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The deeper a fantasy basketball league, the harder it is to hit a winner with your last few picks. It is also harder to find decent help from the waiver wire if your late-round picks don't do you justice. If you picked up a few stinkers, don't lose hope just yet. I will try to help you pick up a winner.
Here are my deeper league fantasy basketball waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams. These NBA players should be available in most leagues and they might just help you out, whether it's a few weeks rental or a long-term fix to a problem your team is having.
If a guy on your team is frustrating you with his weak performances, give some of them a go. They might just be worth it.
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Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Targets for Week 23
Obi Toppin (SF/PF, NYK) - 8% rostered
Slam Dunk Champ Obi Toppin has looked phenomenal now that he's playing more than 15 minutes per day. Yes, only a few suspensions/injuries from Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson made this possible, but here we are and Obi is delivering hella tasty goods. A top-10 draft pick a couple of years ago, Coach Thibs has had to finally rely on the sophomore with Randle out through the last games. Toppin has played 24, 40, and 27 minutes in the past three games, putting up gaudy averages compared to his early-season numbers.
Toppin's line in the past week reads 13-6-2-1 (four games through Saturday) and he's averaged 26 MPG in that little span. If you are not aware, all the NYK is fighting for at this point is a good draft position and getting as many ping pong balls as possible. There is no reason not to play Toppin and keep running with Randle (keep in mind we're talking about Stubbornness King Thibs, though). So here's hoping Toppin stays on the floor and we get a viable fantasy forward for the next/last two weeks of play. Still around 10 games to go, so while Toppin won't win you the league, he can still be a nice addition for those needy while managing in deeper leagues. Fantastic scoring with extraordinary shooting percentages of late (63%+ this week while scoring 1+ 3PM per game) and solid rebounding/stealing.
Josh Richardson (SG/SF, SAS) - 7% rostered
J-Rich got flipped at the trade deadline in the deal that brought Derrick White to Boston. And that pretty much changed Richardson's season and gave it a 180-degree turn. After four games of adaptation in which Rich sucked (though only playing more than 15 minutes once), he finally got his mojo back and from Mar. 7 on, he's been quite exceptional for the Spurs while playing nine games through Sunday, starting six of them at both the SG and SF positions. Richardson went from playing 25 MPG in Boston to log 28 minutes in that nine-game span with the Spurs while topping 30 minutes three times already, and reaching above-average usage rates in five of his last six games played.
Richardson's calling card is definitely scoring points and getting his good buckets. He's averaging 15+ PPG in the past two weeks of play (six games) while scoring 2.3 3PM per game. Though the shooting slump was there for more than it'd have been desirable this season (below 40% field-goal percentage in Boston), it seems to have gotten better in Texas with J-Rich scoring field-goals at a 43%+ clip (last nine games) while on a larger dose of shots, hoisting 11 FGA a pop. Richardson comes with reasonable rebounding upside (3.5 RPG from Mar. 7 on) for a guard and not many assists (2.1 APG), but fantastic steal numbers of late (at least one steal in seven consecutive games averaging 1.3 SPG in that span).
Payton Pritchard (PG, BOS) - 6% rostered
Pine-rider Payton Pritchard has become a staple of the second unit of the surging and menacing Celtics of late and he is most probably not surrendering that role ROS. It's just seven more games for Boston this regular season after Sunday while the C's can still finish anywhere from no. 1 to no. 4 out East, so no big changes should happen at all regarding roles and lineups. Pritchard only had a proper usage in the month of December and all of that was heavily linked to the COVID-19 bump up in cases back then. Other than that, not a lot of game time for the sophomore this season... until after the ASB when Boston realized they had a nice piece sitting on the pine nightly for longer than he should. So here we have PP playing a higher 18 MPG since Feb. 24 with his last four outings through Saturday giving him 20 MPG and his best numbers of the season. The line? 14-3-3-1 in those 20 ticks. Not bad.
Payton has hit at least two triples in the past six games and counting. He's scored 8+ points in all of those matches for an average of 13 PPG from Mar. 13 on, and he's shooting a low-volume-but-uber-efficient 7+ FGA per game, hitting 66.7% (!) of them. The freebies don't exist at all because Pritchard's game doesn't lend to contact and trips to the charity stripe, but it's not that he needs any of that considering his fantastic three-point stroke. Definitely not a league-winning player, but a more than capable one (1.38 FP/min in his last four games compared to the league average 0.90) playing off the bench.
Theo Maledon (PG, OKC) - 2% rostered
I'm writing this just hours after OKC made it official: Josh Giddey has been shut down for the remainder of the RS. I mean, yes, we're about to reach the grand finale, but there are still a handful of games left on the Thunder schedule and enough chances for Maledon to be considered a valuable fantasy acquisition for that short run. It'd be hard to roster Maledon in any fantasy league in any other situation (he's played 48 games this season but only averaging 17 MPG and falling short of even reaching 20 minutes in 29 of those matches), but with the PG slot open, he should take on starting duties ROS--and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander might still get shut down too soon.
Maledon has played eight games in the past couple of weeks while averaging a healthier 24 MPG and falling below 20 ticks just twice. Other than that small blip, though, he's been nice and averaged a 10-4-4-1 line in that span. The shooting has surely been up and down with field-goal percentages, ranging from a low of 22% (2-of-9 against Charlotte) to a high of 69% (9-of-13 against Orlando). The good thing is that Maledon keeps hitting treys (1+ 3PM per game in the last nine games) and he's getting more and more FGA of late (13 shots on back-to-back games to close last week). Watch out for the high TOPG if they hurt scoring in your league, though, but bet on the fantastic steals and all-around production from the Frenchman.
Justin Anderson (SF, IND) - 1% rostered
An absolute afterthought this season, Anderson played just three games in late December for the Cavs after getting traded to Indy, playing three more games for the Pacers, and proceeding to stay off the court until he finally made a comeback on March 18. He only played 10 minutes that day against Houston, but he's logged an average of 34 MPG since then in his other four games played, all of them starting at the wing. That's correct. Anderson has started four straight while never dropping below 31 minutes of playing time, he's shot either eight or 10 FGA in all games, and although he's struggled a bit on that front, he's still put up 13+ PPG with 2.2+ 3PM a pop, shooting nearly 44% from the floor.
Indiana is massively headed toward a top-five pick if the ping pong balls respect the Pacers' percentages at landing where they should. The Pacers will play four games this week with seven left in their schedule, and it's not that they truly need to risk anything as the season is more than lost already. Anderson has been fantastic and (reasonably) keeps flying heavily under the radar these days. The shots are coming at a healthy volume, the line is sitting at nearly 12-6-4-1 per game, and Anderson has been steady as hell, hitting 10+ points in three of his last four games, logging exactly four dimes in each of those, getting one steal in all but one game, and pulling down at least five boards every time he's been on the court in that span.
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By popular demand, RotoBaller has aggregated all of our fantasy basketball NBA waiver wire pickups into a running list of NBA waiver options, so bookmark the page and check back often for updates.
