RADIO
The injuries have definitely reshaped the NBA since the beginning of the season. Too many decent players are going down and that's a real shame. But one man's bad luck means a golden opportunity for another. And it's the same in fantasy basketball as well.
So all of us in deep leagues have to pay close attention to the injuries and those who benefit from them, as they can be very valuable pickups for our teams in the short or long run. Eventually, who knows, those pickups might even help you win your league.
Here are today's Week 6 deeper league waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams.
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Paul Millsap is down. Who are the profiteers?
Paul Millsap will undergo surgery on his left wrist and he will be out indefinitely. There are speculations that he will miss at least the next 2-3 months of action. There are several different possibilities when it comes to where his minutes will go and it will depend the most on coach Mike Malone and on the players involved and how they make use of the chance at hand.
Option 1: Screw you deep-leaguers, I'm going small
Even though coach Malone has several frontcourt options to replace his All-Star, he might decide to go small with Will Barton (74% Owned) as his starting SF and move Wilson Chandler (53%) over to the PF. That would mean an uptick for both those guys and less rise in value for the guys who were backing up Millsap and Nikola Jokic. Unfortunately, those are the guys that are probably still available in deep leagues, so if Mike Malone decides to introduce small-ball into Denver's lineups potential golden nuggets that we might have on our waiver wires might turn out to be as fake as Kevin Durant's twitter profiles.
Option 2: We didn't give up Nurk for nothing
In February of this year Portland sent Mason Plumlee and a 2018 second round pick to Denver for Jusuf Nurkic and a 2017 first-rounder (via Memphis - #20 pick). Now I won't get into how this trade affected both teams in real life. I will neither address the fact that The Nurk Alert is now a fantasy stud.
I will however talk about Mason Plumlee, how he is only owned in 20% of the leagues and is playing just 17 minutes a game so far this season. But with Millsap on the sidelines, that might change.
His averages of 6.2 PTS on 55.3 FG% and 44.0 FT%, 4.3 REB, 1.5 AST, 0.8 STL, 0.9 BLK and 1.4 TO in such a lack of court time do give owners hope that if he can get minutes in the 20s he could prove to be a valuable fantasy asset from the free agent pool. He will continue to tank your free throws, though. Out of the three frontcourt options, he played the most so far and seems the most likely to be depended on by coach Malone.
Option 3: Release The Manimal
In his first game out, Millsap was replaced in the starting lineup by Kenneth Faried. He didn't log too many minutes, being held to just 19 even with The Joker being ejected half way through the second quarter. Faried has only averaged 4.5 points on 52.8% from the field and 80.0% from the line, 2.9 boards, 0.3 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.2 blocks and 0.5 turnovers in slightly less than 11 minutes per outing. This has him owned in 14% of Yahoo fantasy leagues.
However, we all know what a fantasy upside The Manimal has with him being a double-double threat every time he is on court for more than 25 minutes and having such defensive stats prowess. Faried was the subject of many trade rumors ever since it became apparent that Jokic is the new face of the franchise. If coach Malone decides to give some of those extra minutes to Kenneth to try and increase his value before the trade deadline that would do wonders for his fantasy value. And that lucky owner who picked him up on time could be richly rewarded.
Option 4: Trust the Process
The Nuggets are at 10-7 and currently occupy a playoff spot in the West. If without Millsap that changes, they might just give their youngsters a chance to develop and become the players Denver will need to make a deep impact in a couple of years when their star Nikola Jokic hits his prime. One of these youngsters is Juancho Hernangomez. He is just 22 and is currently owned in just 3% of the leagues. And there's a big reason why.
Juancho only played in 6 games and played a total of 60 minutes so far this season. However, he did play 23 minutes in the sole game without Paul, so that might be an indication of him being given a more important role in the following period.
His averages in just 13 minutes per game from last season, multiplied by two, could give us a glimpse of what to expect if Hernangomez gets around 25 minutes. Those numbers (without the multiplication) are 4.9 PTS with 0.7 3PM on 45.1 FG% and 75.0 FT%, 3.0 REB, 0.5 AST, 0.5 STL, 0.2 BLK and 0.5 TO. If he gets the playing time, and repeats similar numbers, he could be well worth owning in deep leagues.
No PG, no wins for the Clippers. Who will step up?
The Clippers rolled the dice with acquiring two great, more experienced, but injury prone players. So far the roll is not paying off with both Patrick Beverley and Milos Teodosic being out with injuries. Neither of them will return soon, and the Clippers are in the middle of a nine game slide so that spells out trouble for Lob City. But we're not here to talk about what LAC will do to try and get themselves back in the playoffs mix. We're here to see which low-end guys will see some added value and are worth monitoring going forward.
Wesley Johnson, SG/SF, LAC, 9% Owned in Yahoo! leagues
Wesley Johnson is a great source of defensive stats and threes in deep leagues. He has been quietly producing value for his owners in those categories whenever he gets the minutes. And he has been getting them by the dozens lately. In his past eight games Wesley is making his owners happy with 8.4 points on 52.0% from the field and 50.0% from the charity stripe, 1.4 three-pointers, 4.9 boards, 1.5 dimes, 1.3 steals, 1.1 blocks and 1.6 turnovers in 29 minutes per game. He is leading his team in blocks per game in that period. Yes, he is blocking more shots than DeAndre Jordan.
If you're in the market for a player who won't hurt you anywhere, and will boost your threes, boards and defensive stats, look no further. Johnson seems to be locked in a large enough role at the moment to make his owners glad that they took a chance on him.
Sindarius Thornwell, SG, LAC, 0% Owned in Yahoo! leagues
Now if you're in a very, very deep league, and need some help with your threes and defensive stats from the guard position, you might consider adding Sindarius Thornwell. He looks like a poor man's Wesley Johnson for the past two weeks with him scoring 7.0 points with 1.2 threes, grabbing 1.2 boards, dishing out 1.2 assists and getting 0.8 steals and 0.7 blocks. He is hitting 50.0% of his field goals and 75.0 of his free throws while turning the ball over 1.5 times and playing a masive 27 minutes per game.
With the lack of backcourt depth in Los Angeles, Sindarius seems to be on track to get between 25-30 minutes. If you like what you get with him, if you believe that the 23-year-old rookie hasn't shown us all he can do yet or if you're in such a deep league that there aren't many upside players available, Thornwell is a low risk, "some" reward kind of player, so why not take a shot?
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