Early-Week Fantasy Basketball Category Streamers for Week 3

Thunder Dan Palyo looks at some early-week waiver wire options for fantasy basketball leagues. These players may be free agents to target on waivers in Week 3.

We head into Week 3 of the NBA season already on Halloween Night and I am still not quite used to the season starting this early. I remember not all that long ago that Halloween was around the time that the regular season started but it keeps creeping back into October further and further. Hopefully, your teams are off to a good start and you've been able to add some players that I recommended in my streamers pieces to help you win your weekly match-ups.

Most leagues limit how many 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 Monday morning will be to help you plan out your roster moves for the first half of the week. Planning ahead is important and I always include which teams play on optimal days for streaming in the very first section so you can look for additional players that I don't mention as well. All the rostered percentages used in this article are from Yahoo! Let's see who can help us start the week strong!

Weekly Schedule: Monday to Thursday

Teams that play only one game (AVOID): Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Indiana, L.A. Lakers, Minnesota, New Orleans, NY Knicks, Phoenix. Portland, San Antonio

Teams that play three games (TARGET): NONE

Teams that play TUES/THURS (TARGET): Golden State, OKC, Orlando

Teams that play MON/TUES or TUES/WED (TARGET): Brooklyn, Chicago, Miami

Shallow League Streaming Options

Jalen McDaniels - SF/PF (40%)

Charlotte plays today in a good matchup against the Kings and again on Wednesday against Chicago. McDaniels is coming off his most minutes of the season (32) as he double-doubled with 12-10 against the Warriors this weekend. He's been productive this season even in only 24 minutes per game, posting 10.5 points, 6.3 boards, and 2.2 assists while contributing 1.8 threes and 1.2 "stocks" (steals + blocks).

Jalen Williams - SG/SF (37%)

Go and run to pick up Williams as fast as you can, I will wait! All kidding aside, we saw Williams flash the type of potential on Saturday that we knew he had when we watched him in the preseason. He got hurt only a few minutes into the first game of the year but was able to return to action over the weekened.

He played 27 minutes and finished with 13 points, 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals, and a block and looks to be one of the most important bench players for OKC this season. Now, Giddey has been out for several games, but even when he returns we should see Williams continue to earn minutes in this rotation. And if SGA or Giddey are going to be rested this year at times, that is going to open the door for Williams to have some big games in their absence.

Royce O'Neale - SG/SF (47%)

Royce has seen his ownership shoot up from 33% last Monday to 47% as of today, but he's still available in over half the Yahoo leagues. With the coveted back-to-back on Monday-Tuesday this week, he makes for a nice add if you are hunting peripheral stats since he specializes in threes (2.3), steals (1.5), and blocks (1.0). Both games have some major fantasy appeal, too, as the Nets face the Pacers and Bulls, two teams that have allowed a lot of scoring and production to opponents.

Deep Leagues Streaming Options

Coby White - PG/SG (5%)

White has been erratic, to say the least so far for Chicago and the Bulls seem to have too many guards all competing for the same minutes between Dragic, White, Caruso, and Dosunmu. But with Dosunmu's status for these games still in question, we could see an uptick in playing time for White and the others. White has the most appeal as a scorer, but he doesn't offer too much in other categories. His 19-4-4 game against the Spurs last Friday offers a glimpse at what he can do when he's getting buckets and playing time, however.

Chuma Okeke - PF (5%) and R.J. Hampton - PG/SG (5%)

Orlando has been decimated by injuries to their backcourt to start the year and they've already had to shift guys around in and out of their starting lineup and play some guys out of position to compensate. Neither Okeke nor Hampton has been starting, but both have seen minutes in the 20s as part of the rotation and produced some usable stats.

Hampton has averaged two steals per game over their last two games, while Okeke has put up a solid 7.5-7-2.5 line with 1.5 threes during that stretch.

Darius Bazley - SF/PF (10%)

Bazley was on last week's late-week streamers and he produced for us in a big way with a 9-9 game with 3 blocks against the Clippers and 15-8 with one blocks against Dallas on Saturday. He's still widely available and the Thunder play on Tuesday/Thursday this week making them a team I will be highly targeting.

Specialist Streaming Options

THREES

Max Strus - SG/SF (33%)

You've seen his name here before, and I am still a bit baffled at how he's only owned in a third of leagues. Max is a big piece of this Miami rotation whether he's starting or coming off the bench and you simply won't find a better three-point shooter on the wire than Strus. He's up to 2.6 made threes per game and Miami plays twice here early in the week.

STEALS

Patrick Williams - PF (18%) and Javonte Green - SG/SF (4%)

The Bulls play twice here to start the week and have been banged up as both Andre Drummond and Ayo Dosunmu missed Saturday's game. Williams and Green have been battling it out for minutes at the 3/4 this year with Williams being the current starter. However, Green has been more productive with his minutes and has been the better fantasy player. Either way, both guys are averaging over 1.0 steals per game (Williams 1.1, Green 1.6) and could chip in some swipes for you this week.

BLOCKS

Aleksej Pokusevski - SF/PF/C (19%)

"Poku" is still very lightly rostered in leagues despite his multi-category appeal. His minutes have been trending up, too, as he's played 24 and 26 in his last two games. He's averaging .8 blocks per game right now in only 19 minutes per game. The matchup with Orlando on Tuesday is really solid as their big men allow a lot of blocks to opponents.

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