Al Horford is a primetime buy low candidate assuming he stays healthy

Matt Smith is a correspondent at FantasyPros. To read more from Matt, check out his archive and follow him @SmanSports.

During the season there are two ways to improve your fantasy team. By dropping and adding players, and by trading. In this recurring piece, the focus will be on trading, and in particular, buying low and selling high. To those new to fantasy sports, buying low is targeting a player who is underperforming by not living up to expectations and his average draft position. On the flip side, selling high is trading a player who is over performing (it could be for a range of reasons) to gain a player who will hold more value over the course of the season.

Here are some early season buy low and sell high candidates:

Buy Low

AL HORFORD (PF,C) HAWKS
Horford has had a bad run over the past few seasons, playing just 11 games in 2011-12 and 29 games in 2013-14, due to torn pectoral muscles. In between (2012-13) he played 74 games and had (at that stage) career high numbers in points (17.4), rebounds (10.2) and steals (1.1). Coming into this season, the consensus ADP rankings had Horford inside the top 30.

Horford has had a slow start to the season averaging just 13.2 points and 6.2 rebounds, which is well below his anticipated return to his 2012-13 form. At the time of writing (through 17 games), he has only scored more than 20 points and reached double-digit rebounding on three occasions. The pleasing aspect, however, is that Horford’s field goal efficiency is still very strong at 56 percent, his assists remain consistent at 2.6 per game, as does his shot blocking ability at 1.4 per game. All he is lacking are the points and rebounds. This may be due to conditioning, confidence (in his body and ability) and/or team chemistry (continuing to learn to play alongside Paul Millsap).

I expect his points and rebounding to return somewhere around the 16-17 and 8-10 mark over the second half of the season. If he can do this and keep his other areas constant, then Horford will be producing the top-30 value the ADP had him at.

NICOLAS BATUM (SG, SF) TRAILBLAZERS
Batum has already missed four games this season due to a right knee contusion. The main concern for owners, however, are his 8.9 points per game on just 37 percent from the field. Batum has never been the most prolific scorer, averaging 13.4 points per game over the past four seasons, but single digit scoring is highly frustrating for a late second/early third round draft pick. Like Horford, the good news is he is still contributing in other categories – his rebounds (6.3), assists (5.2) and steals (1.3) have all been as expected. His drop in scoring may be explained by the Trailblazers playing at a slower pace than last season, 94.9 to 93.8, which would also describe the drop in points per game from 106.7 to 104.4. Regardless, I think Batum will pick up his offensive workload as we get deeper into the season, improving his fantasy value.

Sell High

PAU GASOL (PF, C) BULLS
Statistically, Gasol is having one of his best seasons. He is on the verge of averaging 20 points and 12 rebounds, with the standard Gasol efficiency, and is averaging 1.9 blocks – the most since 2006-07.

The main area of concern though, Gasol is playing 35 minutes per game. This is a big red flag for a guy who has not played more than 65 games over the past three seasons. Furthermore, the Bulls will want to keep him fresh and healthy for the playoffs, especially with lingering injury worries around Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.

If I had the opportunity to move Gasol prior to the new year for the right price I would. As a trade example, I would rather own Horford over Gasol for the rest of the season.

BRANDON KNIGHT (PG, SG) BUCKS
Knight is currently having a career season and is currently putting up top 30 value. He has improved his efficiency, threes, assists and steals – all areas which limited his fantasy value last season. Yet, I do not believe these numbers are sustainable across the entire season. While I do think he will outperform his average draft position of 93, I see him settling into an end of season rank in the 50-60 range.

There are also a couple of other factors why I would sell high on Knight.

First, I do not trust Jason Kidd as far he can spill a drink. His coaching has been capricious, from employing deep rotations to frustrating DNP-CD (did not play coach’s decision). At any point of the season, Kidd could inexplicably start Kendall Marshall at point guard (as he did against Detroit on 11/7), or any other player for that matter, taking the ball out of Knight’s hands.

Second, at some point of the season I see Kidd incorporating the Bucks’ future stars, Jabari Parker and Giannis Antetokounmpo, further into the offense. Currently, Parker is only attempting 10.6 field goals per game, while Antetokounmpo is taking just 9.2 field goal attempts and has 2.2 assists per game. I predict a rise in Parker’s offensive touches to 14-15 shots and Antetokounmpo’s statistics to increase across the board (another buy low guy), slightly causing a drop in Knight’s value.

Test out Knight’s value in your league, and if you can get a reliable top 30-40 player in return, I would trade Knight quicker than you can say Giannis Antetokounmpo O.J. Mayo.