Buy, Sell or Hold: Evan Fournier and Jimmy Butler?

7 years ago by Milos Zvekic

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Week 2 is behind us and there's been so many surprise results that it seems the NBA Gods are having a laugh. If the playoffs were to begin today Cleveland wouldn't participate, Golden State would be the number six seed in the West and the Memphis Grizzlies and Detroit Pistons would be crowned regular season West and East Conference champions.

Among these out-of-the-ordinary team performances, there are also several individual player performance anomalies. A change of scenery hasn't agreed well with one of our heroes of today's article yet, but he is starting to turn it around. On the other end, one younger role player has been stepping it up and grabbing more responsibilities. A part of the reason is an injury of a teammate, and it's not likely that he can keep it up for the duration of the entire season.

Let's take a look at who has been lighting it up and who has his owners disappointed this early in the season in our Week 3 fantasy basketball buy low and sell high column right here at RotoBaller.

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Buy Low, Sell High Advice for Week 3

Are You for Real, Evan Fournier?

First of all, kudos to all of you who drafted Fournier at around 100 or lower. He is currently smashing his ADP of 97 by returning top-15, 20 value over his first six games of the season. He is rewarding his owners with 22.3 points with 2.7 threes on 53.9% from the field and 95.7% from the charity stripe, 4.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.3 blocks and 1.7 turnovers in 33 minutes per game. Those are career highs across the board if he were to keep it up. But it's unrealistic to expect that he will.

Believe it or not, these insane stats are only enough for him to be the third best fantasy contributor on a per game basis on the Orlando roster with both Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon being rated higher by Yahoo. Their good performances are paying off outside of the fantasy world as well, as Orlando is 4-2 to start the season. And all that without without their primary ball handler Elfrid Payton, who went down after having played just one and a half games.

Elfrid's absence is most likely a part of the reason that Fournier is performing above expectations. He saw a similar rise in numbers when Payton missed time last season and he is repeating it now. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine Evan remaining this efficient a shooter and valuable a fantasy-contributor. If we take a look at his last season averages we will see why: 17.2 PTS with 1.9 3PM on 43.9 FG% and 80.5 FT%, 3.1 REB, 3.0 AST, 1.0 STL, 0.1 BLK and 2.1 TO in the same amount of playing time had him just outside the top-100.

It is encouraging however, that Fournier hasn't had one freakishly good performance that would bump his averages. Instead he is very consistent. He scored between 22 and 28 points on all but one of his games. He had at least one steal, between 2 and 5 assists and turned the ball over 1 to 3 times in all six. He didn't hit all of his free throws and didn't have at least 3 rebounds only once and shot under 50% only twice.

I do believe that Evan could keep playing well and I can see him clinging to top-50, top-75 value over the course of the season, but if you can get a good deal while he is hot, I would take it.

These stats from the Frenchman do warrant a high return on any trade, so a solid top-50 player would do the trick in my book. I would swap him in re-draft leagues for the likes of Goran Dragic, Dennis Schroder, Ricky Rubio, or even Serge Ibaka or DeAndre Jordan, depending on your league build. Of course, don't be too eager to get rid of Fournier and take a low ball offer just because he will probably lose some value. He won't lose all of it and will still remain a useful fantasy asset, especially for those looking for threes, points, and steals.

Baller Move: Sell high

Time to Panic on Jimmy Butler?

Jimmy Butler doesn't feel quite at home yet since his move to Minnesota this summer. Sharing the ball with Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Jeff Teague has resulted in him taking just 13.3 field goals and just 4.0 free throws per game. That is third and fourth most on his team. Furthermore, those numbers are down from 16.5 FGA and 8.9 FTA from his last season's campaign in Chicago.

Now with such talent around Jimmy Buckets, it is normal for his attacking numbers to take a hit. But his defense isn't on par either. He hasn't blocked a shot yet this year, and has 1.5 steals per game. The steals are at a respectable level, but not for Jimmy's standards as he averaged more steals than that in each of his last four seasons. In addition to his defensive stats taking a drop, he is also down in rebounds (from 6.2 to 5.5) and assists (from 5.5 to 4.8). His shooting percentages are around the same, but his lack of usage has seen his points plummet from 23.9 to 16.3. All of this is even weirder when we factor in that Butler is playing one minute more per outing than he did last season.

Now we do have to be fair to Jimmy, he did sit out 2 games due to illness, so that probably affected him a bit too. But that also could be the reason his current owner values him less than Jimmy is really worth. Moreover, Jimmy played a decent game in his return from the illness with 25 points, five boards, seven assists and just one turnover. He didn't steal the ball or block a shot, but he did shoot 7-of-10 from the field and 11-of-13 from the line so it could mean that Jimmy B is finally feeling comfortable in the Timberwolves uniform.

If Butler's owner is thrown off by him returning only top-75 value so far you could try to pry him away with an offer of a guy at around the top-50. All the guys mentioned above in the swap for Fournier apply here as well, as I would gladly give any one of them for Butler. Do check however how Minnesota's fantasy playoffs schedule fits your team as they have either just 9 or 10 games in those three weeks, depending on when your playoffs take place.

Baller Move: Hold or buy low