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 4
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (PG/SG, WAS) - 13% rostered
All of a sudden, the Wizards' roster is crowded as hell. After trading Russ away this past offseason and moving from a top-heavy, two-player-led team to a super-deep squad, things are getting a little bit tight when it comes to who gets to eat. Things have gone smooth so far for the freshest acquisitions of Dinwiddie/Kuzma/KCP as they have started every game they've been available this season, but that means a little downsizing has taken place in D.C. with the likes of Rui Hachimura and Thomas Bryant still to debut, and Bertans out this weekend.
No matter if KCP gets sent to the pine eventually, his role won't change that much--in fact, that move might even benefit the former Laker. KCP is playing a bunch of minutes, for sure, logging 31 MPG and putting up a 10-4-2-1 per-game line while on a super-low 14% usage rate. That usage can only go up if he comes off the bench, but he's already a nice play for those managing in deeper formats and looking for options locked into heavy playing roles. The shooting has been a little bit bouncy, but KCP is steady at hitting 10+ points and always comes loaded with three-point shooting prowess. The rebounds and the steals are also good enough for a fantasy asset with his real-life role.
Furkan Korkmaz (SG/SF, PHI) - 11% rostered
All hail the Kork! Long live the Furk! The Sixers, it turned out, are seemingly unstoppable without Ben Simmons around Wells Fargo Center. Who would have told... Korkmaz keeps playing off the pine more often than not, and in the two games he has started through nine played this season (back-to-back to kick November off) he did so at the PF spot! Anyway, the most promising thing about Korkmaz is that he's gone from playing 20 MPG in October to a bulkier 28 in the three Nov. games played through Sunday never dropping below the 25-minute mark.
Korkmaz is a specialist that will give you three-pointers in bunches. That's his main thing and where he finds his mojo. He's missed on scoring at least 1 trey only once (season-low six shots against Atlanta with a silly 33.3%) but he's actually averaging 2.2 3PM a game while he's coming off a career-high 7-three-pointer outing. Korkmaz is taking almost 9 FGA a day while scoring at a 48.8% clip. He's also gone all-but-one from the free-throw line, hitting 9-of-10 freebies through nine games. Not much more than points/treys/shooting percentages in this man, but fantastic at what he does.
Frank Kaminsky (C, PHO) - 5% rostered
The Suns have a cornerstone in Center Deandre Ayton, only maybe they screw and end without him around sooner than they'd like for that to happen. But that's too far from Kaminsky and his partner in crime JaVale McGee, Phoenix's freshest offseason acquisition. The latter has been around from day one and he's even got the starting nod a couple of times so far this season, while Frank the Tank has only played four games with very wildly-varying results. Nothing to fear, though, as we're talking super-deep league WW targets and Kaminsky isn't an unreasonable what-if flier to take.
Kaminsky played just once in October (10 minutes off the pine against Portland in a game without much history to it; Phoenix got blasted by nearly 30 points), but he's now appeared in the Suns last three November outings through Saturday logging 29, 6 (ugh), and lastly 30 minutes. Obviously, those 10- and 6-minutes outings amounted to very much nothing, but the 29+ ones were ridiculously great with Kaminsky putting up averages of 1.22 and 1.07 FP/min (league average 0.90). Frank is all about high-percentage shooting, but don't get that wrong: he scored 1 trey and then 2 in his two bulky games while keeping up a sky-high 66.3% from the field (9 FGA) in those two matches. The rebounds will always be there, and he has racked up 7 dimes and 5 steals total in his last 65 minutes of playing time.
Derrick Jones Jr. (SG/SF, CHI) - 5% rostered
Things are changing for the good in Chicago, aren't they? The Bulls are all in for the chip (or so they think, as they're probably better off a step-by-step mindset than trying to jump three squares at a time) and that's nice, but while the overall change has been positive, the little details are what matters for us here when discussing DJJ's upside. That's because Chicago started the year playing both Alize Johnson and Troy Brown Jr. (Jones' main competition for playing time) heavily... only for them to stay completely out of the rotation since Oct. 30, coincidentally the day Jones "debuted" for the Bulls--quoted that because he already had 3 minutes played back on Oct. 22, nothing really interesting if you ask me.
This rotational development, if we're honest, makes all of the sense. Looking at games in which those three (Jones, Johnson, and Brown) have played 10+ minutes this season, Jones comes on top in shooting percentage (62.9% on almost 4 FGA), free throws (10-for-10 for a perfect FT%), turnovers (none in all four games), and most interestingly steals (1 SPG in those four games, 0.8 on the year) and blocks (2 BPG in his last four outings). Only Daniel Gafford (a center, just in case) is blocking more shots per game on <20 MPG than Jones, and Jones is the only player at 0.8+ steals and 1.6+ blocks on his low playing time. The path to a larger role might be blocked given Chicago's loaded team this year, but with Patrick Williams out for the year, there is still a slight liver of hope Jones keeps up his fantastic start to the season and finds a way to feature more ROS when/if the Bulls opt to downsize a bit.
Gary Payton II (PG, GSW) - 5% rostered
Gary Payton II is just bulldozing his way toward a bulkier role and playing time for the Warriors after having logged 18 minutes in back-to-back games leading up to Sunday's game. It's just as simple as that. With Klay Thompson still weeks away from returning and Jordan Pool manning the SG spot, it is Payton who has emerged as the backup point for the team, and truth be told, he's been an absolute menace of late. Payton's three games with 15+ minutes of playing time through Saturday have seen him average an interesting 13-4-1-1 line in just 17 MPG. His shooting has been ridiculous (and it will come down in due time, but that's obviously to be expected) at a monster 67.8% on a healthy 8+ FGA per game, the same as his 100% accuracy on free-throw shots so far this season (4-for-4).
One of the most important things concerning Payton's future is his jump up in usage rate as part of the Warriors second unit: in the four games played in the past week-and-change (from Oct. 28 on) Payton has logged USG% marks of 5.1, then 13.9, then 27.0, and then 27.5 percent. That's highly encouraging, and it's not crazy considering he's put up back-to-back games of 14+ points, 5+ rebounds, 1+ dimes, and 1+ steals while only turning the ball over once. Don't hesitate and add Payton as soon as you can in deeper leagues (his low playing time still doesn't merit rostering/starting him in shallower leagues) given his scorching hot shooting (and fantastic rebounding for a guard) while it lasts.
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