Fantasy Basketball: Is Ish Smith The Real Deal?

Is Ish Smith The Real Deal?

Ish Smith was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers and hopefully everyone rushed to their waiver wires to try to pick him up. Now that he has arrived there he has had two pretty good games and made everyone forget the names of Tony Wroten and T.J. McConnell.

Smith will most certainly get all the minutes that he can handle, but there is something that scares me about this situation just a little bit. We have watched several of the names that we have now somewhat forgotten come in and have  this same type of game and then fall off the map so to speak.

However, having said all of that if for some crazy reason you can still find Ish Smith on your league’s waiver wire then you have to pick him up immediately. If your league is a FAAB then I would spend a significant amount of money to make sure that I could pick him up. He could wind up as the waiver pick up of the year if he is able to sustain the level of play that he has shown in this brief stint.

Now as far as trying to trade for Smith, I would suggest a bit of a more conservative approach. When you consider that this position has had some skeptical players thus far this year it could go downhill for Smith and you would be stuck. I saw a deal in a 20 team league that I am in where Rudy Gay was traded for Ish Smith as the main centerpieces of the deal. Now this is a large keeper league so it did not make sense to me. This is also a league where turnovers do not count against the player so Smith should have an advantage there.

I would still deal for him, but I am not sure that I would move a lot to land him in a dynasty or a keeper league. The 76ers are such a fluid team that the only players I would want much from there are Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor.

I would also consider adding Kelly Olynyk across most formats. Olynyk has always shown us just enough to be worthy of a pickup, but has never quite strung it together to be a long-term valuable fantasy player. I however, don’t want to be the guy who sat on the sidelines and watched my opponent pick him up if I have a scrub I can drop for him. Give him a long look if you are in need of a center.