Daniel Gafford (C, WAS) - Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 12

January 2, 2023

Daniel Gafford is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 12 of the 2022-23 NBA season.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 4% of leagues

ANALYSIS: The Wizards find themselves in the middle of a very crucial season. Do they attempt to contend (whatever that means for them...) or do they sell the house and start all over again after a few years of building around the Wall-Beal core? The latter option makes the most sense, but this being Washington, it's hard to see it happening.

One of the team's building blocks for the future, no matter what they do, should be young big man Daniel Gafford. DG is just 24 and has appeared in 37 games already this season. He's putting up low numbers (7+ PPG, 4.5+ RPG, 1.2 BPG) but that's more because of how little use he gets (15.8 MPG with a measly 14.8 USG%) rather than anything else.

Gafford has started six games in a row to close the year. His minutes, though, have been trending up from Dec. 2 on and all month long, only dropping below 20 MP once in the last 15 days and seven games played.

In December, which feels closer to what we should expect to be Gafford's floor ROS, the big man has averaged a better 10 PPG to go with nearly 6 RPG and 1.7 BPG. He's done that on a still-low 21 MPG, which is the main reason he's logged an above-average per-minute efficiency of 1.02 FP/min (league average at 0.90).

Gafford is a low-volume shooter, turning the ball over fewer than once per game. Other than that, he's great at dropping (low-volume, always) buckets and pulling down boards while blocking shots like a madman. Only four players have swatted more shots than Gafford (29) in December: Jaren Jackson Jr. (36), Brook Lopez (32), Nicolas Claxton, and Walker Kessler (both 29).

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