Welcome to your midweek guidance for Week 19! In this post, I identify widely-available players who can help you win your head-to-head matchups. As fantasy hoops playoffs take off, we’re starting to see some significant attrition in the real world. The Lakers, Warriors, and Wolves, in particular, are still dealing with some big-name injuries that are opening up streaming opportunities for some and destroying championship hopes for others. If you’re fighting for your playoff life right now, it’s time to come to terms with the fact that we probably won’t get much – if anything – out of guys who are still recovering from long-term injuries in your IR slots. Streaming is usually the answer in those situations, and I’m here to help!
Schedule Notes: The Warriors, Clippers, Spurs, Wizards play three games before Monday, while the Cavs, Nuggets, Pistons, and Pelicans have just one game remaining this week.
Here are the players I’m watching and adding to close out the week.
Three Category Contributors
- Delon Wright (Assists, Steals, FG%): Monte Morris was ruled out a day in advance of tonight’s game, so there may be more absences ahead for him. Despite averaging 1.9 steals on the season, Wright failed to record one in his last two games – both starts. I expect him to end that streak tonight (Plays Thurs, Sat, Sun).
- Daniel Gafford (Rebounds, Blocks, FG%): Kristaps Porzingis is back, but as I’ve said many times in this post, the threshold for Gafford to be productive is 20 minutes. I’m confident he’ll be able to exceed that on nights that he’s not in foul trouble (Plays Thurs, Sat, Sun).
- Jeremy Sochan (Points, Rebounds, Assists): In their current state, the Spurs can’t be completely trusted to play Sochan in all three of these games, but he demonstrates good counting stat upside (14.8 points, 1 triple, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.4 assists in his last 10 contests), which automatically puts him in the conversation of add candidates for many managers in the playoffs. At the same time, his complete lack of D stats and crappy shooting make him a liability in other situations (Plays Thurs, Sat, Sun).
- Austin Reaves (Threes, FG%, FT%): He possesses one of the oddest fantasy profiles as a wing with pristine shooting and not much else, but Reaves is cruising in limited minutes with Lebron James out. Though it took perfect shooting from the field and 8 of 9 from the line to get him there, he posted 19 points and 4 assists in last night’s win over the Thunder (Plays Fri, Sun).
- Charles Bassey (Rebounds, Blocks, FG%): Horrid shooting from Zach Collins set the scene for Bassey getting a few extra minutes on Tuesday, and the latter responded with ten rebounds and three blocks. If you add him for the Spurs’ three upcoming games, you’ll probably want to offload him for next week’s two-game slate (Plays Thurs, Sat, Sun).
- Donte DiVincenzo (Threes, Assists, Steals): Steph Curry’s return is close, but it probably won’t happen until at least Sunday, which gives DiVincenzo another opportunity to excel with Andrew Wiggins likely also out until the weekend. Donte is a top-75 9-category league player over his last 25 games (Plays Thurs, Fri, Sun).
Two Category Contributors
- Killian Hayes (Assists, Steals): Leave Killian on the wire if your matchup at all hinges on FG% (37% from the field this season!). If efficiency’s not a priority, however, you can scoop Killian up in most leagues on Saturday and hang on to him for Detroit’s Monday/Tuesday back-to-back. It’s hard to find an available player who can duplicate Hayes’ averages of 6.5 assists and 1.5 steals over the last month (Plays Sat).
- Matisse Thybulle (Steals, Blocks): Water’s wet. The sun’s hot. Thybulle gets steals and blocks. And now he’s getting them in 30 MPG with the Blazers (Plays Fri, Sun).
- Tari Eason (Rebounds, Steals): Houston’s rotation is getting crowded again with a couple starters returning from injury earlier this week, but Eason still managed 25 minutes (10 points, 2 threes, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks) in Wednesday’s loss to Memphis. I’ve been a skeptic of his playing time potential so far, but the worm may be turning (Plays Sat, Sun).
- Jaylin Williams (Threes, Rebounds): Kenrich Williams was just ruled out for the season, opening up a starting opportunity for Jaylin until whenever it is Aleksej Pokusevski might return. In 25 minutes on Wednesday, he brought down 12 rebounds and swatted a shot. The output could have been much better if he hadn’t shot one of seven, so there’s room for growth (Plays Fri, Sun).
Hit me up in the comments with any questions or feedback. Good luck!
