A Trade That Effects My Teams

The over hyped trade deadline has passed and while no major moves were made, there was one move in particular that could have impact on my fantasy teams. Spencer Hawes has been traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I was hoping we could get him to come to the Lakers, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. The reason why this is interesting to me is because I have him on both of my fantasy basketball teams. I wonder how this move will effect him on the Phantasy Steez.

In my first league, the Syndicate, I picked up Hawes after missing the draft and feeling like a needed to pick up a center. In my random league I ended up drafting Hawes as a back up center. Even though Hawes' stat line isn't that impressive, to my surprise he has been a pretty good all around player from a fantasy point of view. He's averaging 13 points and 8 rebounds a game. Where his fantasy values comes from is his field goal percentage and the fact that he can hit the 3.

Hawe's is joining a very interesting Cleveland Cavaliers team. The Cavs have been pretty active during the season trading away Andrew Bynum for Luol Deng, and now with a new general manager he was itching to make a move before the trade deadline. Also, word on the street is the working environment in Cleveland is not ideal. The Cavs have Kyrie Irving, Luol Deng, and Dion Waiters, just to name a few. Hawes could have an immediate impact on this squad, but then you have to wonder what will happen between him and Anderson Varejao.

Varejao is having one of his better seasons this year averaging almost 9 points a game and 10 rebounds. He's owned in about 74% of Yahoo leagues. Right now he's injured but when he comes back he will resume the starting responsibilities. This could hurt Hawe's value directly as he will be going from a starter to an off the bench guy, not getting the minutes he's used to getting on the 76ers. Best case scenario would be if Mike Brown figured out how to utilize both of them, maybe by moving Hawes or Varejao to power forward. I don't know how long Varejao is going to be out, but I'm going to  have to come up with a back up plan just in case.