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.
Editor's Note: Our incredible team of writers received five total writing awards and 13 award nominations by the Fantasy Sports Writers Association, tops in the industry! Congrats to all the award winners and nominees including NBA Writer of the Year, Best NFL Series, MLB Series, PGA Writer and Player Notes writer of the year. Be sure to follow their analysis, rankings and advice all year long, and win big with RotoBaller! Read More!
Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Targets for Week 18
Immanuel Quickley (PG, NYK) - 15% rostered
One game into the Hart Era of New York Knicks basketball (as the Nets fans would call it, I guess), Immanuel Quickley can sleep tight after knowing he's not the main casualty of the aftermath of the arrival of the former Trail Blazer. That'd be Miles McBride, who was left out of Tom Thibodeau's nine-man rotation.
This was something reasonable to expect, but you never know with Thibs. Immanuel Quickley has been this season's sixth man in the Mecca and that looks like it won't be changing ROS. In other words: go smash that Add button through your league WW as soon as you can!
Even though the minutes have gone down a notch from his late December/early January span (a fluke, though, because RJ Barrett missed time injured), IQ is still playing a healthy 30 MPG thanks to Thibs' confidence in his help coming in relief and off the pine. Quickley is surely contributing and meriting that ample playing time, mind you, with an average line approaching 13-4-3-1 nightly.
Quickley has been able to shoot the rock quite nicely since the start of the 2023 calendar year, hitting 49.5% of all field goals he's attempted from the floor while scoring 38 3PM in 20 games played since January 1 for an average of nearly two 3PM per game. In fact, IQ has dropped at least 2+ 3PM in seven of his last nine games and he's scored eight total three-point shots in the last three games through Saturday.
There is a chance the rebounds go down a bit with Josh Hart sharing the floor with him going forward, but that might boost his dimes a bit on the other hand. The steals are also very solid and steady with IQ committing exactly one theft in 10 of his last 12 games, while he's also been able to limit his turnovers a lot with no more than one TO in 18 of the 20 matchups he's been part of this year.
Tim Hardaway Jr. (SG/SF, DAL) - 13% rostered
It's been a while since tweener Tim Hardaway Jr. moved from his classic SG role to manning the SF slot in Dallas, making room for Luka Doncic and Spencer Dinwiddie to operate the one-and-two-guard spots. That's great for the future of Timmy in Texas after the arrival of Kyrie Irving, as nothing will change that much when it comes to his presence in the starting unit.
Hardaway went down injured on Saturday after just 16 minutes, suffering from tightness in his right hamstring. It doesn't sound too bad, but keep an eye on further developments just in case. No matter what, the Mavs are very thin on the wings after trading some starters away in exchange for Kyrie and that had Hardaway starting at PF (!) last Saturday.
While his shot has been a bit off of late, the truth is that Hardaway is keeping up a respectable 37%+ from the field considering he's hoisting 12 FGA per game, and even more than nearly eight (65 percent 3PT-Rate%) of those shots come from beyond the 3-point arc. Timmy is scoring treys at a 35% clip for an average of 2.8 3PM per game this season.
Hardaway had his best game of the year back on January 22 when he reached 40 FP by virtue of a 22-8-1 line with two blocks on top of that. It was the best game he'd played since December 6 (44 FP). In six games this month, Hardaway is averaging a 14-5-3 per-game line to go with a season-high 3+ 3PM per game, and all of those numbers include his 16-minute brief appearance before getting injured on Saturday.
Devonte' Graham (PG, SAS) - 5% rostered
The San Antonio Spurs waited until the final moments before the deadline to make some moves but ultimately moved some of their pieces--namely Jakob Poeltl and Josh Richardson--while adding a few in return. One of those is Devonte' Graham, who had been a little bit left out of the Pelicans rotation but might now return to his early career ways with an open path to playing time in Texas.
On the season, Graham has averaged a measly 15 MPG in NOLA. Just last Friday, in his debut with the Spurs, Graham already logged 37 minutes off the pine having, obviously, his best performance of the season to date. Graham finished with 31 points (six triples) to go with three dimes and three boards against the lowly Pistons.
The Spurs still have Tre Jones and Romeo Langford in the squad and penciled in as the daily starters. The Spurs are going nowhere (for their own Wemby good) so they might still leave Graham on the bench not to boost their chances of winning games more than they should. Even then, Graham will have all of the room to cook nightly in San Antonio.
Graham is still wildly under-rostered in pretty much all platforms and leagues as he is just entering an entirely new scenario coming off a putrid one. Take advantage of that bug while it lasts. On a per-36 basis, Graham is putting up 13 PTS, five AST, and three RBD this season, numbers much close to what you can expect from him ROS than what he did in NOLA on a fairly limited amount of per-game playing time.
Reggie Bullock (SF, DAL) - 3% rostered
The massacre perpetrated in Dallas in the effort to land Kyrie Irving was expected to be fixed before the trade deadline... but it never came to happen. I'm talking, of course, of the Mavericks trading away every living breathing forward in their rotation in exchange for another guard and bucket-getter in Kyrie without adding any single defender. Alas: veteran Reggie Bullock is now a staple in Texas.
Don't get that wrong, though. Bullock has already played 55 games this season, starting 33 of those, so it's not that he's going from zero to hero here. Bullock has logged 30 MPG this season, either starting or playing off the pine, and that will most probably stay the same ROS no matter his role going forward.
Bullock, though, had not started a game since January 15 before the Kyrie trade while he's now been on the first unit for the last three games (all of them played this week), getting 34, 41, and 37 minutes of run. Not bad!
Digging deeper into Bullock's season, you find out that he started all first 18 games of the year but only averaged around 27 MPG for the first two months of play. From December 10 on, though, Bullock has averaged a much healthier 33 MPG, including a bonkers 36 MPG on average in February (five games) alone through Friday.
Bullock's shooting prowess has returned through the last month after he went through a slump earlier this season. If the last three games, all of them post-Kyrie-trade, are a sign of his future in Dallas, then that's something to take massive advantage of. He's averaged 14+ PPG to go with 4+ RPG, 3+ APG, and two SPG while scoring 12 total 3PM and shooting 15-of-31 overall from the floor on a low (spot-up-shooting) 13.5% usage rate.
Torrey Craig (SF, PHO) - 3% rostered
This is a kinda-speculative pick, but not that much when you consider we're already past the trade deadline, and barring a surprising buyout-market pick by the Suns... then Phoenix's rotation at the SF/PF position doesn't feature many warm bodies going forward, let alone entering the ASG break.
Kevin Durant is obviously going to start and play as many minutes as his body can endure once he's back. He is not back yet, though, and he will remain on the shelves until after the break and through the remainder of February most probably.
Even when he comes back, there is still a chance Torrey Craig keeps playing starter minutes and has a starter role depending on whether or not T.J. Warren gets that gig. Outside of the aforementioned three players, though, it's slim picks, so there will be playing chances and minutes open for Craig no matter what happens with Monty Williams' rotation.
Craig has played 55 games this season, starting a whole bunch of them (45) beginning in November and only missing on doing it in the odd game here and there. With Mikal Bridges and Cameron Johnson off to Brooklyn, it's been two consecutive starts for Craig at the SF position, playing 35 and 36 minutes. The outcome: 13 and 33 DKFP. Horrid, and good.
Obviously, and no matter what happens going forward, Craig is most definitely not going to turn into a monster performer overnight. He will give you a bunch of boards and some points (not even many three-point made shots) but with the absolutely unstoppable offense of KD+Booker+Paul+Ayton around, it is going to be hard for Craig not to find some open spots and chances to bulk up his numbers a bit.
Don't chase Craig's shares in any nonsensical way and know his limitations, but give him a chance if only because of the lack of warm bodies around Phoenix and the context he'll find himself at ROS.
Download Our Free News & Alerts Mobile App
Like what you see? Download our updated fantasy basketball mobile app for iPhone and Android with 24x7 player news, injury alerts, lineup notifications & DFS articles. All free!
More Fantasy Basketball Analysis
By popular demand, RotoBaller has aggregated all of our fantasy basketball NBA waiver wire pickups into a running list of NBA waiver options, so bookmark the page and check back often for updates.
