I was suckered into a spring sand volleyball league this year because I’m a social butterfly who is spending too much time in the chrysalis that is my home. I’m at best a serviceable volleyball player. I get to most balls and I don’t usually do anything asinine. Two things happened: I was the best player on our team despite not playing for a year (obviously) which means we got obliterated and I found out this is a 16-week league, which tells me that this is NOT A SPRING LEAGUE. I’m now pot-committed to a volleyball league for the next four months and I need to win. Stay tuned for the weekly volleyball update.

I also feel the need to win in fantasy sports because it validates the alarmingly large amount of hours I spend on this hobby and I feel a lot better about my fantasy hockey teams this year than my basketball teams y’all. I hope some of these guys below are available to y’all because I’m getting beaten to the punch on most of these guys by a day or a dollar and I’ve been holding Jae Crowder for longer than I feel is appropriate. This SHOULD be the last week of the regular season if y’all aren’t in crazy leagues so let’s see what we can find.

Week 16 Stream Table

In the stream table, home games are in orange because basketballs are orange. Road games are in blue because blue is not orange. As always, check back for cancellations.

Back to Backs

Brought to you by Drake*

*not actually

Sun/Mon (of Week 15): CHI, MIN, NOP, NYK, ORL, SAS
Mon/Tues: LAL, PHX, UTA
Tues/Weds: CHA, IND, LAC, MIA, OKC, TOR
Weds/Thurs: CLE, GSW, MIL, SAC
Thurs/Fri: none
Fri/Sat: CHI, DET, MEM, SAS, UTA, WAS
Sat/Sun: none
Sun/Mon (of Week 17): HOU, IND, MIA, OKC

Working The Wire

It warms my cold heart when the players I wrote in here last week seem to be panning out nicely. What it does do though is make it tough to roll out all new boys. Almost to a T, every player on here last week is still perfectly viable. I’m still going to grab the Cory Josephs and Cody Zellers of the world if they’re out there.

Point Guards

Reggie Jackson: The good Reginald becomes a definite add, especially in points leagues as a volume fill-in for an injured Patrick Beverley. He’s making an unsustainable percentage of his shots, but that goes hand in hand with the lowest volume he’s seen in a long time. The 56.1% from the floor and top-40 value won’t continue, but streaming potential over the next few weeks is definite.

Malachi Flynn: “Flynnsanity” has to be discussed despite my cringe at the naming decision. Until Kyle Lowry and FVV are back in the rotation Flynn is a must-roster. Even after with the Raptors unofficially officially mailing it in, we should see more of Flynn down the stretch than we expected. The double-double in 39 minutes on Saturday was the icing on the streamer cake even though we expect Lowry back in the rotation as this publishes.

On the Radar
Kira Lewis Jr.: Kira Lewis is stealing at a frenetic pace and has a look as a 3-and-D point guard for a struggling New Orleans team if he gets 25 minutes a game.

Shooting Guards

Bruce Brown: We’re leaving the radar because Bruce Brown has followed through on the request to not do something silly to the tune of top-50 value over the last six games and instead has made opponents look silly with 2.4 defensive stats over that span. Even when the entire squad is back, Brown will have a role off the bench and he doesn’t really have to do too much to be a streamer.

Monte Morris: Frequenters of my work know that Monte Morris is my friend and his return means I just need to reintroduce that he’s a guy who is woefully underappreciated outside of the city of Denver and in fantasy circles. He’s stepped right into top-120 value in 9-cat leagues in just 21.3 minutes per game.

On the Radar
Reggie Bullock: Every so often Reggie Bullock shoots almost 50% from the floor and immediately becomes very interesting, especially in deeper leagues where just his three triples a night become very important.

Small Forwards

Patrick Williams: The rookie is going to get run no matter what happens because Billy Donovan would rather send Lauri Markkanen to the bench. Pat Will is easily a top-100 guy over the last two weeks shooting lights out from the field and averaging two defensive stats every night.

Jeff Green: Hello again, Jeff. Green has been a weird player all season because there has been enough volume for deep points leagues, enough intrigue for long streams in categories leagues, but he’s outside the top-200 over the last two months. The last two weeks have been top-150 streaming value but that’s including the bad outcomes outside the top-200 over the last four games. Did we get all that? The minutes are there, the counting numbers are there and on paper he should be better than this.

On the Radar
Kenyon Martin Jr.: What a weird rotation. Everyone involved is on the fringe of streamer value. Sterling Brown (who is still an option) was in this piece last week and he’s still well in the picture. KMJ is on the borderline as the 163^rd player in 9-cat with good percentages, no turnovers and two cash counters a game over the last week.

Power Forwards

Dorian Finney-Smith: Now an unfriendly reminder to please add DFS because he’s actually a top-120 guy on the season and is top-40 over the last week. Even with tragic percentages (40% from the floor and 60% from the free throw line and even worse in the past couple weeks), he’s maintaining standard league value. He doesn’t turn the ball over, rebounds well, pitches in a couple defensive counters and hits 3-pointers without drama.

Jalen McDaniels: The general fantasy populace is not catching onto the McDaniels situation. Maybe they’re confused because there’s a Jaden AND a Jalen and they’ve both been on the radar at different times this season. Jaden was of interest as recently as last week and this week we have a five-game sample of Jalen shooting 60% from the floor and scoring in double digits.

On the Radar
Darius Bazley: Bazley returned to action on Saturday and was immediately very involved, Aleksej Pokusevski has become a folk hero who actually hasn’t been that good outside of the one breakout game. Poku is raw and hurt now, so Bazley (who was a fan favorite in the earlygoing) should get another crack at being at least a streamer-level option.

Isaiah Stewart: A consistent 25+ minutes would go a long way for Stewart, who is showing double-double and defensive upside and is held up by the inspired Mason Plumlee. We don’t need to do this anymore Dwane. Just roll Isaiah out.

Center

Isaiah Hartenstein: Hartenstein is interesting even in standard leagues until Larry Nance and Jarrett Allen are back and up to full speed. He’s contributing in multiple categories and had a whopping seven defensive counters in Saturday’s game. I featured Dean Wade somewhere on this list last week and I feel like this entire trio of Hartenstein, Wade and Taurean Prince have streamer value for this hodgepodge rotation.

Mo Bamba: Khem Birch’s departure north of the border is a big development for Mo. Maybe we’ll get a consistent 20 minutes a night, which is enough for Mo to block shots and hit some triples at a reasonable efficiency clip. He’s a top-85 player over the last three games with Birch out the door.

On the Radar
Tony Bradley: We can’t pretend like Moses Brown has an unchallengeable hold on the starting center position in OKC. Bradley has been averaging almost a double-double over the last eight games shooting at a 63.5% clip with 1.5 defensive counters, good enough for top-150 value.

Taj Gibson: Here we go again. Sitting 83^rd over the last seven games on 5.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7(!) stocks.

The Stream Team

PG: Aaron Holiday – The youngest Holiday is making a case for himself in limited playing time. He’s probably better than Edmond Sumner and is making a lot of triples.

SG: Alex Caruso – Caruso has been a deep-league guy for a while now and this Lakers team needs some guys to step up in the absence of their stars. Top-160 guy lately with 1.4 steals per game.

SF: Kent Bazemore – Starting in the absence of Kelly Oubre, who is dealing with a sprained wrist. We could see a nice 3-and-D run here for Baze.

PF: Kenrich Williams – Kenny Hustle would have been higher on this list if Bazley didn’t come back and immediately play 36 eventful minutes. Kenrich has been a nice multi-cat option lately.

C: Daniel Gafford – I love Dan Gafford and think this was a really smart add for the Wiz at the deadline. Obviously, he promptly sprained his ankle and missed six contests. His return was promising on Saturday, mainly inspired by 17 minutes. It’s enough to make him a deep streamer.

Miscellaneous Musings

I feel like more B-tier players randomly go off for huge nights than they have in the past. In what world is Gary Trent Jr. the most recent 40-point scorer in the NBA. This man shot 17-of-19 two days after shooting 2-of-14 from the field. My favorite part of this outburst ist that it brings his shooting percentage for the month of April to… 49.4%. Add that to the 30-rebound night for Enes Kanter and it was a Saturday to remember for a week and a half. I went back and looked to see when the last 30-rebound game was. Actually, fairly recently. In 2018 Dwight Howard (remember him?) went for 32 and 30 as a member of the Hornets. Before that, we’re looking at 2012 when Andrew Bynum did it (super remember him?). The rebounder of note in this league, Andre Drummond, has yet to accomplish the feat.

Speaking of the Hornets, I just found out that they’re in 4th in the conference as of this publication, which makes it hard for me to make this team the butt of my arbitrary semi-irrelevant franchise that will never pan out takes. I still think that’s unfortunately the case because this is a lot of fool’s gold here without the legend of LaMelo Ball, but I’m glad that it’s happening. Maybe if the Bucks stopped punting the back end of these back-to-backs and just ran over this team instead it would get less people riled. As someone who watched that game on 10 screens in a Milwaukee establishment on mute, I was both impressed and irritated by how well the Bucks maintained pace until the end of the game. Taking over against a G-League team and Bobby Portis halfway through the third quarter doesn’t a second-round playoff team make.

Tune in next week for my temperature on the Brewers, the Bucks, volleyball and bar trivia (It’s going well!) or hit me up on twitter here. Happy streaming, we’re almost there!