Week 4 Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire: NBA Steals Specialists

November 21, 2014

In his Week 4 NBA Category Specialist column, Trevor Crippen searches the fantasy basketball waiver wire for some sleepers that can help out in steals.

The 2014-15 NBA Season has really heated up, and with that it is time to dive back into the fantasy basketball waiver wire. Today, the focus is on sleeper options that can help your team out in the steals department.

Steals Category Specialists

Corey Brewer (MIN, SG/SF) – 24% Owned

Brewer is the ultimate category specialist. I bring him up as a reminder that guys like him have extremely good value on a occasion in head-to-head format. There has not been a year in recent memory in which I personally have not added and dropped him several times over the course of the season.

Brewer, like many pure category specialists, is pretty flawed everywhere else. He takes a significant number of free throws at a below average clip, barely rebounds or dishes out assists, and never blocks shots. However, he is currently fifth in the NBA with 2.1 steals per game, despite only averaging about 24 minutes.

Those steals are always almost always there sitting in free agency when you need to borrow them for awhile. If Brewer is not around in your league, you can also get a similar pure steals package in Tony Allen.

Jarrett Jack (BKN, PG/SG) – 18% Owned

If you would rather have a more well-rounded player who can contribute to steals, a guy to look at in deeper leagues is Jack. The 10-year vet is starting to fit nicely into the 6th man role that Shaun Livingston filled so well during the 2013-14 season for the Nets.

In a five-game stretch from November 12 to November 19, Jack averaged nearly 27 minutes per game, contributing 14.0 points, 3.4 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 0.8 steals while shooting 59.1 percent from the field. While he will not keep up that kind of shooting (though it helps that he mostly avoids threes), Jack is not going to hurt you in categories the way Brewer might on a long-term basis.

Jack should end up getting close to his career average of 0.8 steals per game, which is a reasonable haul in the category. He also has upside if Deron Williams were to go down.

Zaza Pachulia (MIL, C) – 1% Owned

Pachulia, the injury-prone center for the Bucks, is starting to find his way into heavy minutes in Milwaukee’s rotation. Larry Sanders does not appear fully healthy right now, and Zaza has been taking full advantage, averaging close to 30 minutes a game over the last three contests.

While Pachulia's playing time is not going to stay that high, he could keep going 20-25 minutes a game, which is enough to allow his somewhat oddball, but occasionally quite useful game as a center to shine.

Pachulia is a decent rebounder, a reasonable free-throw shooter for a center, and best of all, he has been reliable over the course of his career for about one steal every 30 minutes played.

Pachulia's main drawbacks are in scoring and blocks. But as far as super deep-league players in the one-percent ownership range go, those are flaws that can be easily overlooked based on what he does bring to the table.