The end is nigh. Happy Mother’s day to all the mothers, happy hopefully fantasy titles to all of our friends here at the Hoob. Hopefully most leagues have wrapped up by now, but maybe you’re in the dying stretches of a two-week finals. Either way, it’s been a crazy year and I’m glad to have been here with all of you right through it. There’s definitely a relief to this being the last week of the regular season so we can sit back and watch 19 more teams disappoint us over the next two months after their playoff run. Let’s get us some bodies to fill the last handful of contests.

Week 20 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 19): CLE, NOP
Mon/Tues: GSW, IND, MEM, MIL
Tues/Weds: BKN, BOS, DAL, LAL
Weds/Thurs: ATL, POR, SAS
Thurs/Fri: DEN, LAC, MEM, ORL, PHI, SAC, TOR
Fri/Sat: none
Sat/Sun: BKN, BOS, CHA, CHI, IND, LAL, MIA, MIL, MIN, NYK, PHX, SAS

Working The Wire

One more week, one more sift through to find some names in this forgotten week. All the wheels are off.

Point Guards

Frank Jackson: Jackson is playing 28.8 minutes per game over the past two weeks and is sitting just inside the top-100 in 9-category leagues. His line is very reminiscent of the Jamal Crawford and Lou Williams performances we’ve seen as a volume scoring option.

R.J. Hampton: Hampton hurts us with his efficiency of late, but we’re seeing good popcorn numbers as a top-120 player over the past week. The Magic have four games in the final week and there should be opportunities for him to maintain standard streaming value.

On the Radar
Cameron Payne: Payne has put together top-120 value over the past seven games in just 19.1 minutes per contest. Useful player in deep leagues, especially if the Suns pull back on their stars in preparation for the postseason.

Shooting Guards

Desmond Bane: The Grizzlies guard rotation strikes again. Grayson Allen is banged up now which has opened up at least some reliable playing time for Bane and De’Anthony Melton. Bane is getting enough time to knock down some triples and be at worst a 3-point specialist in deep leagues.

Austin Rivers: Rivers is on an exceptional run lately with top-75 production over the past four games and top-120 production over the past eight contests. He’s been a very strong 3-and-D option during that stretch.

On the Radar
Khyri Thomas: We might as well send it with Khyri Thomas, who has had an explosive start to his Rockets career. Five steals probably doesn’t keep happening.

Small Forwards

Naji Marshall: This Naji Marshall character who nobody knew about before these last couple of months is very quietly putting together streaming value in 23-25 minutes a night. He’s not turning the ball over and putting up decent enough popcorn numbers with a steal to be relevant in deeper formats.

Juan Toscano-Anderson: My love for JTA is well-documented. He’s cemented himself as a member of this organization, he’s very similar to the Royce O’Neale vein where he’s just plugging along solidly when he’s given the playing time. We’re getting easily top-100 production over the past few weeks and there’s no reason for that not to continue.

On the Radar
Torrey Craig: Craig has been starting for the Suns with Jae Crowder out with a sprained ankle. The output has actually not been good but in a very deep league, his presence is worth more than nothing.

Power Forwards  

Jalen McDaniels: Jalen McDaniels has had some success so far this season as a starter ahead of P.J. Washington. He’s rebounding well and contributing two or three defensive counters a night, good enough for late round streaming value, especially if he doesn’t take any free throws.

Jarred Vanderbilt: The Wolves might as well play some combination of Vandy and Jaden McDaniels down the stretch because they’re not good and they’re just rolling out to see what’s up for next season. Even in 21 minutes per game over the past six, Vandy is the 63^rd rated player because he’s a thief with good efficiency.

On the Radar
Dean Wade: Deano is right back on the radar with Kevin Love sitting. There’s not a ton of reason for Love to play, which means we could see more 30-minute nights for Wade. Deep-league plodder.

Center

Jaxson Hayes: The shot-blocking has finally panned out in a larger role, and that alone has catapulted Jaxson Hayes into the top-100 in 9-category formats. There’s no REAL reason that Steven Adams should be forced on the court, so hopefully we’ll see Hayes unleashed in the final week.

Moritz Wagner: Here’s a definite add in deep leagues for the last week. All Wagner really needs is 20-25 minutes, which is the minimum he’s gotten in this last 10-day stretch. He should be a top-150 player who can score and shoot. If he can knock down shots with just a bit more efficiency he can be a top-120 guy.

On the Radar
The entire dumb Wizards center rotation: Dan Gafford is good for blocks and efficiency consistently, Robin Lopez randomly scores a bunch of points and Alex Len just gets in the way. Gafford is the one I’d want.

The Stream Team

PG: Tyrese Maxey – A lot of players in this last forgotten week are contingent on their teams deciding the stars need some rest for the postseason. Maxey can score in bunches if he gets the time.

SG: Dwayne Bacon – Bacon is a good points-league streamer because he’s been scoring and efficiency is no issue. The Magic are obviously just rolling guys out to get through the last few games, so Bacon could cook for a couple more high-scoring nights.

SF: Georges Niang – 3-point specialist getting almost the exact same playing time every night. If you need a handful of threes late in your title run, this is an option.

PF: Onyeka Okongwu – This is more hopeful than anything because the minutes haven’t panned out. We’ve seen some good lines from Okongwu even when the minutes are limited

C:  Willie Cauley-Stein – With Maxi Kleber out right now, WCS is useful enough as a defensive, low-efficiency play given 20 minutes of run.

Miscellaneous Musings

I came up short in all of my leagues this season, but I saved that until the end of this piece so everyone still reads it through. I lost in the first round by a couple points of free throw percentage in one important league and lost 5-4 in the semifinals of another very important league. It’s been tough. We’ll get them next time.

I definitely run into fatigue at the end of the fantasy basketball season because I’ve parallelly also been playing fantasy hockey and fantasy baseball has started up. Fantasy sports has become basically a second full-time job for me over the last few years and I’m sure many other fanatics of the game have felt the same. Because of that I’m definitely thinking about taking some time away from fantasy sports to refocus on the other stuff that needs to get done in life, and I definitely encourage people to do the same if they need to because I’ve started to see more and more people burn out playing these games at high stakes and with a lot of intensity. This goes in hand with my stress on health last week down here in our musings, and I think that conversation should continue. Let me know how your leagues went, whether we won our Christmas money and what’s next. I’ll be around on the Twitter machine here. Best of luck to those finishing out their seasons and best of luck to your team if they made the actual NBA playoffs. Thanks for tuning into Working the Wire all season!