Mid-Week Fantasy Basketball Category Streamers for Week 2

Thunder Dan Palyo looks at some mid-week waiver wire options for fantasy basketball leagues. These players may be free agents to target on waivers in Week 2.

We are officially through one full week of games and already the number of injuries and players resting is mounting. That provides opportunities for lightly rostered players to provide daily value if we are willing to leave a roster spot open and stream players!

Most leagues, however, limit how many player adds you can make each week in daily leagues. If your league only allows three moves per week, you need to be very efficient with your moves and grab players who will help you maximize your games played and help you win an extra category or two of counting stats.

The goal of this article each Thursday morning will be to help you plan out your roster moves for the remainder of the week. By this point of the week, you should start to get an idea of what categories you may need help with and where your weekly opponent is the strongest and weakest (in H2H formats). If you're playing roto, you don't have to gameplan quite as much, but you'll still want to maximize the stats your team can accumulate during the week. All the rostered percentages used in this article are from Yahoo. Let's see who can help us finish the week strong.

Weekly Schedule: Thursday to Sunday

Teams that play only one game (AVOID): Portland, Toronto

Teams that play three games (TARGET): Dallas, Golden State

Only teams playing Thursday: Sacramento, Memphis, LA Clippers, OKC, Miami, Dallas, Brooklyn, Golden State

Teams that play Saturday AND Sunday: Dallas, Golden State

Shallow League Streaming Options

Bol Bol - PF, C (47%)

The days that many fantasy managers have been waiting for may have finally arrived as Bol Bol is receiving consistent minutes now for Orlando, and producing some legit fantasy stats as a result. He's played 20+ minutes now in two straight and is up to 10 points, 6 boards, and 2.6 blocks in only 17 minutes per game this season. There's no reason he should still be on the wire right now, grab him where you can. Even if he remains in a reserve role for the remainder of the season, he is showing he can be relevant in limited minutes.

Will Barton - SG/SF (31%)

It appears too many managers gave up on Barton too soon. Barton moved back to the bench once the regular season began, and had a few clunkers out of the gates. But he thrived off the bench in Denver in a sixth-man role and it makes sense for the Wizards to use him that way, too, so he can share the court less often with Kuzma, Porzingis, and Beal. He's putting up perfectly useable numbers with 11 points, 3 rebounds, and 2 assists to go with 1.3 steals and 1.8 threes. And on Tuesday he had one of his better games of the year, dropping 16-2-4 with 4 threes, 2 steals, and a block against Detroit. You can stream him here for his games on Friday or Sunday or just add him for the long haul. He's going to have a solid role for Washington this season.

Bruce Brown - SF/PF (21%)

Brown filled in as the starter last night with MPJ getting a night off and delivered an awesome line. He chipped in with 18 points, 5 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 4 threes! You won't get anything close to that from him most nights, but he is really carving himself out a nice role on this team and it reminds me a bit of Will Barton's role from prior seasons. Everyone really wants Bones Hyland to be the guy for the second unit, but we just haven't seen that happen yet. Brown is the add for me and probably even a hold until we see if he can keep up his production going forward.

Tyus Jones - PG (27%)

Jones is now officially the less relevant fantasy player in the family as his brother Tre has been great in a starting role for the Spurs. However, Tyus remains very productive in a bench role for Memphis and has double-digit points in three of four games this season. He's leading their second unit and helping to pick up the offensive slack when Ja Morant is off the floor as well as being the main distributor on offense. He's averaged a cool 2.0 threes per game while delivering 11 points and 3.3 dimes.

Deep Leagues Streaming Options

Jaylen Nowell - PG/SG (21%)

Nowell has been fantastic so far this year and is officially the T-Wolves' sixth-man extraordinaire right now. He's playing just 22 minutes a night, but getting up 14 shot attempts on average and scoring 16.2 points per game! He's not going to give you much else other than points, a few boards, and assists, but he has been very efficient from the field for a guard, shooting 47% and that counts for something. With games this weekend against the Lakers and Spurs (again), Nowell and the Wolves have two solid matchups for fantasy production coming up on the schedule, too.

Maxi Kleber - PF/C (6%)

With three games the rest of the week, even the Dallas role players like Kleber look appealing here in deep leagues. Maxi has seen his minutes cut a little with the arrival of Christian Wood who has been hogging shots with the second unit, but he's still producing six rebounds per game to go with 1.0 threes and 1.0 blocks. H's shooting 45% from the field and 83% from the line. He won't hurt you anywhere and could pop off for a big game at any point if he gets hot from behind the arc.

Jeremy Sochan - PF (4%)

The Spurs' rookie has been anything but consistent so far this year but has seen his minutes and production increase in the last two games. He had 14 points on Monday against Minnesota and then 12 again last night. He's very much a work in progress, but if Devin Vassell misses another game or two then he could continue to have a bigger role on offense for San Antonio here in the short term.

Kevon Looney - C (18%)

The Warriors play three times from Thursday to Sunday, otherwise, I might not bother with Looney. He's seen his minutes cut to around 20 per game this season with James Wiseman's return and he's averaged just 6 points, 5 boards, and 4 assists without many defensive stats. But Golden State has been running deep rotations to start the season and he should continue to be involved for now, so he's useable as a streamer this week if you need points, boards, and FG%. The assists have been a nice surprise but probably aren't sustainable.

Specialist Streaming Options

THREES

Eric Gordon - SG/SF (8%)

The veteran Gordon is seeing 30 minutes a night in the starting lineup alongside a bunch of young players in Houston and while his role has been diminished, he's still taking 11 shots per night, with around 5 of those attempts being from behind the arc. He's a career 37% shooter from deep and is averaging 1.5 threes per game so far this year while not hurting your FG% too badly with a mark of 45.5% from the floor.

Reggie Bullock - SF/PF (5%)

Bullock is a three-point specialist for Dallas who doesn't do much else other than rebound and grab a few steals. But he does average 2.0 made threes per game and 1.0 steals. If you can stomach the poor FG%, he and the Mavs play three times to close out the week and a few of those games should be high-scoring, too.

STEALS

Josh Richardson - SG/SF (9%)

J-Rich got the start last night for Vassell and went 11-3-10 with 2 steals and a block for San Antonio. I'm not sure how soon Vassell returns, but even in a reserve role this year, Richardson has been productive and is averaging 1.0 steals per game in around 23 minutes per contest. He's definitely worth an add until we see how healthy Vassell is going to be in the short term.

Patrick Beverley - PG/SG (20%)

Beverley is playing solid minutes for the Lakers but is not being asked to do much on offense as expected. He's still producing 2.0 steals per game and 1.0 blocks per game as well as some decent boards (5.0) and assists (3.0 assists).

BLOCKS

Darius Bazley - SF/PF (8%)

Bazley is part of a nightmare rotation in OKC where we never really know who is playing or how much on a nightly basis. But he has been playing around 20 minutes a night with the exception of a 4-minute game where he got benched for not playing hard enough. He does have five blocks in four games, however, which is especially impressive given his limited role and OKC plays twice to finish out the week.

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