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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 13
Kevon Looney (C, GSW) - 14% rostered
I have been fading Kevon Looney for a while now. Not anymore, though. Looney might be one of those super-particular, special types of players in the NBA and the fantasy realm, but he's doing more than enough to consider adding and playing him at least in some deeper leagues.
As a big man in the ever-small Golden State Warriors, it's not that Looney profiles as the best fantasy asset out there. That's why I have not been so convinced about recommending an addition/start of his talents. Things have not really changed that much for him as of late, but his numbers have been up a tick, throwing him into consideration for those struggling in the classic big-man cats.
Looney's minutes have gone from 23 MPG in the first 20 games of the season to a similar 24 MGP in the last 20. Again, not a lot has changed. His production, though, has been getting better for a while now on a per-minute basis, with Looney going from a league-average 0.90 FP/min to a much better 1.07 FP/min in those two aforementioned spans.
Having his first dub-dub of the year on Nov. 25, precisely on his 20th game of the season, Looney has since dub-dubbed three more times. In the last 20 games, Looney has scored 10+ points five times (average of 7.5 PPG) while he's pulled down 10+ rebounds in 10 different outings.
In games played after Christmas (seven of them), Looney is averaging a season-high 13+ RPG to go with 8+ PPG. He's grabbed 9+ rebounds in six consecutive games through Saturday and he's pulled down 11+ in his last five outings. Just last Monday, he had his second-best game of the season in fantasy terms to the tune of a 14-20-4 with a block to spare.
Don't expect a huge usage rate nor tons of shots per game, but clearly count on some reasonable points and mostly gaudy rebounding numbers nightly getting into Looney's stat line. The Warriors are a very known commodity and they won't change a thing ROS, Stephen Curry back or not.
Looney should keep his production steady without much fluctuation, so pounce if he offers what your team is lacking.
Daniel Gafford (C, WAS) - 8% rostered
While Daniel Gafford scared every living (Wizards) soul last Tuesday by leaving the game against the Bucks early with an apparent shoulder injury, he returned without any visible issue on Friday against OKC and had the game you would have expected from him considering his latest exploits.
Gafford has started nine games in a row for the Wiz, accruing 223 minutes of play in that span compared to 452 in the prior 31 games he'd been part of earlier in the year. Yes, that means he's gone from playing around 14 MPG off the pine to nearly 25 MPG while on the starting five. Not bad for a change.
The Wizards' big man has done it all in the games he's started. He's swatting almost 1.5 BPG and dishing out some dimes (1+ APG), but mostly doing heavy damage on the boards (approaching 7.0 RPG) and the scoreboard (nearly 12 PPG).
Since the start of December, Gafford has appeared in 18 games with an average per-game stat line reading 10-6-1 and adding 1.5 BPG to that. Through Saturday's games, Gafford is one of only seven players with 28+ shots blocked starting to count from Dec. 1. He's done it in 389 MP compared to the next-lowest playing time of 403 MP.
Gafford won't give you any sort of three-point upside because he never ever stretches the floor. That said, he's one of five players with 190+ points and 25+ blocks since the start of December, and one of only four (Christian Wood, Myles Turner, and Brook Lopez are the others) adding 100+ rebounds to those other two totals.
Max Strus (SF, MIA) - 8% rostered
The Miami Heat found themselves lacking warm bodies in November and that helped Max Strus rack up as many as 12 consecutive starts back then, only missing on doing so on Nov. 1 (though he still had himself a day playing off the pine). Strus is more of a bench player than a starter these days, but he's retained most of his value.
Strus has started three games after Christmas while playing four more coming off the pine. In this recent seven-game span, Strus has stayed on the court for an average of 28 MPG while putting up a daily 14-3-2-1 stat line. Not bad! Strus has been on both sides of the shooting coin recently, though, having three games of sub-33% shooting from the floor and two above 53% with nearly nothing in the middle.
The guard/forward has enjoyed Tyler Herro's recent absences and is coming off a start on Friday against Phoenix in which Strus got to play 38 minutes, scoring 19 points (including five three-point shots) to go with a packed stat line reading 19-2-3-1-1.
The Heat have their bench wild card in Max Strus this season, with the oft-reserve playing 30+ MPG over the year. He can cover the two-through-four positional spectrum so that's a bonus when it comes to Coach Spoelstra giving him minutes, and he can do a bit of everything when on the court.
Strus is one of just four players (min. 900 MP through the season) along with Al Horford, Kevon Looney, and Monte Morris to average 3+ RPG, 2+ APG, and fewer than <1 TOPG per game.
Alec Burks (SG, DET) - 7% rostered
Alec Burks isn't getting even remotely close to starting games for Detroit, which is completely reasonable. Burks is a veteran with murderous off-the-pine scoring tendencies, so his role with the Pistons was always expected to be the one he has precisely taken on this year.
After missing the first three weeks of play, Burks finally debuted back in mid-November after getting traded to Motown. Getting back to the most recent days, Burks has played seven games after Christmas and he's been his best self.
Burks scored at least 13 points in all games prior to Friday's outing against the Spurs (nine points), averaging an actual 17.3 PPG (!!!) in that seven-game span. Burks has scored at least one 3-point shot in each of the last 11 games he's played (the last time he didn't was on Dec. 16) and he's hoisting 10+ FGA per game after Xmas.
With Cade Cunningham out for the season and no better alternative on the Pistons bench when it comes to the two-guard/small-forward position, Burks will keep getting his 20-to-25 MPG and dumping points in bunches ROS. Count on some 3+ RPG and 3+ APG to go with the scoring, but keep in mind that Burks' role is a microwave-shooter one.
Zach Collins (C, SAS) - 2% rostered
Zach Collins started his first game in nearly a month (Dec. 12) for the Spurs and did so in fantastic fashion: 18 points and 12 rebounds in a 35-minute dub-dub to go with five dimes on the spot. Collins had not grabbed more than eight boards since his last start in mid-December but he proved once more how capable of putting up numbers he is when given enough time.
On a per-minute basis, Collins is averaging an extraordinary 1.05 FP/min (league average at 0.90) this season. In fact, barring a Jan. 2 stinker against Brooklyn, he's scored more than 0.90 FP/min in all other of his last seven games for an average of 1.10 per-minute fantasy production.
Collins can hit the odd three-point shot but he's more comfortable operating in the paint, dumping easy buckets, and pulling down boards. The blocks also come here and there but they tend to do so in low volume.
The big man has missed more than a bunch of time recently recovering from massive injuries in the past handful of months, so it's not that we can demand a lot in such a quick fashion.
That said, he's doing more than enough for needy fantasy GMs with teams in deeper leagues and with upside for even more if San Antonio decides to über-tank the year and trade Jakob Poeltl before the deadline a month from now.
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