Pickups Win Championships
2-27-17, 5:59pm PT
If Willy Hernangomez is still on your league’s waiver wire, pick him up this instant. Kyle O’Quinn for some reason just can’t get the minutes he deserves even though he puts up ridiculous per-minute-basis numbers, so Willy is the go to for now. (Phil Jackson seems to love exotic European players, there is currently a guy on the floor called Mindaugas Kuzminskas).
6:00pm
KYLE LOWRY HAS BEEN DROPPED. Kyle Lowry is hurt and will be out 4-5 weeks. Hopefully he never comes back and… unless they make it to the conference finals and play the Cavs, then I hope he comes back with flying colors… Also if I make the finals of my fantasy league I FULLY intend to pick up Lowry before my opponent – he is an all-star after all for last year’s conference finalists.
6:05pm
If you have Lowry in your league, I suggest you drop him for Courney Lee who is getting minutes in NYC and actually has been getting the minutes he deserves. 5 steals and 2 blocks with 5 minutes left in the 4th looks pretty good to me (if you are okay with volatile FG and FT percentages and at times an inability to score – he is very good at layups).
7:51pm
Do NOT pick up Tony Parker if you have Lowry. Tony Parker was last relevant back when he was dating Eva Longoria in 2007.
I will also be hesitant to pick up Cory Joseph – he hasn’t played all year behind Lowry, and is looking pretty average even with the starting position (6 points, 4 assits, 3 rbds, 2 steals, 0 3’s) – seems like the action is still around Demar Derozan who dropped 37 tonight.
8:00pm
Seth Curry is still killing it (FG, FT, 3pt, Pts and low TO) – dropped 29 points 3 assists and 5 3’s with only 1 TO as Dallas’ best player.
Andre Iguodala had an interesting statline of 2-10-2-3-1, going 1 for 2 from the field. I want to drop him, but it is hard to do so with the hard-to-get stats of 3 steals and 1 block – he isn’t painful to own in terms of efficiency either – plus he is only going to get more minutes as Kerr starts to rest his star 4 players. Last night he actually assisted 7 different warriors players, going for 9 assists in the game with a statline of 5-2-9-2-2.
8:16pm
The Hawks lost both games with Schroder out and won today as Schroder started and dropped 21-5-4 with 1 steal on 64% FG shooting and 100% FT, pretty great line for a player who has been delivering what owners have expected of him. He has truly taken the opportunity this season to shine as the management team traded Jeff Teague. However, this is old news, every league should have him – try to pick him up again next season.
Malcolm Brogdon can fill up the statsheet. 20-3-5-1 with 3 3’s on 53% shooting – all while playing 31 minutes against a Cleveland team with LeBron James back in the lineup.
Tristan Thompson – Useful for both points, blocks, boards and FG as he is getting the minutes that he needs to shine.
In case you haven’t noticed, Marquese Chriss is starting for the Phoenix Suns, and should absolutely be owned in All Leagues around the world. I was planning to pick him up Saturday night after Kelly Olynyk played his last game for me, but he was stolen by Angus. He’s been scoring well and getting both steals and blocks, and the Suns’ only purpose the rest of the season is to play their young players like Chriss, Alan Williams, TJ Warren and Devin Booker.
If you still have Tyson Chandler, he is a hold for his dominance on the boards and his exceptional FG percentages (getting consistent double doubles during the first half of the year, which means he still can if he plays). However, no need to pick him up if he is on the waivers, plenty of explosive, exciting players out there who can help you make a push in the last few weeks of fantasy basketball.
I like Dewayne Dedmon – he gets playing time and all-around stats for a big man even with Pau Gasol in the lineup. Great at blocking shots and great at rebounding as well with a knack for defense – Popovich will continue to play him especially against big offensive minded 4-5 combos like New Orleans (11-9-3-1 in 20 minutes proves he doesn’t need a large amount of time to be effective in fantasy).
Still not sure how I feel about Buddy Hield. As good as Kobe is, it seems like all the players that Kobe thinks are going to do well actually turn out terrible (Evan Turner). Perhaps Kobe should not be a coach… Buddy needs to learn to do a lot more things and be a little more confident in order to be usable in fantasy – he can only score, and even then he has trouble scoring double digits.
