Mid-Week Fantasy Basketball Category Streamers for Week 12

January 5, 2023

Thunder Dan Palyo looks at some mid-week waiver wire options for fantasy basketball leagues. These players may be free agents to target on waivers in Week 12.

It's Thursday and today marks the halfway point of the week, where we have to access our team's weekly performance so far and figure out how to best stream players the rest of the week in order to get that weekly win in H2H leagues! We have only four games tonight and five games on Saturday, making those the two days that you are most likely to have open roster spots.

Most leagues limit how many players you can stream each week in daily leagues. If your league only allows three moves per week, you need to be very efficient with your moves and grab players who will help you maximize your games played and help you win an extra category or two of counting stats.

The goal of this article each Thursday morning will be to help you plan out your roster moves for the remainder of the week. By this point of the week, you should start to get an idea of what categories you may need help with and where your weekly opponent is the strongest and weakest (in H2H formats). If you're playing roto, you don't have to gameplan quite as much, but you'll still want to maximize the stats your team can accumulate during the week. All the rostered percentages used in this article are from Yahoo. Let's see who can help us finish the week strong.

Weekly Schedule: Thursday to Sunday

Teams that play only one game (AVOID): Golden State, Milwaukee, NY Knicks, Sacramento, Washington

Teams that play three games (TARGET): Dallas, LA Clippers, Utah

Teams that play Thurs/Sat (TARGET): Utah, Orlando, Dallas, Boston

Shallow League Streaming Options

Jalen McDaniels - SF/PF (39%)

The Charlotte McDaniels brother has had himself a nice little run of late, scoring in double figures in five straight games and chipping in some solid rebounds and defensive stats. He's getting some solid minutes as Charlotte has been missing Kelly Oubre Jr. on the wing and Gordon Hayward (surprise) can't stay healthy either.

Kyle Anderson - SF/PF (25%)

The player we all know affectionately as "Slo-Mo" is healthy once again and playing 30+ minutes in Minnesota's last three games. In two of those games, he produced full lines and then last night he kind of stunk. You'll have that with him on occasion, but you're not likely to find another player with the diversity of skills that Anderson possesses on the wire. When he's going well, he's scoring, rebounding, and passing and is capable of dropping threes and adding defensive stats. He's going to continue to be a useful asset until Towns finally comes back.

Deni Avdija - SF/PF (25%)

The Wizards just got Beal back and he's already re-injured himself. That should mean plenty more minutes and usage for both Deni and Rui Hachimura, and both guys have been awesome off the bench for Washington of late. The Wizards have just one more game this week, but it's an excellent match-up against Oklahoma City and I wouldn't blame anyone for streaming Deni, Rui, or even Daniel Gafford against the Thunder. All three guys have some long-term appeal, too, while Beal is out of the lineup.

Patrick Williams - PF (24%)

I have featured Williams a few times here before, mainly as a deeper-league guy or a specialist. However, Williams should really start to be picked up in shallower formats soon. We saw his full potential on display last night when he went 22-7-2 against the Nets with three treys and two steals in 38 minutes. Yeah, there are going to be some 8-point, 6-rebound games, too, because Williams eats last on offense after DDR, LaVine, and Vucevic hog all the shots, but he's playing big minutes and able to produce across the board statistically with no real weakness (other than inconsistent scoring) in his 9-cat game.

Landry Shamet - SG (22%)

I believe I mentioned Shamet earlier this week and he promptly had a dud in his first game back against the Knicks. But last night he went 14-4-3 against Cleveland with two threes and played 36 minutes. The minutes here are key as Phoenix clearly trusts him the most of all their remaining guards to fill in while Devin Booker is out. His game isn't always pretty, and he's mainly just a points + threes guy, but Phoenix needs his scoring badly and he's going to pop off for a big shooting game here sooner than later.

Deep Leagues Streaming Options

Dennis Smith Jr. - PG (15%)

DSJ has played two games now since returning from a lengthy injury absence and his minutes have ticked up from 18 to 23 already. The Hornets badly need guards right now and while DSJ is not going to provide much scoring, he is a very solid passer and defender, and he rebounds well for a guard, too. The steals are really impressive (1.8 per game) when you consider he's doing that in only 27 minutes per contest on the year. I look for him to continue to get some solid minutes while Charlotte battles through these injuries.

Dennis Schroder - PG (17%)

Schroder had himself a throwback game last night and took over the Lakers' offense in LeBron's absence. He poured in 32 points to go with 4 treys and 4 steals. It could very well be his season-high and he never sniffs that output again, but he's actually been pretty decent now for a few weeks and even with LeBron in the lineup, he's often functioning as the second or third scoring option most nights. The Lakers have Atlanta and Sacto yet this week, two games that will have big totals I am sure, and two pretty good matchups for guards. Give Dennis (yeah another Dennis!) a look here.

Reggie Bullock - SF/PF (4%)

Yeah, I know, I cringed just a little bit typing his name, too. But listen, the Mavs are missing a bunch of their regulars from the second unit and have been giving Bullock as many minutes as he can handle. He just played 42 minutes against Houston in their last game and he was able to go 8-8-1 with two steals and a block. It's never going to be pretty with him, but he's going to knock down a few threes and you're getting three games worth of Bullock in four days.

Luke Kennard - SG/SF (5%) and Terance Mann - SG/SF (5%)

We are really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but the Clippers have three games to finish the week and they play the first half of a back-to-back tonight against Denver. Paul George is questionable for that game and Nicolas Batum is already out. If George misses tonight, that means we get a bunch more minutes and shots for the other Clipper wings (Norman Powell, too) and both Kennard and Mann offer a little something different as Kennard is a shooter/scorer and Mann is more of a rebounder/defender. Even if George does play tonight, it's possible they rest him (or Kawhi) tomorrow as they have been throughout the season.

Nickeil Walker-Alexander - SG/SF (4%)

Continuing with our theme here of "hold your nose while you click," we have some potential for a NAW sighting the rest of the week. He played 15 minutes against the Kings the other night and could continue to see some run off the bench while Collin Sexton is out. He's just a gunner who is going to put up a bunch of shots anytime he's on the floor, so if you can't stomach the hit to FG% then just leave him be. But if you're in bad shape for points or threes, NAW could be a sneaky add as Utah has three games here to finish out the week.

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