This NBA stock report will be an article that comes your way weekly for the rest of the season, keeping you up to date with which players you can look to add/drop or trade/trade for from your season-long fantasy roster.
With a week-long All-Star break on the horizon, here are some players to look to target or move on from before the second-half of the season gets underway.
Stock Up
Lou Williams — Lou-Will started off slow in wake of the Tobias Harris trade, but he heated up in the final two games before the All-Star break. Harris was averaging over 20 points per game, leaving a huge scoring void for the Clippers. Williams is the perfect option to fill in the gaps. In his last two games, he’s scored 75 total points on 25-for-41 from the field and 20-for-20 from the line. Those numbers came in a mere 56 minutes, so more playing time could yield even larger numbers.
Mitchell Robinson — The Knicks have really shuffled their rotation around, but it’s clear they’re going to give these young pieces a strong look in their quest to land the top overall pick in the draft. Robinson’s been one of the players seeing an increased role, and he’s producing in these spots. His 14-point, 13-rebound, four-block, two-steal effort in 28 minutes against the 76ers on Wednesday shows just how uniquely he can stuff a stat sheet.
Jabari Parker — Parker had practically fallen out of the rotation in Chicago, but now has new life with the Wizards. Parker’s played over 20 minutes in each game, including two games with over 34 minutes. Overall, he’s averaging 12.3 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists in 28 minutes per game. That’s significantly more production that we’d been seeing in Chicago.
Otto Porter — On the flip side of that trade, Porter’s been a very helpful piece for the Bulls. Porter’s played at least 34 minutes in each game with Chicago, and went off for a monster game prior to the break — dropping 37 points and 10 boards on the Grizzlies. It’s a small sample, but so far Porter’s averaging almost 10 more points and six minutes per game more with his new team.
Stock Down
Anthony Davis — I mentioned AD here last week, but now we’ve actually seen him on the floor again. His first two games were pretty solid, but not even close to the numbers we’re used to. Davis’ ceiling is simply gone at this point, and his floor is lower than ever. He showed us that when he shot 1-for-9 in 24 minutes against the Magic, putting together one of his worst fantasy outings ever. Those three points and six rebounds have me terrified of where the rest of his season could go.
Jusuf Nurkic — Nurk is a beast, but he’s been playing somewhat limited minutes all season — 27.3 minutes isn’t all that much run for the third-best player on a very good team. While Nurkic shouldn’t see all that much of a dropoff, the signing of Enes Kanter won’t help out Nurk’s fantasyvalue. Kanter will likely steal most of his minutes from bench players, but might slightly cut into Nurkic’s playing time.
Mike Conley — The Grizzlies are clearly in tank-mode, and they have extra motivation — they don’t keep their draft pick unless it lands in the top-eight. Conley already sat out with an “illness” on Tuesday, and then played just 26 minutes when he returned on Wednesday — his fewest since a mid-January blowout loss.
Isaiah Thomas — It was a great story to see IT back on the court, but let’s not think we’re getting back a player that made the All-Star team and Eastern Conference Finals two seasons ago. Thomas played just 13 minutes in his return against the Kings, scoring eight points and dishing out two assists. Thomas is going to have to be spectacular to carve out a large enough role to roster in fantasy, though. At full strength, Denver’s top-four guards will be Jamal Murray, Gary Harris, Monte Morris and Malik Beasley, and that doesn’t include SG/SF Will Barton. It’s going to be tough for Thomas to fit in.
