Alex Caruso (PG/SG, CHI): Week 3 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 45% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Shout-out to the Bald Mamba doing it out there in Chi-Town! Five games into the season, Caruso has already established himself as the backup point of the squad covering for Lonzo Ball's resting minutes daily, and the truth is that even though Caruso is logging rather low usage rates, he's shown enough to trust he cant put up better numbers going forward if he gets trusted a little bit more--which he should.

See, the per-minute production isn't anything beautiful to look at at this point. Caruso's averaging a measly 0.80 FP/min to date while logging around 29 MPG of playing time. Nothing remarkable, I know. But he's doing it on a couple of cats that might be very useful if you're needy on those fronts: low-but-steady triples, steals, and high-percentage shooting. Let me remark one thing there: steals.

Caruso is averaging a molly whopping 3 SPG, which is borderline insane. Even if that regresses a bit, Caruso has had four of five games committing 2+ thefts. In other words, this average is not coming from a single/fluky/outlier game in which he stole like 12 rocks or something like that. The shooting is good, yes, but it's also true that Caruso is averaging a rather paltry 6 FGA a pop, and his 83 FT% is up there perhaps only because of his 9 FTA total in five games. Anyway, Caruso should start getting more touches and stay on the floor for a good 30 MPG without much trouble for these Bulls. Not the worst of bench options to have rostered in deeper formats, though with limited upside for now.

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