something around one of the following - Udrih, Illyasova, Crawford, Scola, or Battier. If we're wrong, you haven't lost much production going from Scola to West. But if we're right, and we will be, the payoff will be huge.

Now GO INK THAT DEAL!