Progress Report On The Early Buy Low Targets

Report card time! We don't learn anything if we don't check up on the choices we've made so far and see how those trades have panned out thus far. I dug in and went back to four of the earliest BUY LOW candidates we profiled. Took a look at their numbers at that time, and we'll look at their numbers now. Before we get into the details, I just want to reiterate a few things.

First things first, when I issue out a Buy Low on a player, it means that player is playing BELOW THEIR POTENTIAL. By targeting this player in the right deal, you aim to get him at a value that is below what they are really worth. This is how you stack your team with solid players. I can't tell you how many people, in the comments section of this blog, told me repeatedly how bad they just wanted to ditch Caron Butler or Amare Stoudemire in November. THESE are the people we target in a trade.

BUT it's ALL about WHO you deal to them in the trade. For instance, I dealt Jason Thompson to get Caron Butler, score! However if you rolled over and dealt Paul Pierce to get Butler, well that's a steep price to pay and really misses the whole idea behind a Buy Low. The owner of these players is dying to just cut loose. The BEST time to target them is IMMEDIATELY after the target player has a poor game.

This is what Buy Low is all about. Most of the time it works, sometimes it doesn't, but so long as we win on 75% of the deals, we're golden. In the next post we'll go through some of the Sell High calls too. OK on to the numbers:

Caron Butler
We issued the call to Buy Low in the first post of this blog, around December 1st. Caron's numbers pre and post that choice are as follows:
CAT PRE POST
PTS 16.4 17.5
REB 7 6.6
STL 1.3 1.8
FG% 41% 45%

I'm only posting the relevant changes. As you can see, Caron went from a sub par player right back into being a worthy contributor. Moreover, he's just starting to heat up and things should get better even from here.

Amare Stoudemire
We issued the call on Amare at around the same time. Amare would've been a HUGE payoff if you could snag him, check it out.
CAT PRE POST
PTS 19.2 21.9
REB 7.1 11.4

WOW, unfortunately I didn't get Amare on my squad. His owner just wouldn't budge. I know a bunch of you all did, so SOUND OF IF YA HEAR ME! Again, the rest of his numbers didn't change much so I'm just posting the important ones.

Derrick Rose
Rose we targeted as a great fill in for PG if you missed out on one of the big 3. He was IMMENSELY cheap early on, and really had a nice payoff as well. Check it out:
CAT PRE POST
PTS 15.8 21.5!!!
AST 5.3 6.1!!!
TO 3.1 2.4
Rose has really turned it on of late, particularly in his last outing. What a great return on investment! Sometimes you just don't notice this stuff til it hits you in the face.

Ok we have one last guy, who unfortunately might've just gotten injured. That is Stephen Jackson who we targeted shortly after his trade to Charlotte. We earmarked this as a good deal for him, a great place to land. Check it out:
Stephen Jackson
CAT PRE POST
PTS 19.2 21.5
FT% 65.4 81.2!!

We earmarked FT% as one of the BIG reasons SJAX was being dumped so cheap. Some readers even found him sitting on their FA wire. What a grab!

So far so good I'd say. Buying low and selling high is a proven method to stack your team with studs and dominate your league. Like I said I'll post the updates for some of the Sell Highs including Pierce, Melo and Deng. Until then, if you landed one or more of these guys (and we didn't even go over Salmons, what a payoff there too!) pat yourself on the back for a job well done.