Week 5 provided NBA lovers with a lot of upsets and movement across the overall NBA ladder (combining all divisions and conferences), however this also meant that players stepped up while others couldn’t hack it.

The latter part of that is what us fantasy owners look out for. We don’t care which team wins any game, we just want our players to stuff the stat sheet.

From this, we’ll show you in this article all the things that have been taking place in the USSDU’s Beginner’s Fantasy League, along with the usual Studs and Duds section any of our readers that aren’t in our Beginner’s League!

My Add/Drops

Dropped: Bradley Beal

Added: Jameer Nelson

Someone offered me Nelson in a trade last week and I really wasn’t interested, however once he decided to drop him, I could pick him up for nearly nothing (Well, a struggling Beal that is).

Coming back from injury I liked how Nelson has returned. I gave him a couple of return games before I picked him back up and he showed enough to get a spot on my team.

Accepted Trades

There was just one trade that took place this week and it involved my team (Everything NBA).

Joe Johnson

For

J.R. Smith

I traded J.R. Smith away as I felt he would have good value after his solid start to the season.

Knowing that he comes off the bench and New York have been blowing out teams early on this season, this has given Smith a lot more minutes down in the 4^th quarter when Mike Woodson sits his starters.

When this cools down, and the Knicks get closer to teams, Smith will lose about 3-5 minutes of his playing time, which limits his ability to crunch his stats.

Joe on the other hand would have lost value in fantasy leagues (which evened this trade up and made it work) in where he hasn’t really settled in Brooklyn and D-Will and Brook Lopez has picked up his slack. Hopefully from here Johnson turns his form around.

Your thoughts? Do you believe this was a good trade, or was there an advantage for either team?

Trades Proposed To Me That Failed

Carmelo Anthony for Blake Griffin

Yeah look, I have Carmelo, I don’t want Blake Griffin, I’m happy with my superstar dropping basically 30 a game. It’s definitely improving my scoring column (I was dead last, now I’m mid table).

Blake Griffin is good, but I still wasn’t interested.

DeMar DeRozan for Nikola Vucevic & Steve Nash

This situation I saw Nash straight away and was turned off.

In my opinion I don’t see Nash playing many games at all this season, he just doesn’t have the medical staff like his wonder staff in Phoenix. After that, I then looked at the rest of the trade (as at that point I didn’t even know who he wanted from my team, I was just so caught up with not wanting Nash) and found DeRozan and thought I’d want a little bit more for throwing DeMar away.

Monta Ellis for Arron Afflalo & Steve Nash

So after making Steve Nash the deal-breaker of the last trade, he decided to pop me another trade which made me throw away a better player, for another Orlando player (I think he must have thought I’d take my own favourite players, yeah I’m not that loyal to my own team when it comes to fantasy) and Nash again.

See above trade proposal.

My Proposed Trades That Failed

John Wall & Michael Beasley for Ty Lawson & (Was Injured) Gerald Wallace

Michael Beasley, Bradley Beal & John Wall for Anthony Davis & Klay Thompson

Michael Beasley for (before breakout game) Chandler Parsons

Michael Beasley and DeMar DeRozan for Jonas Valanciunas & Andrei Kirilenko

Studs (Stats are Last 7 days)

Anderson Varejao: 13.3ppg, 16.5rpg, 3.0apg, 1.8spg

Tim Duncan: 20.7ppg, 15.3rpg, 48%FG

Rajon Rondo: 13.3ppg, 13.7apg, 4.3rpg, 53%FG

Russell Westbrook: 27.3ppg, 8.3apg, 4.3rpg, 2.3spg,

Ryan Anderson: 22ppg, 8.7rpg, 5.3 3’s per game, 52%FG

Duds (Stats are Last 7 days)

Jan Vesely: 2.3ppg, 1.7rpg

Marco Belinelli: 1.3ppg, 0.3rpg, 0.3apg

Malcolm Lee: 19.7minpg, 3ppg, 2rpg, 1.3apg

So there you have it, another fantasy block-buster week down the drain. Hope you can gain some sort of an advantage in your fantasy league by reading this (while the rest of your league don’t read it).

Of course, if you have any fantasy questions of your own in your own fantasy league, be sure you ask them in the comments section below and we’ll get back to you!

Photo Credit: Seth Wenig/AP