RADIO
The deeper a fantasy league, the harder it is to hit a winner with your last few picks. It is also harder to find decent help from the waiver wire if your late-round picks don't do you justice. If you picked up a few stinkers, don't lose hope just yet. I will try to help you pick up a winner.
Here are my deeper league waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams. These players should be available in most leagues and they might just help you out, whether it's a few weeks rental or a long term fix to a problem your team is having.
If a guy on your team is frustrating you with his weak performances, give some of them a go. They might just be worth it.
Jae'sean Tate (SG, HOU)
7% rostered
Tate has started the last 10 games Houston has played from Jan. 20 on, and 12 of the last 13 expanding back to Jan. 14. Although his minutes of playing time have fluctuated from a low of 17 to a high of 37, Tate's average MPG comes out at 28 in those 12 matches and he just played 31+ in back-to-back games last Wednesday and Thursday.
The Rockets are trying to figure things out. Wall and Cousins are resting games here and there, Oladipo is an upcoming free agent that could be traded before the deadline, and now Christian Wood is out injured and week-to-week without a clear timeline to get back to the court. That has made it possible for the likes of Tate to find a place in the team and not precisely on a small role.
Tate, rostered in one of each 15 Yahoo leagues these days, has averaged 12+ PPG, 6+ RPG, 1+ APG, and 2 stocks per game in the past week, with a season-high fantasy score against NOLA when he put up a 13-9 line, hit a trey, and stole 3 rocks while shooting 75% from the floor and committing no turnovers at all on Jan. 30. Oh, and he did all that in just 24 minutes on the court for an average of 1.28 FP/min, which is way above-average mark league-wide.
Alex Len (PF/C, WAS)
7% rostered
Alex Len got cut by the Raptors and lost no time in signing a deal with a barren Washington team that needed warm bodies inside. Len debuted for the Wiz on Jan. 24, two weeks ago, and has played all eight games since then for his new team. And so far, so good for the biggie.
Playing for the Raptors (7 games), Len logged more than 13 minutes of playing time just one, all the way back to Dec. 29. In Washington, though, Len is a much more important second-unit asset playing an average of 16 MPG and having already five 18+ minute-games to his name among the eight he's played. Len's fantasy points have gone from 6.5 in Toronto to 18.5 in Washington, and most importantly Len is an above-average FP/min performer these days producing 1.01 FP per minute.
In a mini-series against Miami before the weekend, Len had his two largest outings getting to play 28 and 25 minutes. He finished those two games with lines reading 10-8-3 and 18-3-2-2-5 respectively, which can't get much better for a reserve player of the Washington Wizards. The only other big man available for this team is Robin Lopez, Len has refound his game in the capital, and he's more than a viable fantasy player in any deeper format--and I'd even go on to say he might end getting the starting spot over Lopez.
Jalen Brunson (PG/SG, DAL)
4% rostered
The Mavericks are getting in a bottle bit of trouble with almost a third of the season gone. Dallas sits second-to-last in the West, just above the putrid Timberwolves, and facing a very real possibility of missing the play-in, let alone the playoffs. There are only 2.5 games separating the no. 8 Warriors and no. 14 Mavs through Sunday, but that means nothing for a team that has struggled through the early part of the season.
Excuse me for using a paragraph on that introduction, but what I wanted to show is how Dallas could very well attempt to move some pieces, including Tim Hardaway, or hand bigger roles to players such as Brunson. In fact, Brunson went from bench-fodder to starter pine-rider once more of late. No matter the role, though, Brunson is averaging 21+ FP per game on the season and when starting for Dallas he was logging 30+ MPG. Now coming off the bench (last seven games) he's playing 24 MPG and averaging a nice 10-4-3 line.
Brunson is a great addition for GMs in deeper leagues because he can basically do it all. He's going to finish virtually every game with 10+ points, hit at least one triple, shoot above average (51.6% from the floor on the year), and come with upside on both the rebounds and assists categories. On top of that, he's a good asset on both 8-cat and 9-cat leagues, as he's not committed more than 1 TO in his last eight games.
James Ennis III (SG/SF, ORL)
1% rostered
Orlando entered 2021 without Jonathan Isaac, injured for the season. They then proceeded to see Markelle Fultz get down for the year to another ACL. And just last week, it was Aaron Gordon who got injured against the Raptors and is now expected to miss at least a month. Ugh. That sucked to watch unless you're a secondary player of the Magic, I guess. All of those injuries have opened the door to such players, and James Ennis is one of them.
Ennis has been starting games for the Magic since Jan. 8, and it's been 16 consecutive starts for him. The thing is, Ennis is now playing more minutes (from 19 MPG prior to Gordon's injury to 26 MPG in the two games without him) and getting more opportunities (from around 12% usage rate to 16%). The jump is not mindblowing, but there is a clear gap to fill and Ennis is doing his part.
In the last three games played by Orlando Ennis has averaged 10 PPG and 4.7 RPG. He can hit the spot-up three, but as he focuses on two-pointers he always ends with high shooting percentages (above 60% in five of his last six games, all but one with 5+ FGA). Ennis is going to the line more of late, hitting all of his freebies, and is good on the points/boards/fg% cats if that's what you're looking for. And he's for sure locked into the starting SF position at least for a month.
Kent Bazemore (SG/SF, GSW)
1% rostered
I could copy-paste Ennis' blurb above just flipping the team names and it would fit Bazemore's case very well. The Warriors entered the year knowing it was going to be a tough one. Wiseman was a great addition from the draft but is still ways away from being a truly productive player; Klay Thompson is out for another year, and it is not that Oubre/Wiggins/Draymond are studs. Other than Steph, these Warriors don't look a lot like the dynastic ones...
Looking for solutions and an overall improvement, Golden State has lately tested Bazemore on extended playing runs. Baze has gone from averaging 13 MPG from mid-to-late January to 18 MPG in his last five games going back to Jan. 28. Bazemore keeps riding the pine, of course, but he's the no. 1 option off the bench to sub for either Oubre and/or Wiggins when they need some rest.
Bazemore has put up 10, 5, and 20 points in his last three games through Saturday hitting 2, 1, and 2 treys while at it. Most encouragingly, Baze attempted 11 FGA in Saturday's matchup against Dallas, a season-high mark, same as were his 20 pops. The average line in February (three games, all last week) reads 11-4-2-1 in 19 MPG, Baze shot 59.5 percent from the floor in that span, and his usage rate marks went from 13.2 to 15.4 and lastly to 25.6%.
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By popular demand, RotoBaller has aggregated all of our fantasy basketball NBA waiver wire pickups into a running list of NBA waiver options, so bookmark the page and check back often for updates.
