RADIO
The deeper a fantasy basketball 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 fantasy basketball waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams. These NBA 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.
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Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Targets for Week 9
Darius Bazley (SF/PF, OKC) - 22% rostered
Bazley has yet to start a game as part of the Tanking Thunder's second unit. That's correct: 25 games played, 25 wing starts for the OKC third-year man. Now, obviously, Baz has been far from great this season, and the likes of Lugentz Dort, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and even rook Josh Giddey are the only Thunder players grabbing headlines. But for someone available in virtually four of every five Yahoo leagues, you can do much worse than rostering and playing this man.
Bazley is playing 28 MPG and his rostership is low mostly because of the mega-slump he's endured at shooting the rock through the second half of November. From Nov. 14 to Dec. 2 Bazley shot a laughable 25% from the field (8 FGA per game), but he's now been able to rebound with three consecutive games above 42%, something that aligns a little bit more with his career 39 FG%. In the past week of play (three games), Bazley has averaged a solid 10-6-0-2-1 line that includes 2.3 SPG and 1.3 BPG. The best thing of all is that although the points were super low in that aforementioned skid, the steals and the blocks have always been there at 0.9 SPG and 1.1 BPG on the full season. A little bit high turnover rate, but if you're needy of steals and blocks Baz is your man (with bounceback chances in scoring too given his putrid shot to date and its expected positive regression).
P.J. Tucker (PF/C, MIA) - 13% rostered
There are very few players like P.J. Tucker in the League. At least when it comes to fantasy production. I have to confess that I have never liked Tucker--nor the likes of Draymond Green or Royce O'Neal, for example--given his do-it-all-but-on-the-low profile. We're talking about a Drip God with a 10.2% usage rate on the year. That pretty much is all you need to know about PJ's upside. Now, that being said, Bam Adebayo is the main big man of the Heat and will be out for a while, Tucker was and will keep starting games for Miami (now more than ever) and he contributes in every statistical category even if he never explodes at anything in particular with flashy numbers.
Tucker is your great 5-5-2 (with 1 stock on top, of course) sturdy guy. And that's not bad! I know I'm perhaps cherry-picking a bit here, but no other player in the L is averaging such a baseline (5+ PPG, 5+ RPG, 2+ APG, <1 TOPG) on the season. Tucker is also contributing 0.7 SPG and 0.3 BPG, and hitting 1.1 3PM per game. Let me repeat it: low but steady production is Tucker's calling card. Tucker is also coming off his two best games of the year to close last week: 15-7-8-2 shooting 55.6% last Wednesday and 8-11-5-1-1 shooting 42.9% on Saturday (hitting 2 treys in each of those two). That's probably Tucker's ceiling, but the role isn't changing and the minutes are definitely going down any time soon, so you can count on that very unique 5-5-2-1 line going forward.
Isaac Okoro (SG/SF, CLE) - 12% rostered
For some reason, folks stay sleeping on Isaac Okoro even though Collin Sexton is out for the year and Ricky Rubio is a bonafide pine-rider... Damn. I mean, I don't want to sell Okoro to you as a freaking offensive machine (he's not) but he's improving a lot from his rookie season, and while still a subpar attacker he's doing it on all statistical fronts nightly while starting every game at the SG position and logging a more than healthy 30 MPG since he first started all the way back on Nov. 10.
Okoro has scored 10+ points in 7 of his 17 starts. Not a lot, I know. But he's pretty much a lock to score his customary 9 PPG with upside to enter the double-digit realm any given night. The volume is low, but in the past week, Okoro has been able to shoot the rock at a sky-high 68.3% clip on a total of 26 FGA in three games. More interesting than that, though, are Okoro's steal average (almost one per game on the year) and rebounding for someone stuck in the SG slot (4 RPG). The freebies are also falling easily for him these days (86.6 FT% in December attempting 2.1 per game).
Armoni Brooks (PG, HOU) - 9% rostered
Do you remember fellow Houston Rocket Aaron Brooks? He retired a few years ago, and he played his last ball for the Texan franchise more than five seasons to this one. Armoni Brooks wasn't really much more important for Houston through the first month of the season than Aaron Brooks was, honestly. Such an afterthought was Armoni. But that changed starting on Nov. 22 when Brooks played more than 16 minutes for the first time this season against Boston and dumped a silly 17-3-2-3 line on the Celtics including hitting 5 treys and shooting 55.6% from the field on a not-so-bad 9 FGA that day.
Since that outing against Boston (included) Brooks has played 10 games playing an average of 26 minutes a night. He's started a couple of matches in the past week too, and his average line sits at 12-3-2-1 in that 10-game span. Not bad if you ask me. Given a little more confidence, Brooks is now shooting almost 10 shots per game while scoring them at a nice 40.7% clip. Best of all? He barely commits TOs (0.7 against 2.4 APG since Nov. 22), he drops double-digit points more often than not (10+ points in seven of his last 10 games), and he's a bonafide long-range shooter with 3+ treys to his name in seven of 10 games, reaching 4+ in five of those. Great source of points, rebounds (3.3 in the past 10, a fantastic mark for a true PG), and steals (one per game since he started playing 20+ minutes).
Avery Bradley (SG/SF, LAL) - 1% rostered
Did you know Avery Bradley has been the Lakers starter at the shooting guard position for a month and a half now? That's correct, folks. Bradley left LA for a brief stint in Miami/Houston last year after getting the Bubble Chip with the Lake Show and is now back in Hollywood this season. Now, don't get this wrong. Bradley is part of this column and part of just one percent of Yahoo rosters because he has been bad so far this year. It is what it is. But this is a very interesting flier to take considering the Lakers are definitely underperforming, looking for different solutions to their very deep problems, and that Bradley has somehow kind of righted his wrongs of late.
Brad is playing a healthy 25 MPG as a starter since he did so for the first time on the last day of October. The problem (which was always expected to happen) is that he isn't commanding tons of shots with fewer than 6 FGA per game on the year. Bradley is coming off back-to-back games in which he's hit 10+ points, 2+ triples, grabbed 2+ boards, and stole 2+ possessions in each of those. He also shot 80% and 57.1% respectively in his best two-game span of the year through Saturday. Don't go chasing Bradley unless you play in an insanely deep league, but think about the vet as a nice resource of points/triples and steals without turnovers attached to his name. Again, always on the low side of the spectrum and as a last-resort option.
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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.
