Monday Mailbag: Fantasy Basketball Playoffs Advice!

0:00The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Dallow the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. Instacart makes grocery shopping easier, and just because you're not doing the shopping yourself doesn't mean you don't care how it's done. With Instacart shopper notes, you can get particular about what you want right in the app. Like, rotisserie chicken that's extra crispy. Stick with marbling the Romans would have loved, and let us you'd actually pick yourself. Just leave a note for your shopper so they can get it right for you without having to ask. You can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app and shop today. Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz.

1:00I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues, and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast or ever you get your podcasts. Welcome into the Monday edition of the Rotawire fantasy basketball podcast, Nick Whalen, Alex Baruta, back with you as we are each and every Monday. And we'll continue to be through the end of the NBA season. Just a reminder, we're brought to you as always by our partners over at sling and with sling when underdogs win, you win. If any 12 through 16 seed makes it to the sweet 16, your next tournament day pass is just

2:02one dollar during the most unpredictable tournament in college. Sling makes rooting for underdogs even more exciting to get this offer. Watch the tournament anytime using a one three or seven day pass, catch the court side chaos your way with sling passage from sling, let you watch the tournament, however you want, starting at just 599 per day, with any pass, you'll get a tournament channel bundle of ESPN, TBS, TNT and true TV sling is the most flexible way to watch the tournament. Why pay for days when you're not going to watch anyway, visit sling.com slash underdog to learn more, no purchase necessary, you can see the full rules and details over at sling.com slash underdog. Alex, how much of the NCAA tournament did you watch this weekend? I know you're not a big college troops guy, but were you able to catch any of it, mid a still busy day or busy weekend in the NBA? Yeah, it was on what Thursday that the badgers played and I thankfully showed up to my buddy's house literally a minute after they lost the game. Okay.

3:03Okay. Good. Watch some of the first Duke game was checking in on Iowa State earlier. I think that was yesterday that they were playing. Yep. Yeah, because I that they're one of my bets to win the whole thing at 22 to 1. So I was I'm a little more interested in them than the other team. Yeah, I got that in. Look at this. I think I always like, you know, throw a question like this at you like twice a year. My God, did you watch NFL playoffs last week? And I was like, no, no, I thought for sure this was going to be a no, I've been locked in on the NBA. But even even some futures advice from Alcourt, I love this Iowa State team as well. If they can get Joshua Jefferson back, we will see that's the big injury coming out of opening weekend. Nevertheless, we're going to talk NBA on this show. We'll take your questions from the chat as we do each and every week for everybody still hanging around, still feeding us questions, still watching every week. We appreciate it. I mean, we are in just just a real tough portion of the fantasy basketball schedule at this point. Alex injuries, picking up all over the place. I am hemorrhaging, hemorrhaging points in the road wire stake league where most of my team

4:06is just injured every night at this point. Dennis Jenkins is the late season waiver wire savior at least on paper. He went for $22, Alex in fab in the road wire league yesterday. I think he was one of only two players or maybe three who were picked up for any dollar amount. I mean, this is at the point where you're just kind of swapping in, you're looking at some category targets. Now that we've been through a couple of machinations of this specific league, Alex, the road wire staff league, last year, I think we cut it off like at the end of March. There's been other years where it's ended early. There's been other years where it's gone through game 82. What is your preferred length of season for fantasy basketball? I think it's got to end before like ideally mid March, like I think it's just gotten so ridiculous. I think now, yeah, I think ideally your league would end like after the first week of March or something, you know, because it's that's getting into it a little bit, but some teams are still, you know, it's not like Elijah Harcliffe and Cheney Johnson season, which I feel

5:10like maybe we should do a deep dive after the season in terms of like when does it actually begin? When does the madness actually begin? Yeah, we make sure to cut off before that. Yeah, I'm looking at the leaderboard right now as far as like, you know, who've been the top guys over the last couple of weeks, like Justin Edwards is a second round player in that spam Taylor Hendrix is the top 30 guy Maxime Rayno is holding on to third round value. Cam Johnson, who we've just, you know, dragged through the mud for the most part over the last few weeks on this show. All it takes this time of year is like just be healthy for a couple of weeks, mix in a couple splash games all of a sudden you're going to be startable, but yes, it's been a very frustrating last couple of weeks, at least for me. Anything major for you, whether it's in the road of wire league or, you know, your other high money leagues, any big ads, big drops? Well, in the stake league, first of all, I don't have, I didn't have $22 to try to spend on Dennis Jenkins. I mean, I think I have $8. I'm not going to try to pick up Gary Payton, but, you know, I think you and I are kind

6:11of in the same place where we have our certain categories that we, we need and other ones that we don't. And it's like, I don't even need Dennis Jenkins because I don't need assists. So, you know, he didn't really factor in for me, but yeah, I mean, I mean, at this point it's just, it really is like day to day, week to week, like who is, who has a good schedule for you, who is being affected positively by teammate injuries and stuff like that. And obviously that's the case throughout the NBA season, but even more so right now. You know, in that league, I'm in an interesting predicament where I need threes. I have officially now lost my seemingly insurmountable lead in threes with Mitchell missing so much time when dorm and power missing time with Steph Curry not playing for the last two months. So I need threes and I also need to not hurt my field goal percentage. That may be impossible because my, my two, three points specialist who I have are Duncan Robinson and Tim Hardaway Jr. Neither of whom are, are noted field goal percentage guys as we saw from Hardaway in their last game.

7:11I might just have to pick one of the other at this point, but it's so dicey in these, these one week or even one game settings. You know, we have people asking us like, who do I stream tonight? Tim Hardaway might be the best, you know, test case for this where you might go nine of 14 from three or seven of 13 one night and then like one of nine the next. Like that is a threes are at the same time like a projectible category. But if you're just looking at one or two game samples, so much variance. So same with skills and blocks and it can be really matchup dependent like a guy can be going up against, I don't know, the Orlando magic who basically allow very few three pointers or they could be facing the Milwaukee box who bleed three pointers and that can matter a lot. All right, let's head over to the chat. We'll probably keep this episode a little bit shorter just because obviously a lot of our listening audience, their leagues have mercifully wrapped up already. Do you have a super chat here that for some reason, okay, here we go from at SIRRR. Appreciate the super chat is Javon Carter.

8:12Does he make sense for today and tomorrow? I'm still holding Steph Curry in the IR, wish me luck. I too, I'm still holding Steph Curry in the IR. I don't think I could put him in my lineup this week, Alex. You know, the warrior's playing tonight. It's going to lock in a daily lineup league though. I think you wait this out. I mean, until the warrior say we are not playing him unless you absolutely need that IR spot. I don't think it's crazy to just keep hanging on to Steph. No, yeah, if you're not using the IR for anything else, then yeah, hang on to Steph. In terms of Javon Carter, I mean, yeah, I'm throwing it out of a back-to-back tonight. He's basically just a steals and threes guy, so he'll give you some assists now and then. But Jalen Suggs is out, Anthony Black remains out. So I'd like him as like a two-day stream here, but it's just not an easy guy to trust. And, you know, he's coming off of an explosive 13 points on 13 shots game against the Lakers. Did take 11 threes in 21 minutes, which he's had a couple other like higher-ish volume games before that, you know, seven threes in 19 minutes, seven threes in 19 minutes, and back-to-back

9:13games. So that's somewhat projectible, but I don't know that you could just completely bank on that. Good match up against Indy tonight, less good match up against Cleveland on Tuesday. So defensible, I think, in a deeper league. All right. I'm in the finals of the playoffs in a 12 team had to head 9 cat league. Potential drops are Dennis Jenkins, Philipowski, Josh Maynard, Anthony Melton, and Malik Monk. And we have Vuksevich, Grayson Allen, and KPJ on I.L. Potential waiver pickups are Tobias Harris. I believe that is Peyton Watson, Elijah Harcless, Kennedy Chandler, who is suddenly just back in the mix. Toby White, Herb Jones, and Leonard Miller, percentages are important here. So I think the question is, who would you potentially drop and or pick up here? You might want to drop my, I mean, my not got a DMP last night against the Kings. Now I don't know if that was just because of tanking because they're going against the Kings, but that was a pretty surprising, surprising, I know where DMP, nothing on the injury

10:17report, took us all by surprise. So he might be the guy you drop just because like, who knows when that's going to happen again. In theory, like it won't happen against Portland, Golden State, LA, which is their first three matchups this week, but then they play the Kings again on Sunday. If your percentages are important, I mean, Kobe White is the guy who sticks out. I mean, his fuel goal percentage isn't going to be great, but he's a great free throw percentage guy. Tobias Harris is always relatively efficient. It's just going to be like really hard to trust. Like Elijah Harcliffe to be like a good fuel goal percentage guy and Herb Jones is going to be fine for some other things, but he's such a low volume player that it may not affect your field goal percentage. Some tough calls. Elijah Harcliffe is shooting 35% from the field over his last 15 games. Actually, that's basically what Herb Jones is shooting too. Yeah, right. And yeah, Harcliffe is doing it on volume though. Yeah, if you just pull his last seven games, which is when he's been like really in the rotation, he started a few games, he has a 40 minute game in there, he's taken 10 shots

11:21per game. He's taken six threes per game. He's been woefully inefficient for both two and three. So maybe you catch lightning in a bottle like the last two games, you shot basically 50% from the field, but I don't think there's enough of a sample right now to just chalk that up and say, oh, you know, that that fuel goal percentage is fluke, it'll get better. So if you are worried about the percentages, I think you do have to probably cross him off. And what you mentioned with mine out, I think is actually kind of pressure in here because we're getting to the point now where, you know, most people are talking about clinching playoff spots and things of that nature. Some of these teams can clinch bottom four spots within the next week, you know, and Brooklyn is, is not one of those teams because Indiana and Washington are below them. They're only, I think like one and a half games better, worse than the Sacramento Kings. You know, Utah is certainly in that mix as well. So I, it's crazy to think that, you know, Josh Maynott is the type of player who would be held out for taking purposes. I think that's exactly what we saw. I think so too. Yeah.

12:21I mean, Brooklyn is only two games back of the bottom seed as you alluded to. Brooklyn has only lost seven in a row. Indie and Washington have both, they have dueling 16 game losing streaks right now. Yeah. Yeah. So good luck, Brooklyn. That's. I'm in the championship. And my opponent has a handful of guys who don't play back to backs or miss the game every week, like Garland, and he's able to get more games without using transactions. Is this shady or lucky? So I hope I'm understanding this correctly, but basically he has guys in the starting lineup who are liabilities and says without using transactions, he's able to get more games. I don't know, man, just when you're when you're league, start, start as lucky guys as possible. Go when you're league. I don't know how you could swap without using transactions. So that's maybe this is something to address with the commissioner. Maybe I'm not understanding the question. Yeah. I don't know.

13:22If you want to give us a little more context on that one, we'll come back to it later in the show. All right. I'm in the finals. Nine cat 16 team at Yahoo League. Thank you guys for all your help. Thank you for listening this year. Picked up. Hello, Larsen Elijah Harcliffe and I believe that's Derek Jones kept a sumo and now's read. Also picked up Paul George. He's on my I L. What do we think? I believe eligible to return on Wednesday. He is. Yeah. He cracked Yahoo's top 10 added players today. I think people are moving, moving towards looking at Adam, especially if your league goes through game, maybe two. He's someone who probably should be on a roster, but yeah, the rest of those moves are good. I, you know, DeSoon Moo and Nas read the, the Timberwolves are on a two game week. So for some people, and they play the one, the Wednesday game that they play is 12 games that day. High volume. It's going to be hard to start those guys. So there's some fantasy managers, probably not you because you're in a deeply, but if you're in a shallow league, you, as Gugas DeSoon Moo is playing, if this is your finals

14:24week, you actually may, it might be better to drop it for somebody with more games. Do we have any expectations for Paul George coming back and playing presumably like the last nine or 10 games of the year? I mean, look, he's in a good position with like, he kind of is, he kind of is with, yeah, Tyruz Maxi out and Ubrae is still out, right? Yeah. Yeah, Ubrae is going to be off for a while. Yeah, man, I think he should be picked up. I mean, like worst case scenario is the season averages, I think, which are 16, 5 and 4 with a steal and a half, which is like pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, no sign of Mbied having, he hasn't played in weeks. You never know. He's still built to be back at some point, I'm sure, but I, yeah, I mean, there's, there's a very real scenario in which at least half of these games that he's back for, he's the number one option. You know, we'll see what the timetable ends up being on Tyruz Maxi, but like you said, even if you get like last 20 games for PG before the suspension, 16, 5 and 4, 1.4

15:25steals, field goal percentage wasn't great, but that was partially because he was struggling out the rim, like 39% from three on almost seven attempts per game. So if you kind of lock in two to two and a half threes per game on the low end, and this is, you know, he played all those games with Maxi, a good chunk of them with Mbied, I, I can't believe we're saying this, but Paul George swooping in off of a 25 game PD suspension could save your fantasy season. He was eight cat value, he's 63rd per game, and that's probably someone that should be rostered. That's not bad. I believe by quite a bit. Uh, yeah, by like three rounds. Yeah. Big thanks to our sponsor, Better Help for partnering with us for this important conversation about mental health. This Steve Smith here, former NFL Y receiver and host of the 89 show on YouTube. So having a counselor and working with Better Help, that gives you an opportunity to really start to unpack, but people don't understand when you unpack things. You also open up a box that you're not always sure what's inside.

16:26So I think that's why I was seeing a professional is extremely important. If you need someone to open up to visit Better Help, that's better H-E-L-P dot com slash 89 to get started. Fantasy basketball playoffs can get unpredictable, just like when you're trying to decide if Javon Carter is worth streaming for those last minute steals. But when it comes to dinner, things don't have to be a gamble. Marley Spoon gives you over 100 recipes every week, so there's always something that fits your mood, whether you want to cook from scratch or just heat up something quick. Life gets busy, and meal planning can fall apart. But Marley Spoon adapts to your schedule. From breakfast to dinner and every snack in between, you get chef-designed meals with fresh quality ingredients. No more overthinking what's for dinner. Go to MarleySpoon.com slash offer slash pod 45 for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's MarleySpoon.com slash offer slash pod 45.

17:35The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. All right, should I drop Isaiah Collier for Tristan De Silva, Devin Carter, or Davey on Mitchell? I have no idea if Collier will be back. Yeah, so Collier has a hamstring injury and is about to miss his third straight game today. The hamstring injuries are very often multi-week injuries that have not ruled him out beyond today, but I won't necessarily trust him to come back anytime soon. So generally speaking, yeah, I mean, I'm fine dropping him for someone like De Silva,

18:37the Magic at Four Games, Devin Carter is fine. Davey on Mitchell, I mean, you know what you're getting with a lot of these guys, but yeah, I won't trust Collier to be available. It's tough to drop him because he's played so well, but we have to keep in mind it is a jazz, and you know, they're not operating like, I don't know, even the Sixers who, you know, have, they're trying to get out of the play and whatever, like you tell us like if there are any reason to not play a guy on a given night. So, you know, not suggesting that there are teams out there that would like force him to play through a hamstring injury, but Utah is probably 30th out of 30 on the teams that would even like, broach that conversation. So that has to be factored in as far as who to pick up. I think I would go Davey on Mitchell here, especially because like if you're looking to replace that production, I think Davey on Mitchell is pretty easily the closest thing you're going to find in terms of giving you the assist, not a big time score, you know, hit some threes. Now, you know, he's been playing pretty well of late. It is worth noting a lot of those games came without Powell or Hero or without Andrew

19:38Wiggins, you know, Hakez missed a little time like the heat are getting healthier. So, you know, maybe there's like a little bit of that upside is locked off, but I still want the guy who's going to play big minutes for a fast-paced team that is looking to win games. Yes. I think the only downside with the Davey on Mitchell, before picking up Davey on Mitchell, I would make sure you actually be able to start him because the heat play on a lot of very high volume days next week. So like Kings and Orlando technically have a better schedule, but I agree with you on Davey on being the most trustworthy. So we have some big news out of OKC, Jalen Williams, expected to make his return tonight. I believe that'll be his first action since February 11th. So coming off another long absence, it is worth noting that he was not playing that well before, especially struggling from three basically to stop taking threes wasn't making him. But the question here is, should I activate him right away this week? And if so, that would mean dropping one of Ace Bailey, Moose the Diavate or Taylor Hendrix.

20:39That's tough call. I wonder if I don't know if it would be worth it to just keep him in I.L. They don't have a back-to-back except Sunday Monday. So there's a chance he doesn't play Sunday. And that's of course, Jay Will, I mean, and that's of course assuming he plays every other game. None of these guys are obvious drops. You said that team had to head points, Bailey Diavate and Hendrix. None of those guys are obvious drops. I will say Charlotte basically has the best schedule this week. If you're doing a day-to-day thing, like low-volume days, four games, all that stuff. So Diavate is a hard drop for me. I think I would probably drop Hendrix, but if I had to. Is there a case to just leave Jay Will in the I.L. this week and kind of see how it goes? I think so. I'm fine. I mean, I'm fine with that. It would be hard for me to say like he's definitely going to provide more fantasy value this week than any of those other guys.

21:41So the last time he missed, I think it was like 10 games in a row. Yeah, he missed 10 in a row from January 19 through February 7. He came back and in only two games before getting hurt again and then missing a lot more time, played 24 and 20 minutes. He had probably his two best games of the season. In those, like it was against the Lakers and the Suns, 23 points in 24 minutes, 28 points in 20 minutes on a combined 17 of 29 from the field. It's entirely possible given the player that we're talking about that, yes, he could repeat that. I wouldn't necessarily count on it. I would look more at the minutes played than the production in those two games and considering that he has not played just before the All Star Break. He's missed 16 games in a row. I think at least the first two games of this week, he's not seeing close to a full workload. Yes, that's very likely. They also play Boston on Wednesday, very tough matchup on the road 12 games that day. Yeah, I might just leave him in IL. I think so.

22:41I mean, Hendrix would be the guy I would probably circle, but yeah, I don't know. I certainly don't, you know, don't drop J Will, but I don't think there's anything wrong with just feeling this out and throwing him back in there next week. Should I grab Heart and Stein, Assar, or Kobe White for this four game week? Give him in my finals and I need a boost in games played. And I mean, good, I mean, Heart and Stein is the best player here, but he just won't, he just doesn't play like more than two or three games in a row anymore. Yeah. So that's a very tough call and OK, C's schedule like I lose to is not that great. I'm totally fine at Kobe White again, Charlotte, from a day to day streaming standpoint, if you're going to add someone like today and play them the rest of the week, Charlotte is your best one of your best teams to do so, like you're going to be able to play him every day that that the Hornets play presumably and he's been good lately, like I know he misses some time, but he's played five games on a row, averaging 18, four and four party sustainable

23:42stuff, I think overall. Yeah, I would say this depends on your matchup in some ways. If you're going up against a really good team and you're kind of up against it, you might have to take some risks. I think I might chance it on Hardenstein because they do have a back-to-back, but it's Sunday Monday and it's home against the Knicks, home against the pistons. If we're assuming he sits one of those games, I have no idea which one it would be, you know, it could, if it's, if it's Monday, great, you get four games in theory. If it's Sunday, then you're kind of getting screwed, but, you know, it's not one of those back-to-backs where, you know, it's like you're playing the Pacers and you're playing the Rockets where it's like, OK, yeah, well, obviously I've you sit the Pacers game. But yeah, if you need to shoot for the upside, I would still think about Hardenstein, but what you said is correct, he hasn't played back-to-backs in forever, he's been constantly banged up. I think it's been like a couple of months since he's played even four games in a row. Should I drop Daniel Gaffer to activate Jalen Williams? Yeah, Ferd's pretty, he's just been good lately, but again, he's another one of these

24:44guys like Hardenstein who you can pick him up, but is he going to play more than three or four games in a row, probably not? That's tough. What do you think? Gaffer is like the perfect player for this discussion, right? I don't think we need to go through the merits or the merits of not activating Jalen Williams again. I mean, Gaffer has had three of his best scoring games of the entire year. There's three highest in the last week and a half. You know, Dallas, I will say, I was doing some research on them this morning like they are. They're tanking pretty ethically of late. They're playing everybody. Pigeon is playing big minutes. You played like 40 plus the other night. You know, they're not, you know, they're pulling some shenanigans, but nowhere near what we're seeing with like Brooklyn, Indiana, Washington, Utah. So like, I'm inclined to like somewhat trust the maps, but at the same time, they have as much on the line as anybody over these last couple of weeks because conceivably they could get into the bottom four. They're trying to hold off Memphis, New Orleans from, you know, losing draft positioning.

25:48Man, I, I think I would do it. I think I would activate J will in the spot. It's like you've been holding them for two months. You spend a fourth, I don't know, fourth round pick on them and you probably want to get them out there, maybe even a higher pick. So I think in this scenario, I would, I would bite the bullet. All right. Is it too crazy to think about dropping heart in for somebody playing Saturday Sunday if I'm at risk of not making the finals? Um, probably because I would assume that if you drop heart and then the guy you're playing against or something, like someone else is going to pick them up and that guy might be in the finals. And then you're basically guaranteed to lose the finals if that guy picks up heart and because someone will pick up heart and who's still available on your league. I just couldn't, I couldn't do that. I guess are we operating under the assumption that you could make this decision after the Cavs game on Friday, or do you have to do it now? I'm assuming it's after the Cavs game on Friday. I, I mean, to me, it just depends what situation you're in.

26:49Like if you, if you're dead to rights and there's zero chance or even like a six percent chance that you're going to win this match up, unless you drop heart in and sub somebody else in there on a whim and you just hope they pop off. I think you have to do it. Even if even if that sets you back for a potential finals matchup, if the alternative is just not making the finals, I guess. And that's an area I'd be fine with it. Yeah, your league mates are going to be mad at you. Yeah, I mean, hopefully it doesn't come to this. Yeah. But yeah, if it's after Friday and you need that production, I have, you got to do it. Okay, finals week and ahead to head points league. Who do I drop to activate Jalen Johnson? If he's indeed active, potential options would be Gees Santos, Anthony Melton, Taylor Hendrix, Stannis Jenkins, a Spaley Julius Randall, a lot of cool Abali. Is that am I missing a different Randall here? The Chassan Randall who used to, who used to play? He's an actor. So it's got to be Julius Randall, a lot of cool Abali, Nick Clifford, Herb Jones or Mitchell

27:50Robinson. Uh, probably Herb Jones or Mitchell Robinson. I think the next. A long list. How do you have all these players on your roster? It's crazy. Yeah, um, all the palette, you know what? It's the Pelicans. I have the better schedule. Okay. I think I, I think I would drop Mitchell Robinson because as much as Herb Jones can be overrated, like they, the Pelicans have a good schedule this week. You'll be able to actually put them in your lineup and you will rise them. Okay. Okay. Another playoffs question. I'm in the semi-finals in an ESPN league, nine cat, 14 teams held on to Khalilware the entire season. But do you think I should drop him already now for streaming purposes? Yeah, he's coming off of five point, he played five minutes against the Houston Rockets. I don't know, man, I, I don't know if we're back in a bad way.

28:52Yeah, bad matchup, spulster, just pulled him. I mean, I didn't see what happened in that game. Seems like there's a pretty good chance he came into that game, gave up like two offensive rebounds. And spulster said, you're done. They played the Rockets like three weeks ago. He had 13 points, 15 rebounds in the heat one by 10. Yeah. And they play four games this week. Yeah. I have a really hard time dropping him because he had just been playing so well, but like I would think about it if like, if, you know, if Diabate is available or something like that, like if you just see someone under WaverWire, who is very clearly going to be, like, relatively, like on their averages, probably about as good as Kalalware is going to be, you know, at his recent best, then yeah, I probably just drop him. I mean, I, I forget what we even called the award, you know, when we talked about this last week, the, like the guy who either wins you or loses you a week, it was, it was

29:54Derek Wiener, Kalalware for me, those are the two. And I think, I think where his whips saw us even more, like New Orleans, there is just a general, it's the Pelicans and, you know, think that weird things are going to happen because it's the Pelicans, like with the heat, we should not be going through this with a competitive heat team that has played well. And you have seeing what, what Wair has been able to do for two, three weeks stretches at a time. Like I thought we were back. I thought we were back midway through last week when he's back at the starting lineup, he's playing big minutes. I mean, part of it maybe is like they are getting healthier overall, like, you know, it's, it's kind of him and bam up front, but when they have everybody, they can justify going a little bit smaller. Um, I don't know, I don't know. There's, there's, I think we've learned now 70 games in that it's just impossible to project Kalalware week to week. Yeah. Speaking of the heat is Andrew Wiggins worth rostering, uh, going to make his return tonight, or is he more of a stream? Wiggins, I mean, he, he's been pretty good. Um, I know because I'm rostering him in our 15 teamer and he's like, I start him when

30:57he's available. Yeah, past 14 games, 16, five and three with one steel and 1.3 blocks, 49% 2.43s. You know, at this time of the year, like almost anybody, there are fewer, like, quote, unquote, roster players and there are other points of the year, but I would just try to probably get him on your roster. Yeah. Is he the new Tobias Harris, like where Tobias Harris was four or five years ago? Probably. I think so. Just just a rock solid starter. You know, you're going to have some bad weeks, but like you said, I think even in a league like ours, the one you're referencing, that's very competitive. Like you're happy to start Andrew Wiggins most weeks. Uh, is Alex are a drop? Unfortunately, I am totally fine with that. Yeah. Yeah, it's just he's going to, he's not going to play more than 22 minutes. Yeah. He's going to sit out games. I, he has some upside when he plays, obviously, because that more upside than anybody you could stream. No. So I would do it. Yeah. It's also a three game week for Utah or for Washington at Utah, Accolon State, then a

31:58back-to-back Sunday, Monday, then they play Wednesday, another back-to-back Saturday, Sunday, then Tuesday, the seventh, and another back-to-back for games, ADN81. So yeah, I mean, you might get what, five games out of him the rest of the way at a reduced workload. Not ideal. The other alternative, by the way, um, this was referencing back to, uh, I think the Harden question. Oh, yeah. The other alternative would be dropping to Monty Kamara and picking up who somebody who plays Saturday, Sunday. Uh, I mean, I'm, I'm fine. I mean, Kamara plays on Sunday against the Wizards. It's pretty good matchup, but, um, I don't know if Kamara is a must-roster player. I don't think he is. So I'm, I'm fine with that alternative as well. All right. We'll, uh, hang around here if we have any more last second questions. Figure this would be a little bit of a shorter episode given where we are, uh, in the NBA calendar.

32:59Anything else you want to get off your chest out, cause any big injury stuff that we, that we haven't hit, I'm, I'm patiently awaiting the return of Steffi Curry, which I, I still think there's like a 30% chance. Maybe that we see him the rest of the way, but, um, could happen later this week. Um, otherwise, you know, we're just dealing with a lot of the usuals, you know, back to, back to Kauai being day to day. I mean, I think that's pretty much it. I, yeah, we're at a point in the season where, I mean, we mentioned it with a couple of the questions, almost nobody is a must-roster. Like I call guys must-roster on Twitter when I do the write-ups and stuff like that. It just all really depends. Like there are, so everybody's in a different league type. Yeah. Um, make sure, you know, again, as always, like I preach like, if you're thinking about picking somebody up for like a weekly stream or dropping somebody or doing anything with your roster, make sure you can actually do the thing you want to do on the days that you want to do them. Because if you're picking somebody up for a stream on Wednesday and Friday, there are 12 games on Wednesday and 10 on Friday.

34:02Are you actually going to be able to start that guy or not? So like before you do anything, make sure you sort of game out, you know, go ahead and, in the app, you can go ahead and be like Wednesday, you're my starters. Then, and just do that sort of a thing. All right. We had a few more questions come in under the gun here. Um, what do you think about a star Thompson? Is he a drop maybe? Yeah, not a, not a must-roster guy. I mean, he had seven steals against the warriors. You don't want those on your roster? I'm totally fine dropping a star. I mean, again, he'll get you those steals and blocks if you need them, but otherwise. Yeah. This is maybe the best question we've had all year, Javon Carter or Kennedy Chandler. Oh my God. Um, good to see Chandler back in the week, by the way. Loved him in college. Hey, you know, I wasn't pondering this going into the day. I can tell you that much. I mean, Collier's going to be out. I will assume I don't know.

35:04Sugs hasn't been ruled out like long term. So he could come back. I would, I would probably just go with Javon Carter, but I don't feel good about it. Don't feel good about that's fine. That's fine. Uh, I don't think anybody in the world would feel good about making that decision. Do you think KPJ will play again this week, Alex? And look into the crystal wall. We're gonna bank on it now. And even if he does, is he going to play more than once, you know, or is he going to play and then sit out? So, you know, if I had to make that decision to start him this week, I would probably prefer to keep him on my bench. Or if you're thinking about dropping him to win your week, you may have to. Yeah, they're still in the middle of a road trip, which I never love as far as like players coming back. I feel like it's always more likely to happen at, at home when you have your, your actual training facilities, as opposed to like in the middle of a Western conference swing, they don't return home until Saturday.

36:05I think it's entirely possible he could play later this week. If you're in a weekly lineup league, I wouldn't take that risk by any means. The books have also publicly told everybody that they don't want you honest to come back. And I don't, you know, you got to play somebody, but I don't think there's a ton of urgency right now on, on the rest of that roster, like getting him back on the floor. PJ Washington or Najee Marshall tonight, if we're just looking for a stream. That's a bog is close to a coin flip as you can get. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, more scoring upside with Najee Marshall, I, PJ Washington's played wildly. He's played big minutes. I think it's a pretty good matchup for him specifically against the Warriors who are a very bad rebounding team. Yeah, maybe they Dallas goes small ball and PJ Washington gets the, the small ball five minutes. Maybe that might be enough. That might be enough to go with Washington. Yeah. Also Bobby Portis an option here. Not with Portis. It's just it's feast or famine. You know, he's either going like five of eight from three with 11 rebounds or you're getting eight points and four rebounds.

37:10Yeah. Um. Yeah. I'm just fine with going like Washington or Marshall. Yeah. Yeah. But a couple more here is Dylan Cardwell, a good streamer for the weekend. If releasing to money, Kamara. Sure. Yeah. I mean, Cardwell, we know who he is at this point. He's just a rebounding guy who will get you some blocks and some steels. Might chip in some assist once in a while. I like him. Yeah. I mean, as Saturday, Sunday stream for sure. Kind of a throwback player. I feel like he's like straight out of 2008. You know, more of like a traditional traditional big man. You know, he's not he's not looking to step out. He's not looking to take jumpers. He is just looking to board, you know, make a couple passes. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, end on this one. Thoughts on Paul Reed, 12 team category and points leagues. So obviously, we're seeing a little bit more of him with Isaiah Stewart banged up. Yeah. When is Stewart supposed to come back? They said he's out at least a week, but that was a week ago.

38:10So. I'm still with a calf strain. He's not going to play tonight. Obviously. And then they have a back to back Wednesday, Thursday. He is back for one of those games. I would assume you're getting two full games of Paul Reed as the backup center, if not three or four. Yeah. And Thursday and Saturday are low volume days. Yeah. Go ahead and stream them. I mean, we know if he can if he can get 20 minutes. He's going to pick up numbers that will that will be good enough fantasy value. Pretty good schedule to where you get the Lakers tonight. I know they're playing really well, but that's, you know, you're going up against Aidan dominating. You get fast paced hawks on Wednesday. You get New Orleans on Thursday. I get two teams playing better, but not like fear some defenses by any means. And then Minnesota Saturday, not a great matchup, but three of those four games. I think are neutral to to plus matchups. So totally fine with that. All right. We'll cut it off there. Appreciate the questions. As always, keep grinding. If you're in your semi finals or your finals, if you're going to game 82. You'll ride with us way too many of our leagues going all the way to game 82. But at a few more weeks of doing this show with you every Monday,

39:12we're going forward to getting back at it. Next Monday, recapping what will certainly be a big week in fantasy hoops. And make sure you check out sling. As we mentioned at the start of the pod, you can see all the info in the episode description below. We will talk to you guys next Monday. The bleacher report app is your destination for sports right now. The NBA is heating up. March madness is here and MLB is almost back. Every day, there's a new headline. A new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the bleacher report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment.