Chuma Okeke (PF, ORL): Week 15 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 46% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Chuma Okeke couldn't have a worse closure to the 2020 calendar year: an injury that left him out of basketball courts all the way up until Feb. 2. That probably hurt, but that also made Okeke come back a much stronger and better player than the version he showed through the first week of his freshman season.

Okeke has played 27 games since that comeback-game against Toronto back in early February, and he's raising the bar nightly, most of all of late. Since coming back from the AS break on March 11, Okeke has logged six starts in 12 games for a Magic squad that, in that same span, has seen all of Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier, and Aaron Gordon depart Florida. Makes sense to find Okeke getting rather large playing runs (average of 33 MPG in his last four starts) as the Magic are now surely into the first steps of a top-to-bottom rebuilding effort and need to know what they have and what they don't in tow.

For fantasy GMs, this is a golden opportunity to score themselves a quite nice asset ROS. Okeke is almost rostered in half of Yahoo leagues already, and that percentage will keep creeping upward during the next few days and weeks. Okeke has averaged a ridiculous 16-6-2-1 line in his last five games (four starts), has been above-average on a per-minute basis posting 1.03 FP/min, and his fantasy scores have not fallen from 28 FP since he became a starter, topping at 41 against Portland with a 22-6-4-2 stuffed line. Okeke is shooting incredibly well (60% from the floor on 10+ FGA), hitting 2.4 3PM a night in the last week, and comes with both rebound/diming upside. Must-have players for those in even not-so-deep leagues still widely available.

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