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.
Cory Joseph (PG, DET)
9% rostered
I'm writing this post seven games into Cory Joseph's tenure as a Piston. If you remember, Detroit traded for Joseph a couple of weeks ago in exchange for Delon Wright. Not a move to swing the path of either Detroit's or Sacramento's seasons, but one that has seen Joseph raise his fantasy value and Wright lose all of his fantasy appeal. Cold world, Delon.
It took Cory a little bit of time to get a good grip of Detroit's guard positions, but he's already there and putting on nightly gems--for what he's worth, don't get overly excited. For someone rostered in just 9% of Yahoo leagues, the average outcome Joseph is handing his GMs these days is absolutely fantastic. As simple as that. His first two games saw him play just below 22 minutes, and he was actually bad with a combined 11-5-5-1 line and shooting a stupid 17% from the floor. Since then, in the five games from Mar. 27 to Apr. 3 (to April 1st most of all) he's leveled up a ton.
Joseph has gone from being an afterthought in Sacramento averaging 15 FP/G to becoming an off-the-pine weapon in Detroit dropping 30 FP/G that in the last five games are translating to an average 11-3-5-2 line. Compare that average with the combined line I included in the paragraph above, and you'll quickly spot the difference. Joseph has topped 29 FP in three of his last five games, scored 10+ in the last four, dished out 5+ assists, and stole 2+ rocks while shooting 54% from the floor on a kinda-healthy 8 FGA diet. The free-throws are insanely great at 25-of-28 makes in his last nine games, and the minutes are up at 25 per night. Take advantage before GMs catch up to Cory's exploits.
Dario Saric (PF/C, PHO)
9% rostered
Saric has been kind of an underrated player in all of his NBA tenure after arriving in the L all the way back in 2017 as a 12th-pick via the 2014 (yes, that's correct, 2014) NBA draft. This season, playing for a contending squad in Phoenix, he's been used in limited minutes but he's had a couple of spells of über-efficient production, including the one taking place these days.
Saric played from Dec. 29 to Jan. 11 but was forced out of Suns' games until a month later, coming back on Feb. 13. Since then, Saric has played in all but one game for a total of 23 appearances. There have been up and downs in that span, sure, but the line reads a good 10-4-1, which is great if we take into account he's played just 19 MPG on average in all of those matches, and he's topped 20 minutes just eight times. Those numbers, put next to the playing time, are what makes Saric an efficient guy to roster in deeper leagues: he's putting up an above-average 1.00 FP/min mark since Feb. 13 (league average is 0.90) and in the last three games he's raised that mark to a ridiculous 1.35 FP/min.
Saric is one of only two players (3+ games played) averaging a 10-4 line in under 20 MPG this season, which speaks volumes of his efficiency, even more considering he's not a "true" big man but rather a floor-stretching forward with center length. Saric's field goal percentage sits at a good 46% from the floor this season, great considering he's hitting 1.2 3PG and has 7 total treys in the past three games combined. Saric is a low-maintenance guy with some 15-5-2 ceiling nightly and thrives off efficient performances. Forget about wild counting stats, because he just doesn't get enough playing time, but bank on him if you trust (and need/are happy with) his per-minute numbers.
Kira Lewis (PG, NO)
9% rostered
Freshman Pelican Kira Lewis is being one of the surprises of the season, for real. He was selected with a lottery pick in this season's draft, but even then I don't think many folks expected him to put on numbers from the get-go. That, truth be told, is what happened through the first weeks of the season as Kira barely played for New Orleans until early February, but since he started to get trusted more and more, he's been rather productive.
Lewis went from averaging 9 MPG in his first 10 games of the season to 18+ MP in his last 23, starting on Feb. 6. Looking at a more recent span, that covering games from Mar. 23 to last Friday, Lewis has played 18+ minutes in five of the six matches played in that two-week span, all of them off the bench and as part of New Orleans' second unit. Not a problem for him, though, has he's still been able to put up an average of 24 FP a night and a way-above-average of 1.04 FP/min in that time.
Lewis is obviously behind Lonzo Ball and Nickeil Alexander-Walker in the Pelicans depth chart, but the franchise has started to use his youngsters more and more through the season and he should stay on that 20-minute dose ROS. Lewis is not an otherworldly asset, but hey, we're discussing ultra-deep guys here, so there's that. He can give you points in bunches thanks to great shooting percentages (53% from the floor since Mar. 23) and his three-point prowess (1.6 3PG in the past six games), and also comes with rebounding and diming upside. Not a turnover machine either, which is good for fantasy GMs managing in 9-cat formats.
Robin Lopez (C, WAS)
4% rostered
Robin Lopez started the season slowly with 10 off-the-pine games for the Wiz, then went on to rack up starting-lineup calls with nine consecutive such games, and ultimately settled for the reserve role from Feb. 7 on. He has stayed there for 29 straight matches through Sunday. The minutes have not changed at all, as they are sitting at 22 MPG since then compared to the exact same 22 as a starter, but the last week of games has been the best in Lopez's season to date.
Going back a little bit further, to March 21, Lopez has played eight games and averaged a rather nice 0.95 FP/min in that span, which is already an above-average (0.90) mark leaguewide. He's done it to the tune of a 10-4-1 line with 1.3 BPG added to that. While it is true that Lopez is alternating large-run games (26+ minutes in the past three matches) with others in which he's not even reached 11 minutes (two of them), he's still putting up above-average and efficient numbers in virtually every game he's part of these days.
The most encouraging thing about Lopez going forward and making him a potential great WW target is the fact that he's logged back-to-back-to-back 26+ MPG performances against Charlotte, Detroit, and Dallas to close March and open April, and that he's posted 16-11, 16-2-3 (with 3 blocks), and 18-4 (with a steal and a block) lines in those three for 30, 28, and 25 FP respectively. Lopez is a virtual lock to hit 10-to-15 points a night, brings good rebounding upside, and is great when it comes to shooting percentages (60% FG% on the season, 77% in the last seven games) as he doesn't attempt shots outside of the paint.
Grayson Allen (SG/SF, MEM)
4% rostered
As much as fantasy GMs out there would love Memphis to go ahead and demote Allen to a second-unit role, that doesn't seem to be on the Grizzlies plans. Allen keeps starting games at the SF position, and although he missed time from late February to right after the AS break, he's been the starter since Feb. 12 and only fell off the starting unit on the day of his comeback on Mar. 15.
Allen is playing 26 MPG since getting that starter role for the Grizzlies, and although the large runs have affected his efficiency in the first run of starts (Feb. 12 to Feb. 26), the efficiency is back up at above-average levels of late: in the five games he's played from Mar. 24 on Allen has put up a crisp 1.00 FP/min. Allen is a little bit bouncy when it comes to scoring, yet he's averaging almost 11+ PPG in the past month. It's not surprising to watch Grayson hit a couple of triples a night, as that's his season average, and it's very rare to find a game in which he hasn't scored at least one long-ranger. In fact, Allen has hit 3+ triples in the four of his last six games (in one of those he just logged 7 minutes, mind you).
Allen provides his fantasy GMs with points and rebounds, the three-point tallies, and is also kinda viable in 9-cat leagues as his TOs sit at just 1.0 per game on the year. His steals per game average is high enough to make him viable there too, but he's been a little bit low on that front lately with just one 4-steal explosion and no more thefts in the past six games. The usage rate is often low and that makes Allen a coin flip (it's a make or miss--deep waiver wire--league, I guess), but for someone starting and getting his opportunities nightly, he should be rostered in many more leagues than he currently is.
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