RADIO
The deeper a fantasy 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 waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams. These 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.
Isaiah Stewart (PF/C, DET)
8% rostered
Detroit Pistons rookie Isaiah Stewart is still down in the team's pecking order when it comes to big men. He's coming off the pine every time he plays, with both Jerami Grant and Mason Plumlee above him. Only two times has Stewart started this season, both on back-to-back nights a little over two weeks ago facing Indiana and Boston. Other than that, and as a second-unit man, Stewart has been a nice finding by Detroit in the last NBA draft.
Isaiah has played 20+ MPG since the start of March while averaging nightly 8-6-1 lines with a block to spare. That's not incredible, but that's all Stewart has been able to do given his low 13% usage rate in that span. The blocks are where you can find true value if you can add Isaiah Stewart. He's averaging 1.3 in the past month (12 games) and has swatted 2+ shots in three of his last five games through Saturday.
On top of the rebounds and the blocks, Stewart has shot at a magnificent 79 percent from the field in his last eight games, given he doesn't stretch the floor that much and focus on the mid/inside game. Good flier to take by those in super deep leagues, with upside to grow as the season advances and Detroit tests its young assets in larger runs.
Justin Patton (C, HOU)
6% rostered
Christian Wood got injured a month and a half ago. Since then, the Rockets have won all of zero games, are 0-15 in that span (through Sunday morning), and entered the second half of the season sitting at the 14th place in the West. Nothing is going to save the Rockets season, and although Wood is as close as ever to coming back, he might still miss a couple of games and get limited minutes for at least a few nights.
Justin Patton has been the one taking on Wood's workload for Houston during the last few games of the first half and the two back-to-back matches the Rockets played last Thursday and Friday. He started those two, and although the former was one to forget (0-6-1-1 line shooting zero percent), the latter was a much better 13-5-1-3-1 performance that included a triple. That's correct. Patton can hit it from long range, and he has scored already 7 treys on the year and 6 since Feb. 28.
That long-range prowess is great because even shooting the eventual three-pointer here and there, Patton is sustaining a good shooting percentage (albeit on low volume). Patton has played to the tune of a 0.95 FP/min average in his four starts for the Rockets, and perhaps moving to the bench once Wood is back and playing a more concrete role as a sub might boost his efficiency even more. Until then, though, he will stay in the starting lineup racking up minutes and putting up numbers if only by virtue of just being out there on the court.
Desmond Bane (PG/SG, MEM)
6% rostered
The Grizzlies banked on a TCU product with their first-round pick of this year's draft, making Bane the 30th-overall draftee of the 2020 class of hoopers. This kid debuted all the way back on Opening Night, has played 30 games already, but he's only started eight of them. The good news for us fantasy GMs? Things are only getting better for him. Bane has started the last five games he's played, seems to be locked into the Griz's starting five, and although his minutes/usage are not mindblowing, his production has been quite neat.
Bane, even coming off the bench earlier in the season, was already putting up numbers. From Dec. 23 to Feb. 6 (his last game before starting for the first time) he was averaging a 9-3-1 line in 23 MPG. From Feb. 8 on he's stayed on the lane raising his points almost a pop per game to 10.3 PPG in the past 12 games, while his shooting percentage has sky-rocketed to a monster 55 percent from the floor in his past five starts.
Since he took hold of the starter role (at both SG and SF, depending on the day), Bane is averaging a sweet 12-4-1-1 line, has scored at least a triple in each of those five games, and had it not been for a rather bad pre-AS-break outing against Milwaukee (4-6-0-1 shooting 20%), he'd be putting up an average of 24 FP/G and an even better 14-4 line. Until Memphis reverses course and throws Bane back to the bench nightly (which might not even happen ROS, mind you) he is a more-than-worthy addition for those playing in deeper leagues.
Jaylen Nowell (SG, MIN)
4% rostered
If you have read the blurb about Justin Patton above, you know how the Rockets are a ship lost in the sea this season is. Well, not only is Minny also lost, but also sinking. The Wolves lead (trail?) the race for the first overall pick of next year's draft with a stupid 8-30 record through Sunday morning. They are enduring a season in which both of Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell, the franchise cornerstones, have missed ample time. Rookie Anthony Edwards is going through growing pains, though he leads the team in games played and minutes,... I could keep on going, but you get the idea.
Second-year man Jaylen Nowell, though, has turned into one of the most productive players in the roster when it's been needed to find production somewhere down the chart. Nowell has played 24 games this season and he's averaging a 10-2-1 line with 45/40/83 shooting splits on a healthy 8+ FGA per game and around 18 minutes of playing time a night. Only Dario Saric and Nowell are hitting 45%+ of their shots while playing fewer than 20 MPG and attempting 8+ FGA on the season.
As an off-the-pine player, Nowell's numbers can't get much better. He's commanding a reasonable 20.4% usage rate since Feb.23, and he's played seven games from that day to Mar. 13 logging 20+ minutes in all of them. The touches and opportunities keep growing, and that is well deserved given his steady improvement. Nowell is efficient, putting up 0.96 FP/min compared to the league-average 0.77 mark among reserves.
Markieff Morris (PF/C, LAL)
4% rostered
The Anthony Davis injury and absence is hurting the Lakers way more than they'd like to. Out since Feb. 14, Davis has seen his team fall into a 4-6 skid that has LA third in the West and digging through its bunch of rotational players to try and find some nightly production. Enter Markieff Morris, forced-starter after AD fell down. It took Morris five games to grab that starting spot, sure, but it's been now six games in a row in which Markieff has started for the Lakers playing 27 MPG in that stretch.
This WW addition is obviously heavily linked to AD's eventual return, but that should not happen for at least a couple of weeks, so you can still squeeze some fantasy upside from Morris in that time if you're managing into a really deep league. I mean, Morris might not be the ultimate warrior but he's starting games and playing more than 24 minutes more often than not.
In his last four matches, all from Feb. 28 on, Morris is averaging a more-than-nice 11-6-2 line while shooting 60 percent from the floor on a somehow (given the context) healthy 7 FGA, and he's hit 2+ treys in each of those four matches. If you're hurting for three-pointers, good shooting percentage, and some boards without TO trouble, Morris is your man.
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