RADIO
I spent the past week in Iowa without access to NBA games that weren't on ABC. It's tough as both a fan of basketball and a basketball writer to go a week without watching NBA games. It's especially tough to write a column when you're working so much off of highlight videos and stats, since those don't tell the whole story about a player. You've got to be able to see them in their bad times too.
So, I spent a little more time than usual gathering the data for this week's column since I don't have a week of basketball watching to fall back on. (I also put out a call on Twitter to see if anyone had players they wanted me to talk about, because I was interested in seeing who y'all thought were rising and falling and then I could hit up the statistical analysis to let you know how that meshes with your eye tests, but no one did that because I'm still too new to fantasy basketball writing to have amassed fantasy basketball followers. Hit me up, readers! Here's a link. I'd actually love to engage with reader thoughts in this space.)
Let's take a look at players whose recent strong play should continue this week, and at players whose recent struggles could continue on and hurt your fantasy squads. These are the risers and fallers heading into Week 12 of the NBA season.
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Week 12 Fantasy Basketball Risers
RISER - Devin Booker (G, PHX)
Devin Booker is BACK and he's still jacking up shots. Booker is one of my favorite players to watch even though the sophisticated NBA fan inside of me knows that a player who shoots at the volume Booker does is probably never going to unlock his full potential. Don't care! Fun! Booker has played in two games since returning from a groin injury. He scored 32 against Memphis and 26 against Sacramento. That game against the Kings is notable because Booker struggled through the middle points of the game before exploding in the fourth quarter. Fantasy owners need to make sure Booker is in their lineup, because he's a threat to score 30 or more points at any moment. Sure, you have to deal with the bad field goal percentage at times, but there's a lot of good things that can help outweigh that.
RISER - Ish Smith (G, DET)
Smith has been fairly inconsistent all season, but he steps into a larger role now with Reggie Jackson set to miss multiple weeks. He responded on Thursday with 18 points, seven rebounds, and five assists, plus a steal and a block. Smith doesn't have a high ownership percentage, so it's very likely he's sitting there on waivers. If you play in deeper leagues, don't miss out on the chance to grab someone who should be able to give you solid production across the board. He's not going to be a league winner, but he can fill in some of your team's holes. As some announcer in some old NBA video game said about, like, every player, he can be your "stat sheet stuffer supreme." (That's such a dumb phrase.)
RISER - Bismack Biyombo (F/C, ORL)
Another player thrust into a larger role because of injury. I was researching Biyombo earlier and the Magic have been a lot better defensively with him on the court this season. In a larger role, he should put up double-digit rebounds every night and block some shots--he swatted back five of them against the Heat--but the scoring will continue to be inconsistent. If you need rebounds and blocks badly and can weather the struggles in the other categories, don't be afraid to grab Biyombo.
RISER - Dwight Howard (C, CHA)
On December 22, Dwight Howard played just five minutes before leaving with an injured finger. In the three games since, he's put up three straight double-doubles, has a pair of games with twenty or more points (he hadn't scored 20 since December 13), and he even had seven assists against the Warriors. Now, I'm not saying that Howard is about to start passing the ball out of the post like he's one of these new-fangled big men, but I do think that if he keeps up the scoring and rebounding--the two things you picked him up for, right?--his occasional contributions to other stats is just the gravy on top. Also worth pointing out? Dwight's free throw shooting isn't the liability it once was. Though he's only shooting 53.8 percent on the season from the stripe, he's shown improvement recently--over his past 11 games, Howard hasn't shot under 50 percent a single time and has shot at least 70 percent five times. He isn't winning you the free throw category, but owning him isn't losing you the category either.
Week 12 Fantasy Basketball Fallers
FALLER - Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (G, LAL)
I feel really, really bad for mentioning this, but Caldwell-Pope will reportedly miss the Lakers's December 31 game against the Rockets and January 1 game against the Timberwolves as part of a plea bargain for a probation violation, which restricts him from leaving the state of California for 25 days. In case you weren't aware of this, make sure you don't have him in fantasy lineups for those two games. (Also, keeping him out of your lineup in other games isn't the worst idea either. He's had some bad shooting nights lately.)
FALLER - Eric Gordon (G, HOU)
With Chris Paul back, Gordon will return to his bench role. That role will keep him shooting, but it'll take the ball out of his hands and make it harder to contribute much else. His scoring average should drop as well since he won't be playing 40 minutes per game, although Mike D'Antoni's rotations have been odd lately so don't be surprised if Gordon still somehow plays 40 minutes every night as a small ball five or something. (I'm joking. I shouldn't have to clarify that I'm joking, but Ryan Anderson is getting enough burn at center that it's worth noting that Gordon's not going to end up at that spot in the rotation.)
FALLER - Malcolm Brogdon (G, MIL)
I actually hope I'm wrong about this because I like Brogdon as a player and I think he can be a good contributor to an NBA team, but Bucks head coach Jason Kidd...well, I don't know what he's doing. Brogdon seems to slowly be falling down the rotation. He sat for the first 20 minutes against Minnesota, then checked in and played well. He then went on to play fewer minutes against Oklahoma City. Part of that is that Jason Terry is back, but it's not the whole story. Eric Bledsoe was limited to just 24 minutes against the Thunder due to foul trouble, but it was Matthew Dellavedova who benefited, playing 25 minutes and dishing out nine assists despite shooting a nice 0-for-4 from the field. I'd be worried about trusting Brogdon until we're sure the reduced minutes aren't a continuing trend.
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