Welcome back to the waiver wire! The trade deadline has definitely shook some stuff up. Let's see how that translates to fantasy basketball.
These recommendations are mainly for 9-cat leagues, but if you play in another format, there's a good chance that the information here can still help you. We'll be looking at centers, forwards, and guards whose low rostership and upside make them ideal players to get onto your fantasy team.
Our staff at RotoBaller has great insight and daily columns on how to improve your squad and tips to make your team successful, so be sure to check them out! Now, let's get prepared for Week 18.
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9-Category Leagues - Waiver Wire Adds
This column is written based on H2H 9-category standard size leagues. All players in this article are rostered at around 50 percent or less.
Devin Vassell, SG/SF - San Antonio Spurs
49% rostered
Vassell is now starting for the Spurs post-deadline and assuming Josh Richardson's impending debut doesn't hurt his value too much, Vassell becomes a must-add in the 50% of leagues where he's still floating around.
In his first game after moving into the lineup, he had 20 points, five rebounds, three assists, and one steal. In the second, he had 14 points, four boards, four assists, one steal, and one block. Get him on your team.
Ayo Dosunmu, PG - Chicago Bulls
47% rostered
Half of y'all still haven't picked up Dosunmu?
I get that he had a brief rough period last week, including just two points and two rebounds against the Suns. But that was a blip on the radar. Against Minnesota, he had 14 points, four rebounds, 10 assists, and three steals, while against the Thunder he had 12 points, eight rebounds, nine assists, and one steal.
The rookie has played 40-plus minutes in the last two games and while he isn't going to set the world on fire in the scoring category, he's a great rebound and assists guy for fantasy managers.
Darius Bazley, SF/PF - Oklahoma City Thunder
45% rostered
Bazley has scored in double figures in eight of the last nine games, including putting on a well-rounded showing against the Bulls with 17 points, eight rebounds, five assists, two steals, and three blocks. He's been filling up the stat sheet lately and while his field goal percentage is definitely lower than you'd like, he can provide some good value if you're ignoring that category.
Justise Winslow, PF - Portland Trail Blazers
26% rostered
Winslow's ability to do things on a basketball court is good. It's not as good as it used to be when he had more positional eligibility, but even as only a PF on Yahoo!, there's an upside. He's playing 30-plus minutes per game and recently had 11 points, eight rebounds, three assists, and four steals against the Lakers. He has seven steals in his last three games if you're in need of steals.
Cam Thomas, SG - Brooklyn Nets
26% rostered
Thomas will see some of his role replaced by Seth Curry, but he's still a guy who has scored 17 or more points in five consecutive games, including 30 points on February 4th against Utah. Against Miami on Saturday night, he had 22 points, four rebounds, four assists, and a steal. He should remain a key scoring threat for this team, especially in home games since Kyrie Irving is still unavailable for those.
Jonathan Kuminga, SF/PF - Golden State Warriors
25% rostered
Kuminga has now scored in double figures in six consecutive games and on Saturday had an especially strong game against the Lakers, with 18 points, nine rebounds, and one block. He's usually pretty efficient too, though you'd like more consistent steal/block numbers from someone with PF eligibility.
Aleksej Pokusevski, SF/PF - Oklahoma City Thunder
23% rostered
Look, I've basically given up on the dream of POKU, but he is having a nice stretch:
- vs TOR: 18 points, four rebounds, one assist, four steals, two blocks
- @ PHI: 15 points, six rebounds, one assist, one block
- @ CHI: seven points, four rebounds, three blocks
His numbers were alarmingly down in the final of those three games, so add him with some caution after he played just 15 minutes on Saturday, but the fact that it was a back-to-back could have contributed to that.
Danilo Gallinari, SF/PF - Atlanta Hawks
16% rostered
John Collins is set to miss at least a few games, so Gallinari becomes a nice streaming play. He had 16 points and nine boards against the Spurs and should be a threat to put similar numbers up until Collins is back, with the upside for more considering he shot just 36.4% on Friday.
Oshae Brissett, SF/PF - Indiana Pacers
13% rostered
Brissett has had a spike in minutes post-deadline, which resulted in Friday's 18 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, and two blocks in 38 minutes against the Cavs. With Justin Holiday and Jeremy Lamb gone, there's some extra room freed up for Brissett to get minutes and while the post-deadline sample size is low, he's delivering numbers that would make me add him in a 14-team league and monitor him in other formats.
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