Fantasy NBA Basketball Week 5: You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

How are your math skills these days?

Great, you know that two plus two equals four. But how is your lockout math?

In most leagues, we are currently in Week 5 of the fantasy basketball season. In most head-to-head leagues, the playoffs begin in Week 16 and last for two weeks. In roto or total points leagues, you're looking at 17 total weeks in the season.

But any way you cut it, we're basically one third (33 percent) of the way into the 2011-12 fantasy basketball season. A condensed schedule means condensed everything.

Sure, it's only been a couple of weeks, but the time for action is now. Even if you wait until the end of January to act, at that point we will be almost halfway done with the season already.

Take this into account when you're dealing with injuries. If a player is out for six-to-eight weeks, he's basically out for half of the season. That's just brutal.

In a 12-team roto league with only three bench spots, I drafted Zach Randolph and Manu Ginobili. With so many other roster issues, I was in a tight spot last week. So I cut Randolph for some immediate help.

Fast forward to now, and Zach Randolph still sits unclaimed on the waiver wire. In head-to-head leagues, it might make sense to stash a player like Randolph if your team is in good shape. Adding an elite fantasy player right before the playoffs begin could be a huge boost to your team, or, at the very worst, some decent roster insurance.

But in cumulative leagues, you need to always focus on quantity. You need to be accumulating stats at all times. That's why you tend go with a guy who has four games in a week over a player who only has three games. That one-game-per-week difference over the course of a season adds up 17 "extra" games.

It's not just the players with current "long-term" injuries that you have to worry about.

Take Dirk Nowitzki right now. He's expected to miss four games, but he could miss a few more. If somebody was willing to trade you a player of "equal value" who was healthy for Dirk, you absolutely should make that deal. Six missed games is basically 10 percent of the season.

And what about "injury prone" players? A prime example would be Stephen Curry. Is it conceivable that Curry misses another six games over the course of the season? Absolutely. In fact, it's quite probable. So, if somebody is willing to pony up an equal but "safer" player for Curry, you need to make that deal.

If you're in a league with deep benches and daily roster moves, you can hang onto players like these and just work around them. But in leagues with shallow benches and/or weekly roster moves, you don't have the luxury of waiting around.

The other side of the compressed season is that your fantasy team has less time to recover than normal. Last season I took two 0-4 teams to championships. In a shorter season, I don't know if I could make up four games in the standings without getting luckier than I would dare hope to be.

Long-term help is great, but you need to extract as much value as you can from your roster each week. Look what a guy like C.J. Watson did last week while filling in for an injured Derrick Rose. Check out the bump up that Shawn Marion has gotten with Dirk out of the lineup for the Mavs.

The "flavor of the week" might not last long, but it is good for at least that week. In a short season, you can absolutely string together a bunch of hot, fluky players into a championship team.

Think about all of the injuries that there have been already. It's not going to stop, nor probably even slow down. Ultimately, the lockout actually lasted longer than this season. The injuries aren't going to slow down until the players have had a normal offseason.

Any questions? Am I a bigger idiot than normal? Did I screw up and get something right? Use the comments feature if you've got anything to add. If you have any questions about your team or league, please include specific details.

Good luck to all.

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