Ish Smith (PG, NO) - NBA Waiver Wire Pickups

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ANALYSIS: Ish Smith exploded off the bench in the season opener for the injury-ravaged Pelicans, playing 38 minutes and scoring 17 points on a .538 FG% with a league-leading 9 assists.  He also tacked on 3 steals, 2 rebounds, and 1 three pointer.

This sounds like a must-add line, but don't overreact and drop anyone with a real track record.  Remember that Ish has a long history of being a terrible shooter, with a career .393 FG% and .580 FT%.  He also only got the minutes and numbers he did because he was the "hot hand" in a blow out loss with his only competition at point guard coming from Nate Robinson.

In deeper leagues where you're not dropping much, he can be a nice short term source of assists and steals.  You can hope he continues to be better in FG% and scoring than his career numbers on bad teams would indicate as a result of the attention Anthony Davis draws.  Even then, he's still a more attractive option if you're punting one of the percentages.

Don't count on Smith long term once vastly superior players like Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans get healthy for the Pelicans, but at the moment it looks like he's the only real PG on the New Orleans roster, and he'll get minutes.  If you're in the kind of league where just getting minutes is half the battle, he's worth targeting for some short term counting stats.