Last Updated on December 31, 2025 1:15 am by Mike Passador | Published: December 31, 2025

Tuesday’s slate wasn’t a ton to write home about, though we did get some throwback star performances from Joel Embiid and Ja Morant, plus ascendant star performances from VJ Edgecombe and Cedric Coward. The two late games were blowouts and Boston vs. Utah was a mismatch on paper, though we did get a monster game out of Derrick White with 27 points and a whopping seven blocks — tying the single-game record for a guard — and 37 points from Keyonte George.

Most of Tuesday was spent trying to sort through the wreckage of Monday, which saw a handful of major fantasy players leave their games.

Miles Bridges got off the lightest and is questionable to play on Wednesday with his sprained ankle. Desmond Bane is in a similar boat after watching his team collapse from the bench because of back spasms, though you generally expect back injuries to take a little longer than other ailments.

Coby White won’t play and you have to imagine he’ll miss a decent amount of time given that this is his second right calf injury of the year, but the Bulls haven’t said anything yet. Josh Giddey was not as lucky, and it’s being reported he’ll miss at least a few weeks with his left hamstring strain.

The biggest news of all came out of Denver, where Nikola Jokic was diagnosed with a left knee hyperextension. He will be evaluated in four weeks and while that means he’s probably going to be sidelined until mid-February in the absolute best-case, he avoided something catastrophic. Fantasy GMs will take that as good news and there’s still hopes for Jokic to come back and save the season in both fantasy and reality. No team can possibly be equipped to deal with a loss of that magnitude, but we’ll see ow Denver manages.

Top Pickups

This is the “general must-add” section regardless of the slate. If these players are being overlooked and remain chilling on the waiver wire, consider adding them to your squad.

Cedric Coward (31%)

It’s borderline criminal that Coward is only 31% rostered. He has been starting for most of the season and has been one of the most consistent Grizzlies from wire to wire. Coward is clearly part of the long-term future here and should get big minutes no matter what happens with the rest of the team. On Tuesday he set career-highs in both points and rebounds, finishing with 28 and 16, respectively, while shooting 10-of-16 from the field and 6-of-6 at the line. If there’s one thing holding us back from totally loving Coward’s fantasy prospects, it’s his lack of defense. He has just four steals and four blocks across his last 15 games. Relying on points-rebounds-assists also implicitly relies on shooting well, so there’s some downside risk here, but the setup is too strong for Coward to be this available in fantasy.

Tre Jones (19%)

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