Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire: Playoff Pickups

Ramon Sessions
Ramon Sessions
Benny Sieu USA TODAY Sports

The fantasy basketball playoffs are no time to mess around, grabbing whoever you can find to fill positions and minutes. With every week possibly your last, you want can’t-miss risers and players riding big time hot streaks to propel you to victory. Whether you need assists and steals or rebounds and blocks, we can still find them late in the season on the fantasy basketball waiver wire so let’s take a look at some players worth targeting this week.

Ramon Sessions (Owned in 30 percent of Yahoo leagues): Sessions earned the start against the Clippers on Monday, and played 44 minutes against Chris Paul. Aside from that monstrous 28-point, seven-assists, six-rebound effort, Sessions is averaging 32.5 minutes per game over his last five. Over that stretch he’s also putting up 20 points, 5.2 assists, 4.0 rebounds, and a three per game while shooting a strong 55 percent from the floor and 50 percent from deep. If you’re in need of points and assists, along with some cheap rebounds and the occasional three, grab him now.

Henry Sims (15 percent): Over his last three games, Sims is averaging 14.7 points, 11.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and nearly one steal and one block per game while shooting 57.6 percent from the floor. He’s seeing big minutes (31 per game over his last three) and is absolutely a double-double threat every night he sees close to 30 minutes of court time.

Samuel Dalembert (45 percent): Dalembert’s seven-block game against the Nets certainly made fantasy owners take notice but the big man has now recorded at least one block in eight straight games. He’s not going to produce points but he is averaging 11.5 rebounds, 3.0 blocks, and shooting 54 percent over his last four games and can give you a solid rebounding and block boost if you’re in need of a big man.

Nick Young (49 percent): Swaggy P has been unstoppable since returning from an injury, averaging 22.3 points, 3.0 rebounds, and 3.7 threes per game over his last three. While he won’t produce much outside of points and threes, he’s playing 25+ minutes each game and shooting a strong 49 percent from the floor and an even better 58 percent from downtown. If you need a quick bump of three-pointers, Swaggy P is your man.

Gorgui Dieng (37 percent): The rookie has come up huge in Nikola Pekovic‘s absence and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. He has now started five straight games and is averaging 12.2 points, 13.8 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, and 1.2 steals over that stretch, shooting a strong 56 percent from the court while playing over 32 minutes per game. The Wolves have no reason to rush Pek back so I would ride out Dieng as long as I can. If he continues to start, he’s a nightly double-double candidate.

Jarrett Jack (48 percent): With Kyrie Irving on the shelf, Jack has stepped up his game, averaging 18.3 points, 7.0 assists, 4.7 rebounds, and a block per game. He’s now playing a huge 38.4 minutes per game, which means he’s worth it on volume alone, but he’s also very hot, shooting 58.5 percent of the latest stretch.

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Igor Derysh
Igor Derysh is Editor-at-Large at XN Sports and has been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sun-Sentinel, and FantasyPros. He has previously covered sports for COED Magazine, Fantasy Alarm, and Manwall.com. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');