2023-24 Fantasy Basketball Week 13 Risers and Fallers

Hey, RotoBallers! Welcome back to the Week 13 edition of my weekly fantasy basketball risers and fallers!

It might be hard to believe, but the halfway point of the season is here. Time flies, doesn't it? If things haven't gone your way yet in your fantasy leagues, don't lose hope!

I'm here to help you assess the value of some players who are seeing major swings in production during the course of the year. With that being said, let's look at the risers and fallers from Week 13 of the NBA season.

Fantasy Basketball Risers: Week 13

Bradley Beal - G, Phoenix Suns

Bradley Beal's start to his tenure in Phoenix was far from perfect, as he only played in six out of the Suns' first 30 games. After that, he had some ups and downs to start the new year, as he shot 47% from the field but just 3-18 from three in his first seven games of 2024. But then he exploded for 37 points while knocking down eight three-pointers in 10 attempts against the reigning In-Season Tournament champions the LA Lakers.

Bradley Beal. 🥶

pic.twitter.com/st0okHn7dT

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) January 17, 2024

Beal has averaged 24.3 points a night over his last three games and led his squad to three consecutive wins. The Suns' big three has looked dangerous as a whole, as Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, and Beal combined to average over 73 PPG last week, while each of them shot at least 50% from the field. Beal's fantasy owners should hope that the Suns can keep up their winning ways, as the former Wizards star shoots the ball 4.9% better in wins compared to losses. Additionally, his three-point percentage also goes up by 7.6% when he's on the winning team.

Alec Burks - G, Detroit Pistons

Alec Burks' career looked to be on its final legs after a failed stint in Sacramento, but he turned things around and revived his career when he got the chance to be one of the "Tank Commanders" of the 2019-20 Warriors. I still vividly remember him as the Dubs' 2nd option in that doomed failure of a season. Since then he's averaged over 11 PPG every year and is continuing his ex-role on the Warriors in Detroit.

Interestingly, he's teammates with the guy who the Warriors tanked for, James Wiseman. Anyway, let's look at what he's done on the court recently. Burks has scored at least 12 points in each of his last 11 games (18.7 PPG) and has had a true shooting percentage of 67.4%, which is the sixth-highest mark in the league among all players who took 135+ shots in that timespan.

Jonathan Kuminga - F, Golden State Warriors

Speaking of the Warriors (and players who have scored double-digit points in consecutive games), did you know that Jonathan Kuminga has scored 10+ points in each of his last 20 games? Did you also know that he has averaged 16.1 points on 56.2% shooting while just playing 26.3 minutes a night in that time?

PLAY OF THE GAME!!! Kuminga And-1. 🔥

Showed out tonight with 24 pts in 24 minutes. pic.twitter.com/aCe9HD8qba

— вяуαηт (@bryant_gotgame) January 13, 2024

Maybe Steve Kerr doesn't know, since he has moved Kuminga back to the bench once again even though he assured him that everything was alright just a few weeks ago. Now, Kuminga is ticked off and is taking his anger out on his opponents, as he averaged 24 points and 6.3 rebounds a night on excellent shooting splits last week.

Fantasy Basketball Fallers: Week 13

Brandon Ingram - F, New Orleans Pelicans

Ready for an unexpected stat? Okay then: Brandon Ingram has failed to score over 20 points in 2024 despite having seven different attempts to do so. Funnily enough, he ended 2023 by scoring over 24 points in each of the last three games of the calendar year. The last time that Ingram scored less than 20 points in five or more consecutive games was in 2018-19, which was LeBron James' first season in LA and Ingram's last.

Brandon Ingram is in a really bad slump which reared it’s ugly head again tonight.

Over the last 7 Games:
13.1 PPG
43% FG%
33% 3P%
4.1 REB
5.1 AST

Slim gotta bounce back!

— Pels Press (@PelsPress) January 15, 2024

Ingram's stock isn't too high right now, but he usually bounces back in February. The former second-overall pick has averaged 21.2 points a night in February throughout his career, which is 3.4 PPG higher than his January PPG.

Devin Vassell - G/F, San Antonio Spurs

Another good player who is going through a slump right now is Devin Vassell. I'm a big fan of Vassell's game and I think that he can be a future star in this league, but he's prone to having some inexcusable short slumps which hurts his chance to be a consistent fantasy contributor. In early December Vassell had a three-game stretch where he went 3-25 from deep and shot just 30.4% from the floor.

He bounced back from that slump, but he's got a new slump to worry about now, as he has shot 3-21 from three over his last five games and has made just three field goals in his last two games despite shooting the ball 24 times.

Brandin Podziemski - G, Golden State Warriors

My fellow Warriors fans are very pessimistic about the team's short-term future right now, but we're really glad that we have Brandin Podziemski as a part of our young core. We all thought he'd be a project player, hence why the Warriors initially sent him to the G-League, but he has proven all of us wrong. Despite my obvious love for "Podz", I have to admit that apart from his 23-point outing against the Bucks, he's been pretty awful as of late.

Not counting the Bucks game, Podziemski has averaged just five points a night while shooting 24.3% from the field and a disgusting 5.9% from three over his last four games. However, he's just a rookie and has shown tremendous determination to break into the rotation in the first place, so I have no doubts that he'll bounce back.

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