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 17
Isaac Okoro (SG/SF, CLE) - 8% rostered
I have to admit that I was most definitely not enamored of Isaac Okoro's rookie season. He wasn't bad, but that was mostly because of the ridiculous playing time (32+ MPG) than his efficiency (9-3-2-1 per-game line). This year, though, Okoro has kept his development going in the right direction and he's been good to stay on that level while playing four fewer ticks per game (28 MPG) and raising his eFG% from 47 percent to 52 percent this season thanks to an improvement on his shooting from all three levels and the charity stripe.
With the likes of Garland, Mobley, and Allen around, Okoro is the oft-forgotten name in Cleveland. He does his thing, stays quiet, and moves on. Enough for me and my fantasy teams doing it on deeper leagues. Okoro missed a bunch of games in early January but has started nine in a row through Saturday. He's still the most inefficient player ever because he's back at 32 MPG in that run, but he's been good to rack up numbers on pure force and strength of playing tons of minutes: 10-2-2-1 is the line as he's doing it all across the board while barely committing turnovers (only gave up more than one possession in a game once in the past month-plus). Also, Okoro's 55% shooting (in his recent starting run) with nearly one 3PM per game is far from bad.
Jaxson Hayes (C, NOP) - 7% rostered
Am I dying alone in Jaxon Hayes island? Probably. Do I care? Nope, because my thinking is correct. Hayes has been around for two and a half seasons already after getting into the L by the way of an eighth-overall selection. Some other big men went after him in the draft and have seemingly been more impactful to this point... or have they? The thing with Hayes is that he's only now (and by "now" I mean the last month, no more) starting to get some fancy minutes of playing time to work with. Hayes averaged 17 MPG as a rook, 16 last year, and 15 (!) this year, though in the past week he's started three games, logging 31-26-33 minutes for the Pels.
See, some might say this is cherry-picking, but I don't think it is: Hayes ranks third in Win Shares among members of his draft class with 150+ games played already. That's right. Only Clarke and Morant are above him. Obviously, the playing time has impacted Hayes a ton (he ranks dead-last among those 15 players in total minutes played; Barrett and Morant have already doubled him there while not playing more than 10 games than the Pel). What I'm saying is that Hayes is as efficient as they come, he's putting up an average 10-4 with 1.0 BPG in just 20 MPG since the start of the 2022 calendar year, and in the three games he has started of late, his numbers have gone all the way up to 15-8-1 with 2.0 stocks per game. The shooting is there (62% from the field, 76% from the free-throw line) too, and it's just a matter of playing time for the man. Say Hayes is something a la Robert Williams III. Again, just a matter of time.
Doug McDermott (SF/PF, SAS) - 7% rostered
The numbers say it all, Pop: 38 games played, 37 starts for Douggy Mac. Thad Young might be better, but we don't really know because all he's played is a total of 373 minutes this season while starting once for San Antonio just last Thursday. Is this a pre-trade showcasing after ample careful conditioning program to keep Thad under wraps and healthy for suitors to pony up? Who knows. Anyways, McDermott has logged some low-but-neat 25 MPG this season for the rebuilding SAS and he's just done what he's been asked for: spot up, hoist long-range shots, hit the net with gusto.
McDermott has delivered in fancy fashion with shooting splits sitting at 47/43/70 on the year and an average of 11.7 PPG in his 38 games to go with 2.3 3PM a day. Just for context: three players are keeping up such percentages while hoisting 3+ three-pointers per game, those being Douggy, Keldon Johnson (fellow Spur), and P.J. Tucker. Can't get easier to build a player profile, can it? The Spurs threw $40-milly McDermott's way and he's just turned 30 years old. The timeline doesn't quite align with the youngins, but it's hard to see San Antonio moving on from him this season or the next one. The goodies are phenomenal for fantasy GMs in deeper--and not so deep--formats out there, so you know what to do before it's too late.
Josh Richardson (SG/SF, BOS) - 6% rostered
Dennis Schroder is gone, we can right? The Celtics are going nowhere this season and Schroder got signed to a one-year, already-expiring deal that Boston will be better off moving in exchange for whatever rather than losing a guy worth rostering by a contender for nothing this summer. That's not entirely going to help Josh Richardson in terms of playing time and chances, probably, but it'd be another little door opened for the wing to rise a bit down the pecking order. Of course, as long as Marcus Smart/Jaylen Brown/Jayson Tatum are healthy, you can forget about any flashy numbers, but still.
J-Rich has been an absolute disaster shooting the rock since we entered the year 2022 of our Lord. He's hoisting 7.5 FGA per game, but he's only hitting 41% of them, including a quite-rough stretch from Jan. 12 to Jan. 28 in which he went 21-for-62 in nine games, shooting a stupid 34% from the floor. Jesus. Thank God, he's now back on track for a better set of outcomes as he's righted his wrongs in the past four games from Jan. 29 through Saturday, shooting an improved 55% on his average eight FGA per day. The turnovers are kind of high (nearly one per game), so it's not that he will take on any Schroder vacated role, but the points (14 PPG in those last four matches), three-pointers (1.5 3PM per game on the year), reasonable percentages (45/41/85), and steals (0.8 SPG) are good enough for someone that feels truly overlooked to my eyes.
Austin Rivers (PG/SG, DEN) - 3% rostered
It's amazing Rivers Jr. is still to turn 30 years old considering he's been around forever (shout out Winter Park, FL!). Now in his sixth pro franchise and second year in the Rockies, Rivers is just a mere pine rider who, luckily, has seen his playing time hell boosted by the rash of injuries and maladies affecting the Nuggets during the past few months. Rivers has been in and out of the starting lineup through the season and just since Jan. 1, he's alternated an even eight starts with eight off-the-pine performances. No matter what, though, the minutes have stayed stable at around 25 MPG in that month-long span, only falling below the 20-mark five times in that 16-game run.
Rivers, because obviously, won't win you the league nor give you tons of fantasy goodies. He needs to be atop his game, and he has not been quite there of late--BUY LOW CHANCE!--with an average 4-2-1-1 line in the past four, shooting a mediocre 27% from the field... Yikes. When good, Rivers is good and worth a roster spot in deeper formats (just before those four matches he had four in which he put up a ridiculous 14-1-1-2 line hitting 68% of his seven FGA and dropping 1-2-7-2 treys consecutively). No joke. If you opt to get Rivers from the WW, you should know you're definitely in for a wild ride at the very least. Here's hoping you catch the wave at its highest and not its lowest.
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