Fantasy Basketball: Top Waiver-Wire Adds for Friday, March 7th
By Josh Lloyd
Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports
Fresh off an evisceration of the reigning champs, the San Antonio Spurs’ Boris Diaw is fitting his straps as we round in to fantasy playoff time.
In today’s edition of “All Wired Up”, I’ll delve into the fantasy strengths of potential waiver wire gold like Diaw and the Miami Heat’s Michael Beasley.
» Boris Diaw, PF/C, San Antonio Spurs (5.3 percent owned on ESPN.com)
16 points (5-5 FG, 4-5 FT), 2 three-pointers, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal, 0 blocks, 4 turnovers vs Heat.
Incredibly, Boris Diaw is having one of the best seasons of his eleven-year career at the age of 31. In terms of efficiency at least. This is only the second season that Diaw has managed to post over a league average PER of 15, currently sitting at 15.3.
He’s doing it in relative anonymity as well, oscillating between a starter’s and bench role for last year’s Western Conference champions.
Over the course of the last month, Diaw is ranked 81st on Basketball Monster.com in nine-category leagues, averaging 11.2 points, 0.8 three-pointers, 5.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists with 55.2 percent shooting from the field and 75.0 percent shooting from the line.
He has once again established himself as a top-shelf passing big man, ranking only behind Marc Gasol and Joakim Noah for most assists by a center in the past two weeks.
Another amazing stat for Diaw is the fact that he hasn’t missed a field goal in his past two games, going an incredible 12-of-12 in games against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat.
With the way he is playing at the moment, I can’t see why you wouldn’t add him in all leagues and he definitely has long-term value in 12 team leagues or deeper.
Be sure to check out my new podcast, where I discuss things all things fantasy basketball. You can subscribe here or on iTunes here.
» Michael Beasley, SF/PF, Miami Heat (1.7 percent owned)
Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports
11 points (5-10 FG, 0-0 FT), 1 three-pointer, 6 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 1 turnover vs Spurs.
Michael Beasley’s career has come full circle in only 6 seasons — back playing for the team that drafted him number two overall in 2008. When the Heat brought him back this off-season, they had high hopes of Beasley transitioning into a killer scoring option off the pine.
It hasn’t quite transpired that way so far, with Beasley only averaging 8.7 points per contest. But there’s been something different happening over the last two games. Beasley dropped 24 points against the high-flying Houston Rockets and followed that up with another 11 in the Finals rematch with the Spurs.
Have things started to click for “Super Cool Beas”? Fantasy owners are sure hoping so.
In those two games, Beasley has also grabbed a combined 10 boards and hit five three-pointers.
For the moment, Beasley is a guy to target in 14 team leagues or if you are desperate for points, grab him in 12 team leagues and hopefully he has hit his groove.