Carmelo Anthony (SF/PF, POR): Week 19 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 48% of leagues

ANALYSIS: I am thankful to the Basketball Gods for giving me some bonus Melo-time when it all pointed toward an early retirement a few years ago. Yes, I'm Melo's no. 1 stan, he's my favorite player ever, so I could easily watch him play forever and then some. Anyway. Melo had a rough stretch coming off the AS break, with an average of just 20 PF from Mar. 11 to Apr. 11 in 18 games. From that day on, though, Melo has leveled up a bit and is now sitting at 25 FPG. Nothing mindblowing, but incredibly efficient.

See, Melo is not going to win you the league these days. Like, that's just a no-no. But there aren't many players as efficient as Anthony has been in the last two weeks of play coming off the pine for a Blazers squad still fighting to avoid the play-in and snatch that no. 6 seed from the Mavs, which is still perfectly possible. Anthony has played an average of 23 MPG from Apr. 18 (included) on, but those ticks have gone a bit down of late with just below 20 MPG in the last week (four games). The thing about Melo, though, is his ridiculous 1.17 FP/min mark in those four.

The minutes are low, sure, but somehow Melo is finding his way to scoring the most points per game all season long. He's averaging 16+ PPG in the past 10 games going back to Apr. 13 and he's not finished a single game with fewer than 12 pops. His shooting is fantastic, hitting his shots from the floor at a 51% clip on a rather healthy 12 FGA. Not only that, but Anthony is also averaging 2.8 3PG in that 10-game span, pulling down 3+ RPG, and comes with some upside on the assists/steals cats while keeping turnovers down to 0.7 per game for a nice 2:1 assists-to-turnovers ratio. If you are needy at the forward spots, Anthony must be your best option to get for free ROS. You don't usually find such an efficient player out there in the wild.

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