Jeff Withey (C, UTA) - NBA Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add for short term REB, BLK, and STL.

OWNED: 23% of Yahoo! Fantasy Basketball Leagues

With Derrick Favors currently hobbled with back spasms and Rudy Gobert still with no timetable for his return from a left knee injury, Jeff Withey has been playing big minutes for the Utah Jazz and putting up some nice fantasy lines.  In the six games that Favors has missed, Withey has averaged 10.0 pts, 8.7 reb, 1.5 stl, and 2.8 blk on a .478 FG% and .667 FT% in 28.8 MPG.

It is true that these numbers are the extreme cap of his value with Favors due to return any day now.  The concern is that his value will evaporate when Favors returns to actions -- even with Gobert still out, Withey only played 13.1 MPG in the 11 games after Gobert got hurt, but before Favors did.

However, there's still reason to be very bullish on Withey for the short term.  For one thing, Withey has obviously outplayed rookie Trey Lyles in the mean time, so there's reason to believe Withey will keep some of the minutes that were being given to Lyles during the previous span with Favors and without Gobert.  Secondly, there's still uncertainty about when Favors will come back and how quickly he'll be up to full speed.  Finally, the Jazz are playing four games in the next five days.  That gives Withey an extremely nice floor of production in the coming five days even if Favors returns tomorrow in San Antonio.  You can't imagine, coming off six games missed with back spasms, that Favors will be ready to take on a full load of minutes across two back-to-backs separated by a single day off.

Bottom Line: If Derrick Favors can't return in the next few days, there will continue to be massive stats for Jeff Withey.  But even if Favors does return in the next game or two, the schedule for Utah lines up so that Withey should still see a ton of playing time in the Jazz frontcourt over the next five days, and that will spell a big infusion of rebounds, steals, and blocks for fantasy owners.