The NBA trade deadline is February 6, which means we're less than a month away. Between now and then, it's likely that several impact players will find themselves playing for new teams. If/when that happens, fantasy value changes all over the place because the traded players enter new roles, their new teams have to adjust to accommodate them and their former teams have statistical vacuums that other players need to fill.
Speculation -- the art of trying to predict what will happen and making moves to take advantage of the ramifications of your predictions -- is a high-risk/high-reward proposition in any field. In fantasy basketball, if you can guess right on who might be going where, then it gives you the opportunity to trade away players whose value might be negatively affected in a trade. It also gives you the chance to either trade for or pick up players whose value would likely increase via a big trade.
Hitting on a couple of trade speculation deals at the right time can give your team a big boost for the second half of the season. Of course, missing on trade speculation deals is the risk that you take, so be sure to weigh the risk versus reward for your team before moving forward in any deals.
Without further ado, here are some of the players who are currently receiving buzz as potentially being on the move during this trading season and some analysis about what those potential trades could mean in the fantasy basketball world.