Hassan Whiteside (C, UTA): Week 4 Waiver Wire Pickups

Hassan Whiteside is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 4 of the NBA season.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 40% of leagues

ANALYSIS: See, Rudy Gobert hasn't missed more than four games in any of the past three years. He's gone on to play in the All-Star on back-to-back campaigns in 2020 and 2021. He's averaged 31+ MPG in the last six full seasons--and running. Nothing is getting Gobzilla out of Utah's lineup, much less Hassan Whiteside. It is what it is. But look at Whiteside's sky-high rostership (for what he and his role are) and you'll find one successful application of the social phenomenon known as Wisdom of the Crowd.

Fantasy GMs are not dumb, and that's why they already have rostered Hassan in almost half of Yahoo fantasy leagues. That will only keep rising, believe me. Whiteside is playing just around 15 MPG off the pine after joining Utah this summer, but all he does is putting up über-efficient numbers. Only once has Whiteside finished a game this year with an FP/min average below 1.09 (0.81 against Chicago on Oct. 30). That might not ring any single bell until I put it in context: the league-wide average FP per minute sits at around 0.90. Hassan has virtually never this season dropped below nearly 1.10. He's producing 22% more FP than the average NBA player in every game. That's insane, to say the least.

Whiteside is going to give you respectable field-goal percentages (56.8% on 4+ FGA), masterful free-throw shooting on low volume (100% so far going 12-for-12 in eight games played), some points here and there (don't daydream about more than 10 points any given day), but huge rebounding and block numbers nightly for the time he stays on the court (7.6 RPG, 1.6 BPG). Obviously, the upside is so cut down because of Gobert and his impact on Whiteside's role. But it's not that you find this type of reserve-production for free every day, making Hassan a must-roster player in most deeper formats.

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