With the All Star game fast-approaching, I thought it might be a good idea to compare two All Stars. By the numbers, both have had stellar seasons, but which player has had a better season in terms of fantasy value

Today’s Matchup: Lebron James vs Dwayne Wade

Just a reminder, when you're talking about anything fantasy it's important to communicate how the scoring structure of your league works. For our purposes, I'm going to assume we're talking about rotisserie using Yahoo Fantasy Sport's default scoring system…the stat cats being points, rebounds, assists, 3's made, blocks, steals, fg%, ft% and to's.

In roto, you're looking to compare players stat-by-stat, since roto is really designed to level the playing field of statistics (for instance, by roto standards if a player gets about 2 steals per game, it's the equivalent in steals of a player scoring about 20-25 points per game).

Points Per game
Lebron James 26.8
Dwayne Wade 28.2

Rebounds Per Game
Lebron James 6.7
Dwayne Wade 4.8

Assists Per Game
Lebron James 6.1
Dwayne Wade 7.9

Blocks Per Game
Lebron James 0.7
Dwayne Wade 1.1

Steals Per Game
Lebron James 1.6
Dwayne Wade 2.1

3s Made Per Game
Lebron James 1.3
Dwayne Wade 0.5

FG% (and FG's attempted per game):|
Lebron James 47.6% / (20.2 attempts per game)
Dwayne Wade 48.1% (19.4 attempts per game)

FT% (and FT's attempted per game):
Lebron James 70.0% / (9.0 attempts per game)
Dwayne Wade 81.1% / (11.1 attempts per game)

Turnovers Per Game:
Lebron James 3.6
Dwayne Wade 4.0

Games Played so far:
Lebron James 41
Dwayne Wade 34

The Verdict:
Dwayne Wade wins

After watching both play last season, I would have sworn that Lebron James would always be the better fantasy option. However, as good as Bron has been this year, his numbers are down from last season and Wade's numbers are up. Lebron has a slight edge in boards, turnovers and threes, but Wade has an edge in points, assists, steals and blocks. What really puts Wade over the top is his percentages. What's most impressive about his free throw shooting is that he leads the league in trips to the line per game, so that his above-average 81.1% shooting carries a lot of weight. Conversely, James poor 70% shooting from the line also carries a lot of weight, which is a negative for your fantasy squad.

The biggest argument for James is that Wade has missed some games due to injury. That aside, Wade has had the better fantasy season so far.

In addition, Wade's 1.1 bspg from a guard is very helpful to fantasy owners.