Working the waiver wire is pivotal to succeeding in fantasy basketball. With so many games, injuries and endless shifts in rotations throughout the season, we'll need to source stats from free agency to maximize our imaginary rosters.
A willingness to entertain competition for the last spot or two on your fantasy hoops roster can prove rewarding, even though it's difficult to open space this early in the season. The final few rounds of a draft are often used for speculation on sleepers, so it can help to consider those end-of-bench players as in direct competition with the talent floating in free agency.
In this weekly series, we identify players available in more than 40 percent of ESPN leagues at each position. Some nominations are purely specialists capable of helping in one or two categories, while others deliver more diverse and important statistical offerings. Either way, I believe the players below can contribute positively to fantasy rosters.
Point guard
Spencer Dinwiddie, Brooklyn Nets (rostered in 28.2 percent of ESPN leagues): Knee surgery has sidelined D'Angelo Russell for at least several weeks, while Jeremy Lin is already out for the season. This means Dinwiddie has the keys to the league's fastest offense. Over the past two games, Dinwiddie has averaged 18.5 PPG, 9.5 APG and 3.5 3PG. With unfettered control of such a fun and progressive NBA offense, Dinwiddie is likely the most important waiver acquisition of the week.
Kris Dunn, Chicago Bulls (18.1): With at least three steals in six of his nine games this season, Dunn is proving relevant, if for his defensive larceny alone. Throw in a handful of dimes and rewarding offensive freedom, and Dunn is arguably the most valuable fantasy guard on Chicago at this point.
Mario Chalmers, Memphis Grizzlies (4.4): With Mike Conley sidelined indefinitely with a sore Achilles, Chalmers is a worthy streaming option in deep leagues for the next few weeks.
Shooting guard
Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets (40.2): Despite being a slight violation of the premise of being rostered in fewer than 40 percent of leagues, Murray is worth mentioning as a valuable fantasy prospect, since he can sustain elite scoring benders. Over the past three games, for instance, Murray is averaging 27 points on 19.3 shots per game. While we've seen some dramatic swings in Murray's scoring pattern, he's clearly a difference-maker when hot from the field.
Rodney Hood, Utah Jazz (32.2): There are 27 players over the past nine NBA games who are averaging at least 20 points. With at least 16 points in seven consecutive games and a sizable surge in offensive responsibility of late, Hood is one of these 27 players, as he's averaging 20 points and a gaudy 3.2 3PG over this recent stretch of success. I've been banging this drum all season, and it appears the market is finally ready to appreciate Hood's game.
Danny Green, San Antonio Spurs (16.0): Over the past five seasons, only Robert Covington of the Philadelphia 76ers (in 2016-17) has produced a season with at least 1.3 SPG, 1.0 BPG and 1.9 3PG. Both Green and DeMarcus Cousins are the lone players this season meeting these thresholds. You don't often think of "Boogie" and Green as peers, but there is indeed overlap in their rare abilities to sustain a blend of defensive diversity with shooting success.
Allen Crabbe, Brooklyn Nets (10.7): You will net some lean box scores from Crabbe, given his dependence on scoring to provide value. If you can embrace the inherent variance of his production pattern, Crabbe can provide helpful rates from beyond the arc (2.6 3PG over his past seven games). A shooting specialist of sorts for deeper leagues, Crabbe is worth considering, given the Nets' currently shallow backcourt.
Denzel Valentine, Chicago Bulls (7.1): This combo guard has at least four assists in five of his past seven games and has averaged 2.6 3PG over the past seven appearances. You need to be in an appreciably deep league (think at least 12 teams with deep rosters) to consider Valentine, but he's unquestionably been more productive of late.
Small forward
Joe Ingles, Utah Jazz (38.5): Found at No. 20 among small forwards on the Player Rater during the past two weeks, Ingles offers a helpful blend of dimes -- at least four in five of his past six games -- and clean shooting production (47.1 percent from beyond the arc).
Taurean Prince, Atlanta Hawks (30.3): The wing position is decidedly shallow past the starting tier, which means the market should appreciate a productive player such as Prince, who ranks 14th among small forwards on the Player Rater over the past two weeks.
Power forward
Marcus Morris, Boston Celtics (34.0): What Morris has lost in minutes and touches in transitioning from Detroit to Boston, he's countering with a rewarding spike in scoring efficiency. The savvy ball movement in Boston facilitates higher-percentage offensive opportunities for key rotation contributors such as Morris.
JaMychal Green, Memphis Grizzlies (7.1): Green isn't yet seeing heavy minutes for Memphis as he reintegrates after a lingering injury, but he should soon be a fixture of the rotation atop a thin depth chart at power forward for the Grizzlies. As evidence he can provide fantasy-relevant production when called on, Green delivered more than 11 points and more than nine boards per 36 minutes last season.
Center
John Collins, Atlanta Hawks (30.4): This rookie has done a lot with a little this season; he's averaging just 23.3 minutes per game during his past eight appearances, but is sinking nearly 59 percent of his shots while slashing 11.3 PPG, 7.3 RPG and a block per game over this recent sample.
Alex Len, Phoenix Suns (21.4): Len's surprising surge in rebounding has him netting 11.6 RPG over his past five games. This bump in productivity is almost surely fueled by the absence of Tyson Chandler of late, but I do think Len is worth auditioning in deeper leagues to gauge the legitimacy of his recent double-double pattern.
