Fantasy Basketball Buy Low, Sell High: Unexpected Starts

  • By Mike Passador

    Last Updated on November 9, 2026 4:10 pm by Mike Passador | Published: November 9, 2026

    It’s the first edition of Buy Low, Sell High of the year! It’s a great time to try and swing some deals, especially if you can sniff out the panic in your league. Week 3 has wrapped which means the numbers out there may be enough to scare some managers officially, and this is where you can gain some long-term edges without having to work too hard.

    Early in the season may be the most beneficial time to make trades. Your entire league is still checking in regularly and managers are eager to overreact. The sample sizes are ridiculously smallย  — but we’re just far enough into the campaign that not everyone will think so — and only a few teams have hit their stride. One bad week was not enough to force real concern but three? Maybe that’s just too much to bear — never mind players’ multi-season track records, of course. Not every idea you cook up will be met by an eager deal-maker, and some of the results out there are so wildly out of line that nobody will want to make a transaction at all. And that’s okay! But we try anyway.

    The trick of these early trades is to target the more moderate over- and under-performers. Obviously, anyone who believes enough in Mikal Bridges to keep him rostered through this mega rut will not trade him for pennies on the dollar. Good luck trying to acquire Josh Giddey for a song, no matter how rough it has been. On the flip side, we all know that Yves Missi isn’t going to outrank Alperen Sengun at the end of the season. Selling high is tough because the obvious options for that are too obvious and everyone knows you’re looking for a fleece.

    For the uninitiated, buying low refers to the act of acquiring a player at a discount because their recent performance — which is below their standards/expectations — has changed their perceived value for the player’s current manager. Essentially, it’s trying to trade for a player that you know is going to be a lot better than he has been lately, and capitalizing on his current manager’s anxieties to do so at a lower cost than you would normally anticipate.

    Selling high is the opposite: trading away a player at the height of their perceived value thanks to a recent run of good fortune. That could be the result of several things, but at the end of the day you’re trying to get off at the top and extract more value than you would normally anticipate from your trade partner. It’s a simple concept but hard to do, especially if you’re playing with seasoned competition who know the tricks of the trade.

    Please note that the stats and values here are accurate as of November 8, prior to games starting.

    Buy Low

    Trey Murphy III
    SF, New Orleans Pelicans
    SeasonTeamGPGSMPG FGMFGAFG% FTMFTAFT% 3PTM3PTA3PT% PTSREBAST STLBLKTO
    26-27 NO 9 9 32.8 5.2 11.2 46.5 2.9 3.3 86.7 2.2 5.9 37.7 15.6 4.8 3.6 1.0 0.2 1.7
    25-26 NO 66 66 35.5 7.5 15.9 47.0 3.3 3.7 88.6 3.2 8.6 37.9 21.5 5.7 3.8 1.5 0.4 1.8
    24-25 NO 53 51 35.0 7.2 15.8 45.4 3.8 4.3 88.7 3.0 8.3 36.1 21.2 5.1 3.5 1.1 0.7 1.9

    Want to see who you should be targeting in early transactions before the market gets wise? You’ll need to have an Ethos 360, All-Sport or NBA FantasyPass membership. Click here to learn more and sign up!ย Premium Access Required ย 

    November 9, 2026, 4:10 pm