With three weeks in to the fantasy season, rosters have already been set, with teams either looking for minimal tweaks on their lineup to stay on top, or looking to build teams through waivers and trades. For aggressive managers, looking at the weekly schedule may help to pick up possible players on the waiver wire that may have more games than other teams. Here's a look at the upcoming week schedule:
Looking at the upcoming week's schedule, Chicago, Memphis, and Miami all have just two games coming up. For Miami, you'd want to have LeBron James or Chris Bosh in the lineup if you have a rather shallow bench. Same goes for Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, Zach Randolph, and Marc Gasol for Memphis. For Chicago, Joakim Noah, Carlos Boozer and (the under-performing) Luol Deng should warrant a roster spot despite the lack of games. Other than the said players, you may want to check out waiver pick ups or your bench players.
Points/ Three-Point FG
Kyle Korver (SG/SF, ATL, 22% owned in Y!Fantasy)
9.3 ppg 15-for-38 three-point shooting
9.3 ppg 15-for-38 three-point shooting
Korver started the year slow, and has been inconsistent at best. He's still playing ahead of reigning sixth man of the year Lou Williams and former all-star Devin Harris. With Harris out, Korver has slowly become a sneaky pick to supplement threes, with at least one game. He can also help you out with steals as he is averaging 1.1 steals per game.
Stephen Jackson (SG/SF, SAS, 5% owned in Y!Fantasy)
8.3ppg 15-for-22 three-point shooting
Pop knows how to shuffle his bench, which makes his team really frustrating to read in fantasy ball. Kawhi Leonard is a do-it-all kind of player, but he doesn't usually get his minutes. Boris Diaw started the season as the starting center for the team, and now is playing minimal minutes off the bench. Now, Captain Jack is actually quite effective in his limited minutes off the bench, and when he's hot, he really lights up the scoreboard. He may be a risk to pick up, as they have three road games, which means more minutes need to be distributed evenly. At about 24 minutes per game, he'll give you threes when he's hot, some rebounds when possible, and some steals if his head's into the game.
Metta World Peace (SF/PF, LAL, 34% owned in Y!Fantasy)
11.8ppg 15-for-48 three-point shooting
MWP may look like a filler for a team with four all-stars, but he's holding his own, averaging in double-digit points so far this season. He seems to have a green light on three-pointers, hitting at least one a game, and throwing a lot of shots up. If he gets to keep it up, those shots might fall eventually. He's no slouch on rebounds either. Still, those numbers are from the Mike Brown system. The D'Antoni system might bloat this or completely render this useless.
Caron Butler (SF, LAC, 25% owned in Y!Fantasy)
16.1ppg 14-for-28 three-point shooting
What Butler brings to the table, you can get from a bunch of other players. He's a starter, but only plays about 20 minutes a game. If he plays a little more defense, maybe he'd be given more of the minutes allocated for Matt Barnes. Still, he's hitting his threes, and if you need help in that area, Butler should be worth a roster spot.
Rebounds
Reggie Evans (PF, BKN, 1% owned in Y!Fantasy)
7.1rpg 66% FG
This is more of a specialty pick. If your team is in desperate need for rebounds, Evans could be a great help for your cause. He doesn't do much of anything, but he won't hurt your field goal percentage.
Amir Johnson (PF/C, TOR, 7% owned in Y!Fantasy)
6.8rpg 1.2spg
Rookie Jonas Valanciunas is the team's starter, but foul trouble seems to be keeping him at limited minutes. Not to mention he's competing with Ed Davis and the man on the topic, Amir Johnson. Davis can't seem to get his break, and is playing the serviceable 3rd Center role, while Amir is playing with a lot of energy off the bench, much like he did last year. He's grabbing a lot of boards, and the 14 he grabbed in the triple overtime loss to the Jazz could be a season high so far, but he's capable of going for nights like that.
Assists
Ramon Sessions (PG/SG, CHA, 48% owned in Y!Fantasy)
4.6apg 16ppg
It might be a stretch if he's still available in deep leagues, but he's the steadying factor in the Charlotte backcourt. Though the team seems to have given the keys to the franchise to young guys like Kemba Walker and Micheal Kidd-Gilchrist, Sessions is getting major floor time because of his veteran smarts. Expect assists and points from him.
Blocks
Robin Lopez (C, NOH, 38% owned in Y!Fantasy)
2.0bpg 5.8rpg
His playing time is dipping, with Ryan Anderson finally emerging and Anthony Davis being given the heavy minutes, but he's effective when he's on the floor. He's blocking at least one shot per game and is the better rebounding twin. It must be the 'fro.
Kosta Koufos (C, DEN, 12% owned in Y!Fantasy)
1.8bpg 5.7rpg
He's still the starting center in Denver as long as JaVale McGee isn't mature enough in George Karl's mind. That means he'll be starting Center for quite a while longer. Koufos is the reverse Omer Asik from his days in Chicago; he'll go hard every single time for those blocks because there's always McGee who can come in if he gets into early foul trouble.
Steals
Eric Bledsoe (PG/SG, LAC, 12% owned in Y!Fantasy)
1.5spg 10.6ppg
The Clippers bench is deep, and though most of the guys are playing just around 20 minutes per game, everyone is producing. Bledsoe may be one of them, as he's been picking pockets every game this season, and you know he can score. He may defer to Jamaal Crawford in the scoring department, but those are only more chances for assists.
Overtime
- Looking at matchups could also help in choosing players you'd want to put in your lineup. If matchups are relatively easy, bench players may get more minutes than usual. Still, it's hard to risk, as you'll never know when shots will go in for the "easy" opponents.
- After a slow start, Ryan Anderson has finally found his stroke, and has been shooting pretty well the past few games.
- Demar DeRozan may look like he's having a great year in terms of scoring, but he's still not doing much of anything else to merit serious fantasy consideration. He scored 37 points on that triple OT loss, but scored just one three-pointer.
- Kyle Singler is emerging as a solid guard in Detroit. He's playing in a backcourt with Will Bynum, Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey. After spending some time doing a Brandon Jennings in Europe, he's finally earned a roster spot in the NBA and he's showing what he can do.
- If you picked Joe Johnson in the draft, you might want to hang on to him. He'll get his shots to go in eventually.
- The biggest flaw in Brook Lopez's game is that he doesn't give much big man stats like blocks or rebounds. This year, he's been blocking shots and rebounding a little better.
- I may be a little high on Byron Mullens right now, but just because he's in Charlotte, it looks to me that he could provide Channing Frye or Ryan Anderson type of numbers as a three-point shooting big.
- A little disappointed by Luol Deng right now, as he's not scoring as much as I want to, and he's not shooting the threes I expected from him. He's supposed to be the alpha while Derrick Rose is out, and he's not giving the production I expected from my third overall pick.
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