Before the season starts, every fantasy owner is a genius. We all have the perfect draft strategy, we all will outsmart everyone else in our leagues, and we all know exactly which "sleepers" to get in the middle/late rounds that are going to put our teams over the top. One of the problems, though, is that after awhile everyone reads the same magazines and websites and comes up with the same list of sleepers. Making pre-season prognostications can be full of hand-waving and guess-work, but at the same time there are some general formulas that really do help when trying to predict the next rags-to-fantasy riches story. Here we'll look at three of those formulas to help some of you come up with your own sleeper lists.
1. Young love/upside potential. One of my colleagues, Chris Liss, is famous for drafting entire teams of players that aren't old enough to drink. The idea here is to look for a very young, very athletic player that is either a rookie or was not quite ready to contribute last season but has the physical ability to be one of the best players in the NBA if he pans out. Liss's philosophy is that he'd rather pick a player that could legitimately win him a title than go with a more mundane player that can't be a difference maker. There is some validity to that train of thought, and because he does this Liss almost always finds at least one or two breakout players every season. The downside to this is that young guys, if they don't pan out, can be pretty worthless so I don't advocate taking your sleepers too early. Use the first few rounds to get a foundation of players you can trust, then go for the home run in the middle/later rounds.
Example candidates: Kevin Durant, Rajon Rondo, Randy Foye, Danny Granger, Andris Biedrins, Rudy Gay, LaMarcus Aldridge, Marvin Williams, Tyrus Thomas, Andrew Bogut, Andrew Bynum, Darko Milicic
2. Former superstars. Another method is to look for former stars that are coming off of uncharacteristically poor seasons. Sometimes that decline is due to correctable issues, such as an injury that may have healed or just a bad season. The downside to this is that sometimes the player declined because they were just washed up, or their previous success may have been a fluke, so be careful not to get so caught up in names that you end up with a 2003 All-Star team that can't even make the fantasy playoffs in 2008.
Examples candidates: Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic, Larry Hughes, Jason Williams, Andrei Kirilenko, Brad Miller, Shaquille O'Neal, Bonzi Wells, Boris Diaw
3. New situation. Follow the player movement. Sometimes all a struggling player needs is a new environment and fresh opportunity, so when someone is traded or goes to a new destination as a free agent there is always the chance that they may break out. Likewise, sometimes one player moving to a new team opens up opportunity for an overshadowed player to replace them and shine. Often, young upside guys and former stars would also fit into the new situation category as well.
Example candidates: Al Jefferson, Jason Richardson, Morris Peterson, Steve Francis, Sebastian Telfair, Stephen Jackson, Channing Frye, Craig Smith