Alec Burks (SG/SF, NYK) - Week 13 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 23% of leagues

ANALYSIS: I, like many of you, never thought I'd see the day that the New York Knicks are a highly competent organization with the power to craft a winner from raw materials as opposed to living and dying by the free agents that never showed up to Madison Square Garden; but that's what happens when someone wises up and hires Leon Rose and William Wesley to do what only those two men can do. The Knicks emergent season has been the product of Julius Randle unleashing the beast within, R.J. Barrett taking grand steps forward, and young talents like Immanuel Quickley and Obi Toppin establishing a new vibe around the Knicks (perhaps, optimism?); however, it's not just the fresh faces that have New York in heated playoff contention. The roster is a meticulous mixture of rising youth and niche-game vets, and lately it has been 6'6 combo guard Alec Burks with the hot hand he's been quietly exhibiting all season.

Burks is in his first year with the Knicks, which makes his sixth NBA organization played for since he was drafted in 2011. He has averaged 25.6 minutes per game this season, and in that time puts up 12.3 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game on 39.6% three-point shooting (1.9 out of 4.8 a game), 84.7% free throw shooting, the second-best true shooting rate of his career (54.8%), and a career-best effective field goal rate (50.6%). He rebounds at an 8.7% clip, his steal rate is in line with his body of work at 1.7%, he has kept his turnover rate below 10% for the second-straight season, and is netting a career-high assist rate at 17.2%. Eight games through March, with his PT up to 27.3 MPG, Burks has put up 14.6 points, 4.3 boards, 2.6 assists, and 1.o steal per game, nailing 13 of 38 threes (34.2%) and 16 of his 18 free throws (88.9%). Now, sometimes the shots don't fall for one guy and they fall for the others, which can be the case on any given night for the Knicks with Quickley, Reggie Bullock, Austin Rivers, and Julius Randle all letting them fly with regularity. However, Alec Burks has had stretches of unconscious marksmanship in each month of the season, and while he always slows down, he always picks back up. Launching from deep with that type of confidence in conjunction with his sneakily well-rounded skill set, Alec Burks offers the kind of scoring that's hard to come by on deep-league waivers this late in the campaign, without many of the usual downsides.

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