Emmanuel Mudiay (PG, NYK) - Week 8 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add In 14-Team Leagues

OWNED IN: 12% of leagues

ANALYSIS: The 8-16 New York Knicks are in the middle of another season where they will likely to be looking to rebuild through a very early draft pick, and Emmanuel Mudiay is making solid use of his opportunity in the back court for a team known to scrape the bottom of the barrel in recent years to put a professional team on the floor. While his 22.3 minutes per game is still behind players like Tim Hardaway Jr. (33.6), Damyean Dotson (26.9), and Frank Ntilikina (23.1), he has already passed up fellow point guard Trey Burke (20.7) across his seventeen games played. He has taken on much-less of the floor general-role that he occupied for years for other teams, but his statistical production has been nevertheless well-rounded. His 11.5 points per game rank fifth on the Knicks, his 2.8 rebounds rank eighth on the team just a tick behind Allonzo Trier, his 2.5 assists per game rank fourth on the team, and he ranks third on the team in steals per game despite averaging 0.9. Most importantly, even though Mudiay ranks just sixth on the team in three-point percentage, he has worked well to develop his long-range shooting as demonstrated by his rate of 35.4% which would be his career-high mark for a full season by .035.

There have been rumblings that several teams around the league are interested in making a deal with the Knicks for either Ntilikina or Dotson, and if that happens there would be a whole lot more room for Emmanuel Mudiay to go to work in running the New York offense in his time on the floor (contingent on who is shipped to the Knicks in this hypothetical deal). With his improved three-point shooting and well-rounded production in ever-increasing playing time, Mudiay is a solid option in deeper leagues with the upside of a possibly improved role soon to come.