Fantasy basketball waiver wire pickups: Quick fixes for scoring and 3s

Working the waiver wire is pivotal to succeeding in fantasy basketball. With so many games, injuries and endless shifts in rotations throughout the marathon campaign, we’ll need to source stats from free agency to maximize imaginary rosters. A willingness to entertain competition for the last few spots on your roster can prove rewarding.

When curating this fluid collective of statistical contributors, it helps to consider your end-of-bench players in direct competition with the talent floating in free agency. The goal of this weekly series is to identify players at each position widely available in free agency in ESPN leagues. Some nominations are specialists capable of helping in one or two categories, while others deliver more diverse and important statistical offerings.

In the breakdowns below, I’ve ordered players at each position with the priority of acquisition in mind, rather than roster percentage in ESPN men’s basketball leagues.

Point guard

Coby White, Chicago Bulls (Rostered in 30.6% of ESPN leagues): Even prior to Zach LaVine‘s recent injury, White was surging as a shooting, scoring and creation source for Chicago. For confirmation, we find him eighth in NBA in made 3-pointers, between the likes of Paul George and Tyrese Maxey. Now that he’ll likely be consuming a good bit of the usage left by LaVine’s absence and with an awesome schedule this week facing the Hornets and Spurs, White is an ideal addition in all formats.

Mike Conley, Minnesota Timberwolves (63.1%): Available in free agency in more than one-third of leagues, Conley’s passing production has taken a leap of late; he’s up to nearly nine dimes per game over the past week and should be busy distributing for the team’s strong core of talent.

Cole Anthony, Orlando Magic (42.4%): Like White, Anthony has gone from being a somewhat volatile complementary scorer for his team to a reliable perimeter scorer in recent weeks. Unlike White, Anthony also has some strong defensive rates, including an atypically strong block rate for a guard.

Shooting guard

Jalen Suggs, Orlando Magic (22.6%): Anthony’s teammate has even more prolific defensive rates, if not the same offensive pop. After years of subpar scoring efficiency, however, Suggs has arrived as a worthy two-way force and merits more attention from fantasy managers. After all, Suggs is third in both steals per game and steal percentage.

Malik Monk, Sacramento Kings (27.1%): With the Kings hosting the Pelicans in the in-season tournament Monday, Monk will play an important role for the team as their impact scorer for the second unit. Like with De’Anthony Melton and Suggs, Monk has some useful defensive rates, but also the highest scoring ceiling of this…