Fantasy Basketball: Outlook for Jae Crowder

In a recent turn of events, Jae Crowder has found himself the beneficiary of some moves that Danny Ainge and the Boston Celtics have made in what seems to be an effort to own every draft pick possible over the next 3 or 4 years. Jae Crowder started out the season with the Dallas Mavericks and he was buried on the depth chart. In a move where the Celtics traded Rajon Rondo for a future draft pick, Crowder was sent back as what appeared to be a piece to help make the salaries match.

Then a week or so later, the Celtics sent Jeff Green packing his bags to the Memphis Grizzlies and created a huge opportunity that the newly acquired Crowder has begun to fill in a great way. If you are reading this article, I want to make a quick suggestion to you: Immediately stop what you are doing and go pick Crowder up right now.

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Okay now that you are back and have him safely secured on your roster, let’s talk a little bit about why I feel like Jae Crowder will be a good pick up for your fantasy basketball team. The biggest reason here is simply opportunity. We talk a lot about minutes played here in our fantasy basketball analysis. Now, beyond minutes we always need to see production out of the players that are getting minutes. For Crowder, we are seeing both minutes and production. This is a small sample size that we have, but in the fantasy basketball world, if you are not prepared to move quickly, often times you miss out. As a matter of fact, by the time I have written and published this post, there is a good chance that someone in your league has already beaten you to Crowder.

One of the things that I always suggest after a trade is to watch the box scores and the minutes given to players after a trade or a major transaction takes place. That is one of the greatest keys that I have had to finding success in most of my fantasy basketball leagues.

In the five games since January 5, Crowder has seen his minutes look like this: 26, 15, 27, 22 and 36. This is also, may I remind you, a guy who has been in a Boston Celtics uniform for right around a month. Crowder will not wow you with his offensive abilities, but his defense should keep him on the court and provide some nice stats to make him a solid cats league addition as well. I am thinking with these minutes it should not be too hard for him to average somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to eleven points a game. For the month of January so far, he is averaging 10 points and 4 rebounds with almost a block and 2 steals a game.

Crowder may not win you your league with those numbers, but in anything over a 12 team league those are the kind of big pickups that can really sway things in your favor. This is prime-time for fantasy ballers and as the trade deadline for the real league approaches, we are seeing what seems to be a much larger amount of teams willing to wheel and deal to prepare themselves for the future. These trades will create valuable opportunities to pick up players who will have a major impact on your fantasy league. Stay with us here at Fantasy CPR, and we will do our best to continue to break down and analyze all the information and help you win your league.

Next: Hassan Whiteside Coming Out of Nowhere

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