Hassan Whiteside (C, UTA): Week 19 Waiver Wire Pickups

Hassan Whiteside is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 19 of the NBA season.

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ROSTERED IN: 46% of leagues

ANALYSIS: It will be necessary to keep an eye on Hassan Whiteside's minutes and role going forward given the recent developments taking place in Salt Lake City, but as long as HW keeps getting around 20 minutes of play ROS he should be safe to have good enough numbers to lock into rosters of pretty much every league out there. Fantasy GMs know it, and that's why even the lower minutes he's played recently still have him bordering the 50% rostership.

Whiteside is of course not going to start games nor factor heavily in Utah's rotation with the likes of Rudy Gobert manning the paint and Donovan Mitchell doing it all on offense--along with other fantastic shooters/off-the-pine guys like Bogdanovic and Clarkson. That said, Whiteside has been a per-minute stud all year long with a massive 1.21 FP/min mark in his 19 MPG over the full season. Since he had to step up and start seven games backing up Rudy's injury through January, HW saw an uptick in playing time going from 15 MPG before January to 26 MPG since we flipped the calendar page.

In the six games before the break, Whiteside was averaging a ridiculous 10-12 line with 2.5 BPG and 0.5 SPG on top of everything--while playing just 23 MPG. Translate that to a per-36 basis and you arrive at a silly 15-18 with 3+ blocks and 1+ steal. The comeback from the break wasn't that great as HW only played 15 minutes on Friday finishing with a 2-8-1 and a block (no field-goal attempts), but that's not concerning enough for me to fade this man who, just in case, is available for free in more than half of Yahoo leagues.

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