Ivica Zubac (C, LAC) - Week 8 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 31% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Ivica Zubac has seen 0.8 minutes (48 seconds) more per game this year, but is no longer part of the starting-five (understandable after the Clips inked Serge Ibaka). The 7'0 Bosnian has been about as effective at blocking shots this year as he always is, again netting 0.9 swats per contest (1.7 per 36 minutes) from his 4.3% block rate. Past that non-titillating figure, "Zu Alcindor" offers world-class rebounding and in-the-zone scoring despite a career-low usage rate of 14.8%. He led the NBA last season in ORB% (.159), and while he ranks tenth in that category for 2021 with .131, his DRB% of .239 pushes his TRB% to .186, tenth-best in the league. "Zupac's" usage indeed decreased with the Clippers roster stocked with all-purpose combo guards, satellite scorers, and four-position forwards, but in hitting a new plane of efficiency at his position, Ivica is making his teammates' job of creating/facilitating the offense extraordinarily more simple.

He has been a finely-tuned, well-oiled machine when looking to score close. At the line, he has improved his success rate from 74.7% last year to 85.2% on the same volume of shots. In individual offensive rating, Zu was the NBA's best for 2020 at 134, and he is shooting for back-to-back, currently holding the top spot on the leaderboard with a rating of 139. He has made substantial bounds on offense and is producing ridiculous, fish-in-a-barrel-type ratios for two-point field goal percentage (67.6%), effective field goal rate (67.0%), and true shooting percentage (72.4%); figures that respectively rank third, third, and second in the NBA. 1.7 blocks per 36 minutes may not do much good if wholly unrealistic, but that ratio comes to 1.0 BPG at 21.5 minutes a game, well-within Zu's reach and suddenly a considerable contribution in that category. Even if that scenario doesn't manifest, there's concrete value in Ivica Zubac as a nightly double-double threat who squeezes every bit of production out of his time on the court, with bonus points if your format generously rewards accuracy from the field and line (or if it harshly punishes the inverse).

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