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 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
Facundo Campazzo (PG, DEN) - 17% rostered
We're getting closer to the very sad day in which Facu Campazzo stops being a potential WW target. The rostership is starting to get a little bit out of hand, but if we're honest for a second that is surely what should be happening given 1) Denver's state of affairs when it comes to player availability and 2) Campazzo's own numbers. Just peep at his game log, and you'll see what we're talking about: two consecutive starts at the point for Facu in his last two games against GSW and Houston in the past five days.
Facu was Denver's no. 1 PG backup until he was not... basically because the Nugs were missing the maximum amount of players before forcing a game into its postponement. The couple of starts to close/start the year have served Campazzo incredibly as he was navigating a rough shooting slump but has now been able to drop an average 51%+ of his 16 FGA in those two outings combined for 5 and 22 points respectively. Campazzo is coming off a 12-dime, 5-steal, 2-block game on Jan. 1st and will keep up his steals and assists all year long no matter if he starts or plays off the bench. Low turnovers for those in nine-cat formats, but very bouncy shooting percentages that seem to work only in bunch-of-games stretches.
Chimezie Metu (PF, SAC) - 17% rostered
I guess the game-winning shot a few days ago helped Metu's rostership, now nearing 20%, to rise up a bit. That's cool and all, but for our purposes, a bucket is a bucket and that's it, no matter if it gets the W or if it comes midway through the second quarter of a blowout. Metu had a run of games between mid-Nov and late December in which he started 16 of 18 games at the PF position. He seems to be back on the pain now, with three consecutive off-the-pine performances in Dec. 28/29/31 in which he also played fewer minutes for an average of around 20 MPG.
Although Metu's recent four-game span between Dec. 17 and Dec. 22 saw him start and play his most minutes of the year (34 MPG) while he was good to showcase his best possible version (13-8-1-2 per-game line) the truth is that he had already done something similar before on more limited playing time. On the season, in games with 20+ minutes played (18 of 24), Metu is putting up an average 9-7-1-1 line with very good numbers on scarce cats such as the steals and blocks ones. The turnovers are barely existent, but what he gains not turning the ball over, he loses with some middling shooting. (40/27/76 splits). The shots are high enough to have him averaging nearly 10 PPG, and he has tons of room for improvement, but he should start to show signs soon. He can hit the odd three-point shot too, but don't look into Metu if you're in the need of an actual pure sniper.
Payton Pritchard (PG, BOS) - 16% rostered
Just in case: Dennis Schroder has missed time of late hitting the protocols but should be back from that as soon as possible. That, along with Marcus Smart also being back after missing a week, will cut Pritchard's upside down a bit, but given what the young man has been able to do recently odds are he keeps boasting a good/large enough role. From Dec. 18 to Dec. 29 (both included), Pritchard played six games for the Celtics starting two of them and logging 21+ minutes in each of those matches. Then, on New Year's Eve, the playing time came down crashing to just 13 minutes. But no worries. In the six recent games in which he logged more than 20 minutes, Pritchard put up an average 13-4-3 line while shooting nearly 45% from the field and hitting 2.6+ 3PM a day.
Now, for that 13-minute most-recent outing against Portland, Pritchard got to reach an 11-2-1 line while scoring 3 three-pointers on just 4 shots from the field going a perfect 100%. No matter the role, you can count Pritchard hitting triples daily (1.1 3PM on the season) though the shooting percentages have not been sublime (makes sense, considering all the shots he takes are tough-to-make three-pointers). Pritchard has good rebounding numbers for a guard and has been able to get some steals when giving a little bit more playing time recently.
Trey Lyles (PF/C, DET) - 3% rostered
Rostering Lyles is definitely a little bit of a flier to take these days. For one, Lyles has yet to come back from the protocols after entering them on Christmas day. Nothing too bad about that, as he should be close to hitting the court again in no time with his hiatus now spanning more than a week. Then, there is the fact that fellow Piston and perennial C-starter Isaiah Stewart is also coming back from healthy protocols along with Lyles, taking away potential minutes/opportunities for the latter. But Lyles hit his best and most efficient level of play before getting COVID and that might open him the door a bit more going forward.
Lyles' last three games translated into an average line of 16-6-2 with 2+ blocks per game on just 23 minutes of playing time. That's absolute unsustainable, of course, but Lyles can't do much more to get more chances down the road and a heavier role than that he had for the first month-and-change of the season (16 MPG). Again, Lyles is not going to keep up those counting stats, but he's improved his shooting a ton since mid-December from below 40% to nearly 45% from the field, has hit the odd three all season long (0.8+ 3PM) and has shown some shot-blocking prowess of late. Lyles' upside is tightly tied to Stewart's availability and the level Saddiq Bey can play at. Not the worst target, but surely a risky/limited one.
David Nwaba (SG/SF, HOU) - 2% rostered
I'm writing this as Nwaba just put the final touches on his four consecutive starts for the Rockets. Information about the locker-room trouble caused by Kevin Porter Jr. and Christian Wood and the aftermath is still to get out there and public (if it ever does), but it could change some rotations and chemistry-linked stuff in Houston if only for a few days until everything settles. None of that (at least with what we know now) should affect Nwaba for the bad. He has logged 20+ minutes in four games straight, and although those starts are great news for him, it's also true that he had had six games before that span that were gems on low-volume/short-playing-time matches in which he came off the pine.
Nwaba featured for the Rockets at the start of the season on some kind of viable role playing around 14 MPG in the first 10 games of the campaign. After that, his minutes went all the way down to only 8 MPG for a month ending in Dec. 15 when he finally stayed on the court for more than 20 minutes (he played 27 back then). From that moment on, though, Nwaba has played nine matches (four starts), an average of 21 MPG, and has put up a 7-5 with nearly a 1-1-1 rest-of-line per game played. The shooting is fantastic since he started playing more at 59% with only one game falling below the 29% accuracy from the field--keep in mind the volume is minimal at just 4 FGA on the year and 6 FGA since Dec. 13). Given the low playing time and usage, the rebounds can be considered high at 5.7 RPG since Dec. 13. Nwaba also comes with interesting upside on the steals and blocks departments, with averages of 0.8 in each cat for the last 10 games he's played.
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