Derrick Rose (PG/SG, NYK): Week 4 Waiver Wire Pickups

Derrick Rose is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 4 of the NBA season.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 10+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 45% of leagues

ANALYSIS: I'm writing this post just hours after watching Derrick Rose put together his best game of the 2021 season: 23 points, 8 rebounds, 4 dimes, 2 steals, and a marvelous 55.6% shooting on a season-high 18 FGA while going 1-for-1 at the charity stripe and committing zero turnovers in his 31 minutes of play (also a season-high) against Milwaukee last Friday. It's good to have MVP Rose back, folks.

That game I am talking about is probably more of an outlier than any sort of realistic baseline-to-expect going forward when it comes to Rose's upside. Nobody would doubt that. He already had another 29-minute outing earlier against Orlando in which he thrived (23-5-3-2 with similar shooting volume and percentages, and he even hit 5 treys that day), but other than that Rose has only played more than 20 minutes in two other matches while having five of 20 or fewer minutes so far.

No matter what, though, Rose is a lock to keep featuring for the Knicks under his beloved HC Thibs--the love is mutual, in fact. Rose will give you buckets in bunches as he's pretty much a 10+ PPG scorer off the pine, grabs boards at a reasonably high clip for a guard, and has been quite solid on the assists/steals fronts this season. He's had a bit of a shaky start to the year in shooting terms (44.5% overall, though he's hit shots on a wide 25%-to-57% clip) but he's getting a healthy and steady diet of 10+ FGA a day. More than a viable play even for GMs in not-so-deep leagues.

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