Fantasy Basketball: How to Win the Second Half of Your Season

The first step in preparing for the second half of the fantasy basketball season is to re-evaluate your team and decide who is expendable. Sometimes it's hard to drop one of your players for another free agent, but if your team is weak in rebounds then you should reconsider. For example, if you have three of the best three point shooters in the league and every week you are losing the rebound category, then you should consider trading for a player who gets a high number of rebounds every game. A good fantasy manager will make sure his team is solid all around in every category.

When evaluating your players you should consider if their role on the team has changed. Some trades will increase the fantasy value of the players, while some trades will decrease the value of some players. For example, if one of your players who is a good rebounder is traded from a team which lacks size to a team that has three or four players who play quality time and don't lack size, then this might hurt your player who will be competing for time and rebounds on the new team.

Rookie NBA players sometimes run out of gas toward the second half of the season, because they are not accustomed to playing this kind of brutal schedule. This is another factor when starting your second half of the season. I consider trading any rookies on my team for other veteran players who won't run out gas and will be involved in the team's rotation toward the end of the season.

Read what experts are saying about your player(s). However, be careful when looking at fantasy websites that rank players, because most will be looking at every category. Your league might just count points, free-throws made, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. The website feeding you their opinion might also consider turnovers, minutes and field goal percentage. So, the information you get might not be the information you need and could lead to bad decisions.

Lastly, consider match ups. You should always play the big name players like Kobe, Garnett, and James. However, look at who your other players are playing on a given night. If one of your average players is playing one of the best defenses in the league you should consider another player who has a more favorable match up. If you are not sure whom your best match up is trying looking at yahoo sports and click on NBA and then on ODDS and determine what the experts are saying about the match up. Good luck on the second half of your season.