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Welcome to the fantasy basketball risers and fallers column, a weekly look at some players who are playing well and some players who aren't. What do these things mean in the larger scale of the NBA season? That's what we're trying to find out here.
Who's exceeding expectations? Who's falling short of expectations? Let's take a look at some trends after Week 4 of the 2022-23 NBA season.
Follow me on Twitter @juscarts if you'd like to have your fantasy basketball questions answered.
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Fantasy Basketball Risers
Franz Wagner - F, Orlando Magic
A lot of the attention when it comes to the Magic this year has (rightfully) been on the play of rookie Paolo Banchero. But he's not the only young Magic player that you should be taking note of.
Second-year wing Franz Wagner is on fire right now. Over the last five games, Wagner is playing 36.0 minutes per game, averaging 23.0 points, 5.6 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 threes per game on 56.8% shooting.
That Wagner has been such a good source of assists for a player with forward eligibility is a nice plus for fantasy managers, who can bolster their squad in that area and can still get assists from the guard spots as well. His current usage should stay pretty high, making Wagner an intriguing trade candidate, even if you have to buy higher than you might like.
Buddy Hield - G/F, Indiana Pacers
Hield's a really interesting sell-high player right now. He's on fire with the Pacers, averaging 21.0 points per game on 47% shooting over the last four games, and that comes despite a little drop in his efficiency from deep, as he's at 34.1% during this stretch vs. 44.6% over the first seven games of the season. There's room for him to improve even more on his three-point makes, which would be big considering he's taken nine or more threes in all but two games this season.
What makes Hield a "sell high" though is that while he's playing really well, we don't really know what the future holds for him. The Pacers should trade Hield and Myles Turner at some point because neither of them really fits with the direction of the team.
And if Hield is traded, then what? It's hard to imagine a scenario where he's as free to let it fly as he is in Indiana. Maybe the Lakers, where he would basically be their perimeter offense, but he'd still lose touches to LeBron and AD.
Find a manager who needs scoring and threes now and see what you can get for Hield while his volume is this high.
Clint Capela - C, Atlanta Hawks
Looking for rebounds? Clint Capela has rebounds.
Over the last four games, he's grabbing 17.5 of them per night, including 5.8 of them on the offensive glass. That second number might come down a bit, just because Capela's only shooting 57.8% over the last four games. He's also averaging 1.8 blocks per game.
Wait, though. Back up, Justin. Only 57.8%, you say? That's a really high number!
It is. But Capela, who is shooting 56.6% on the season, shot 61.3% from the floor last year. He's one of the most efficient bigs in the NBA and even if the offensive rebounding drops off a bit, the scoring an efficiency should go up, so it'd be kind of a wash, but in a good way.
Mike Conley - G, Utah Jazz
Conley's getting up there in age, as he turned 35 last month. And his scoring has taken a little dip, as the 12.1 points per game he's currently averaging is his lowest mark since 2009-10.
But he's making up for that in assists. With Donovan Mitchell gone, Conley has the ball in his hands more now, and he's averaging a career-high 8.0 assists per game. And he's had double-digit assists in three of the last four games, really highlighting how he's being asked to do more and more distributing. And hey—the Jazz are on a four-game winning streak, so it's clearly working.
Fantasy Basketball Fallers
Jalen Williams - G/F, Oklahoma Thunder
The Thunder are not a very good basketball team, which is part of why rookie Jalen Williams is getting so many minutes early on. The problem: he isn't doing a ton with those minutes.
Over the last six games, Williams is playing a solid 22.7 minutes per game, but his overall numbers just aren't keeping up with his playing time, as he's averaging 7.8 points, 2.7 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game.
And he's shooting 50% from the floor, so this isn't a situation where he just needs to start hitting shots. He's just not getting shots, which I think is a bigger problem since it's unclear where more shots would really come from for Williams.
Chris Boucher - F/C, Toronto Raptors
It wasn't long ago that Chris Boucher was playing some really good basketball, with double-digit points in five of six games, including a pair of games where he came close to a double-double: 17 points and eight boards against the Spurs, then 17 and nine against the Mavericks two nights later.
But the Raptors are still without Pascal Siakam, which should be good for Boucher. Instead, he's played under 20 minutes in two straight games, averaging 1.0 points, 3.5 rebounds, 0.5 steals and 0.5 blocks over that span. That's, uhh, bad.
If Boucher wasn't in a position where his relatively small number of minutes wouldn't eventually be cut even more, I'd be more likely to ride it out with him and just hope that he bounces back. But that's not the situation we have with Boucher. His diminishing role is an issue if you still have him on your fantasy roster.
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