RADIO
The deeper a fantasy basketball 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 fantasy basketball waiver wire pickups for the upcoming week and your fantasy basketball teams. These NBA 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.
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Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Targets for Week 12
Immanuel Quickley (PG, NYK) - 9% rostered
After winning a whole bunch of games (eight straight), the New York Knicks are back to their usual losing ways and navigating the waters of a .500 record. Some injuries have affected the rotation (to the extent coach Thibs allows for that, mind you), and Immanuel Quickley has been the main beneficiary of that.
Quickley is enjoying an explosion of sorts this season. He's played 36 games but his minutes had been limited to 23 MPG in the first 18 games of the year compared to a much more palatable 28 MPG in the last 18, including a ridiculous 31 MPG in the last 15 days of December and a couple of 51- and 43-minute outings entering Saturday's matchup against Houston.
IQ does two things very nicely: hitting three-pointers and scoring points in bunches. The problem is that he's definitely not the most efficient shooter. He needed 21 shots from the field to reach 13 points on Dec. 27 and then 27 FGA to hit a career-high 36 points against the Spurs last Thursday.
Quickley has scored at least 11 points in each game he's played from Dec. 20 to Dec. 29, averaging 19.5 PPG and hitting an average of 3.3 3PM a pop. He's no more than a 3.0 RPG, 3.0 APG player with some upside in the steals category and good free-throw averages along with depressed turnovers, but not much more than that.
He will see his minutes go down to the low 20s once RJ Barrett and Jalen Brunson (both missed the last two games before New Year's Eve) are back available. Watch out for a potential trade, too, as he's one of the most appealing youngsters on New York's roster.
Rui Hachimura (SF/PF, WAS) - 8% rostered
It took Rui Hachimura a while to return to the court after he last appeared back on November 18, but he did so a little over a week ago, returning in time for the game against Utah on December 22. It's been five games since then for Hachimura through Dec. 30 and a matchup against Orlando then and there, and Hachi has been quite impressive since returning.
Hachimura is playing off the pine and has not reached 30 minutes in any of his last five games (only once over the entire season). Even then, he's hoisted an average of 11+ FGA on those five games, scoring 17.5+ PPG while shooting a blistering 60.7% from the floor and finding 3-point-paydirt five total times in that span.
At this point and with nearly 35+ games in the books already, it's fair to assume that it will take a Kyle Kuzma trade for Hachimura to be inserted in the starting lineup of the Wizards. That is not really a crazy possible development, though, considering that Kuzma has said that he's entering free agency this summer, so Washington might prefer to move him now rather losing him for nothing later.
Anyway, Hachimura is providing value even playing off the pine as he's adept at finishing with 10+ points while contributing bulky rebounds (nearly 5.0 RPG on the year) and extraordinary shooting percentages (51/32/78 splits).
Hachimura is one of eight players putting up a 13-5-1 per-game statline while shooting those percentages through Dec. 30, and one of only four non-Centers doing it (along with Kevin Durant, Jimmy Butler, and Lauri Markkanen).
Alec Burks (SG, DET) - 6% rostered
Of course, the main reason for streaming Alec Burks this week and perhaps a few more games down the road is the aftermath of the Pistons and Magic brawl a few days ago. It could have been worse but things stayed reasonably calm and nobody got hurt. It's more about suspensions than anything else, thank God, but there will be some changes in the rotation of the two teams because of it no matter what.
The Pistons acquired Burks via trade on a salary-dump deal last summer. Burks missed the first three weeks of play but debuted in mid-November without relinquishing his off-the-pine role ever since. In fact, his minutes have trended a bit upward as the season has progressed, going from around 20 MPG in his first 10 games (November) to closing December getting 25+ MPG.
Burks is definitely not an exciting, new, unknown commodity. Far from it. You already know what he's been doing for years and what he'll keep doing ROS and heading into retirement. He scores points with ease and puts up great shooting percentages but he comes with the negative of getting very limited chances (around 8.0-to-9.0 FGA per game).
He knows when to shoot the rock and how to hit those shots, though, as he's scored at least one 3-point heave in seven consecutive games entering New Year's Eve, actually averaging 2.7 3PM per game in his last seven games back to Dec. 18.
The 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio sucks a bit and Burks is just a shooter/scorer these days on limited volume. Don't ask or expect much more from him, even less considering the Pistons are just coming to accept that they're going nowhere anytime soon and skewing younger with each passing day. Don't rule out a trade even if they have claimed to be happy having Burks around.
Daniel Gafford (C, UTA) - 4% rostered
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 6.0 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).
T.J. Warren (SF/PF, BKN) - 4% rostered
It's been just 11 games played since coming back on Dec. 2 and playing basketball for the first time in two years for T.J. Warren. The results? Optimal, to say the least. Warren has lost not a single bit of talent since he went down injured and since returning to the court, the Nets have put together a blistering 10-1 run through Dec. 30.
Warren is playing off the pine and that won't change ROS because that's the role the Nets signed him for and that he agreed to take on when he inked his deal with Brooklyn. That said, Warren has played more and more minutes of late and he's gone from playing 16 MPG in his first seven games back to a much more palatable 24 MPG in his last four through Friday.
The veteran forward is scoring points with gaudy shooting percentages (he's shot below 45% just three times in 11 games) on a low-but-increasing volume. Warren is hoisting 7.5+ FGA per game since coming back but that number has gone up a bit in the past four games to 10 FGA a pop.
In matchups in which Warren has attempted at least six FGA (seven of his 11 games played), he's finished with an average of 13+ PPG to go with exactly one 3PM per contest. Warren is not adding much more than points to his stat lines, though, with low 1.7 APG and 3.2 RPG averages.
He's a borderline 1.0 blocks-per-game average, but that's stretching things a bit as he only has three blocks over 11 games and they happened in two separate games.
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