Fantasy Basketball Keepers

Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball, Fantasy Basketball Strategy
Posted on: April 30th, 2007

While fantasy basketball keeper leagues aren’t totally widespread just yet, those that exist come in all shapes and sizes. The differences between a one-year keeper league and a perpetual dynasty league is so vast that it’s meaningless to offer a one-size fits all guide to keepers.

Instead, I can only offer my experience in a one-year keeper league that has a yearly auction. In this league, you get $75 to draft 15 players and can keep up to 3 players that were on your roster at the end of the previous year (excluding players that already have been kept). The cost to keep a player is what they went for in the last auction + $1.50. After a few go arounds in the league, I’ve managed to categorize keepers into 5 general categories:

Just Done Gone Blowed Up

The winning Powerball ticket of keepers – the chances aren’t great but the payoff is huge. Most years there are one or two guys, usually first or second year players who are a little light on the hype going into the year but become superstars right (or almost right) out of the gate. Chris Paul is the perfect example of someone who received relatively little hype as a rookie but shined out of the gate. He was an absolute steal at the $3.00 or so it cost for his owner to keep him the following year. I don’t know of anyone I’d put in this category this year. Josh Smith and/or Leandro Barbosa would come the closest, but I wouldn’t quite put him such selected company.

The Injured Studs

Personally, my favorite type of keeper because 1) I tend to draft a lot of injured guys and 2) people are wary of injury risks on auction day. In my auction league, Paul Gasol and Amare Stoudemire went for about 50-60% of their normal (healthy) value. Next year, their lucky owners (not me) will get to keep top 25 players under market value. Note that it’s important to differentiate between guys with a one-time injury (Gasol and Stoudemire) from the chronically injured (Grant Hill). The latter does not make a good keeper. I suck a predicting injuries, so I’ll let you make the call on someone like Marcus Camby.

It’s More of a Hop Than a Leap

I wouldn’t put them in the category of blowing up, but there are certainly a larger collection of guys whose game takes a big step forward over the course of the year. Again, it helps to be young: Kevin Martin, Josh Howard, Luol Deng, Brandon Roy, and Monta Ellis will all be much more pricey in an auction next year than the amount they can be kept for. There is value to be had with this group of players.

Rookies

Unlike the rooks that sometimes fall into categories 1 and 3, these guys didn’t make any great leaps forward, but the potential is there. They’re usually cheap too, so there is always the low-risk/high reward angle. LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay, and Jorge Garbajosa are by no means sure things in 2008, but the price is right.

The Veterans’ Committee

Desperation is setting in now. We’re pretty much done on getting significant value from a keeper. But, sometimes it pays to keep a guy anyway even if he’d cost just as much in an auction. For example, out of better options, I could decide to keep Yao Ming at $14. I’m probably not saving any money, but it’ll help me plan out the rest of my team and ensure that I’ll have a stud center to build a team around.

That’s my view on short-term keepers in an auction league. In case you’ve been wondering, my three keepers for next year are Josh Smith (at $6.50), Luol Deng ($4.50), and Brandon Roy ($3.00). That’s much improved from last year when my one keeper was Jason Richardson.

While I have no experience in long-term keeper leagues, I would assume that rookies and other early career guys become much more valuable the longer you’re able to keep players. If you’ve played in a keeper league, check in and let me know what you think.

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