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By Answerman

The Answerman is the unofficial, unauthorized, unrelenting, uncompromising, unpaid, unliscenced, uneducated though highly effective advice columnist at Insidehoops.com. He is here to answer all your questions.

Disclaimer: If you follow all of my advice before going into trades there is an excellent chance that you will never complete a fantasy basketball trade.

I am sort of like the dad having the traditional "Birds and Bees" talk with his adolescent son. Follow all of dad's advice about being kind, considerate, and treating your lady friends with respect and there is an excellent chance that you will never have sex in your entire life. His advice is not to help you get "birded" - it's to help prevent you from getting "beed".

Like dad, my advice is not to make your team better, it's to stop you from making it worse.

If your team is good, do not get too hot to trade. You'll be better off targeting free agents than getting rid of one of the players that established your team.

If your team is bad, the good teams are just trying to bottom-feed off of you. They figure only an idiot can be in last place so you'll just give away your lone good player. Don't do it.

Always get the best player in the deal. As a general rule, if you are getting more players, you are getting more crap.

Never trade with a better team (unless the difference in the standings is negligible)

Never let a trade get too expansive. My limit is four players total. Once a fifth player gets involved, you are trading teams, not players.

DO target specific players in deals but do NOT lose sight of that player during negotiations and wind up "just doing the deal."

Do not trade just to trade. Unlike the birds and bees advice, sometimes you should bird just to bird.

Do not make ridiculous trade offers in the hopes that someone is not paying attention. You earn a bad reputation as a someone trying to rip other players off and no one will deal with you.

Do try to get the better end of the deal, but do try to keep it fair. You want people to trust your lopsided offers.

Do not panic. How often do I give this advice?

Do try to make personal contact with a potential trading partner. Call your adversary and talk about the league. Talk specific players and direct conversation towards players of yours that he may want. Trade offers made through the Yahoo (or whatever system) will be rejected.

Finally, and most importantly, know your team. Understand what your team actually needs so that you trade better, not harder.

Remember, don't panic, trade with specificity, wear a condom, and be careful out there.

Yours,

Answerman