Fantasy Basketball Deeper-League Waiver Wire Adds for Week 16: Garrison Mathews, Corey Joseph, Reggie Bullock, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, Austin Rivers

January 31, 2022

Antonio Losada's deeper-league waiver wire pickups and fantasy basketball sleepers for Week 16. His top free-agent options for 12-team fantasy leagues or deeper.

The deeper a fantasy basketball league, the harder it is to hit a winner with your last few picks. It is also harder to find decent help from the waiver wire if your late-round picks don't do you justice. If you picked up a few stinkers, don't lose hope just yet. I will try to help you pick up a winner.

Here are my deeper league fantasy basketball waiver wire pickups for your fantasy basketball teams. These NBA players should be available in most leagues and they might just help you out, whether it's a few weeks rental or a long-term fix to a problem your team is having.

If a guy on your team is frustrating you with his weak performances, give some of them a go. They might just be worth it.

Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Targets for Week 16

Garrison Mathews (SG/SF, HOU) - 9% rostered

The whole Garrison Fever was nice while it lasted, but it is no more. I mean, the fun is still part of Mathews' game and his season, but the days of starting games nightly have been over for a while barring a late-January start last Friday against Portland (with Kevin Porter Jr. out of commission), his first one since Jan. 3. That doesn't mean Mathews should be forgotten by those in deeper formats, though. Mathews keeps playing a healthy 25 MPG coming off the Rockets pine and although the opportunities are not so many, he's still finding his way toward productive numbers.

Now, let me tell you that Mathews was a little bit bad through the first half of January as he went back to the pine: from Jan. 5 to Jan. 14, he averaged a silly 6-3-1 per-game line shooting 20.5% from the field. Yikes. He's righted his wrong of late, though, and that's what helped him make this week's WW column: 15-2-1-1 shooting a much better 48% from the floor and hitting 1+ trey in five straight games with an average of 3.2 3PM a day. Mathews has also scored 26 of his last 29 freebies, is committing fewer than one turnover per game, and barring a nightmarish outing against the Spurs last Tuesday, Matthews has played above-average ball (0.95 FP/min) in the past two weeks of games.

Cory Joseph (PG, DET) - 8% rostered

We're slowly but surely approaching the trade deadline, and teams such as Detroit will undoubtedly explore potential deals of veterans in exchange for draft picks. Can Cory Joseph be considered an appealing vet for a contending team out there? I'm not sure. What I know is that Joseph has started five straight games through Friday for the Pistons, playing an average of 29 MPG and doing what he does best: hitting shots and treys. Joseph, who has averaged a low 23 MPG over 37 games this season, is definitely not shooting the biggest amount of shots per game with only 6+ FGA and 2+ 3PA. That said, though, it's not that you find 47/45/83 split-shooters out there very frequently.

In fact, you don't find them at all. Joseph is the only player with those splits in the NBA this season (min. 13 games played), and even lowering that threshold to a more reasonable 45/40/80, there are only 18 such players with 35+ games played. I'm not saying Joseph will end up winning you the league, of course, but the efficiency has been quite high while Cory has also provided some rebounds (2.5 RPG), nice dimes (4 APG), and some stealing upside (0.7 SPG). Not the craziest of fliers to take, if you ask me.

Reggie Bullock (SG/SF, DAL) - 7% rostered

Adding Bullock means risky business, yes, but when it comes to super-deep leagues in which options are scarce in the WW, well, you go with what you can. Bullock is coming off a bumpy stretch in which he never topped 14 DKFP in five consecutive games even though his minutes stayed on his season-long average of 20 MPG. Good for fantasy GMs looking for additions in the wild, Bullock has now played back-to-back 24 and 31.8 DKFP games through Saturday.

If Bullock plays to his ceiling, he will give you buckets. That's probably it, though, as it is not that he does much more for the Mavs. That doesn't mean he's a bad player if you know what you need and what you need is scoring. Two games hitting four and six treys are as tasty as it gets, and on the year, Bullock is hitting shots, keeping up 40/33/78 splits. Bullock attempts 4.5 3PA per game with a 75% 3PAr: only five players are at that rate this season while attempting 6+ FGA and hitting 33%+ of their three-point attempts.

Jeremiah Robinson-Earl (SF/PF/C, OKC) - 4% rostered

The rookie out of Villanova has the fifth-most total minutes played for the Thunder this season. The Thunder, of course, suck and are very fine with the likes of JRE, Josh Giddey, Darius Bazley, and Kenrich Williams (just to name a few) going through the growing pains and developing on a game-by-game basis. That won't change, much less with the possibility of another lottery/top-five pick on the horizon.

Robinson-Earl has been a staple on OKC's starting lineups all year long: 44 games played, 36 of them started; 23 MPG on the year, 25 MPG since flipping the calendar page. JRE has struggled a bit on the shooting front, shooting a mediocre 31.1% from the field in 2022, but he's at a slightly more reasonable 40% on the full season, attempting 6.5+ FGA a game. For a big man, JRE's 3.4 3PA per game and 33% accuracy from beyond the arc are quite interesting. There are tons of players putting up those last two numbers over the season, yes, but JRE is doing so while playing just 23 MPG on the full season and adding 5.8 RPG and 1.0 APG. In other words, only JRE, Kevin Love, and Otto Porter Jr. are putting up those numbers in 23 or fewer minutes of playing time this season.

Austin Rivers (PG/SG, DEN) - 2% rostered

Rivers has been in and out of the Nuggets' starting five all of this month. He opened it with three starts, then hit the pine for two games, started once, sat for two more, started two, back to the pine, and then started again on Friday night. Quite a headache of a thing to track. Anyway, and looking at the most recent week of play (from Jan. 23 to Jan. 29), Rivers couldn't have played better ball than he just did in the past four games he's been part of as I'm writing this. Rivers started three of those four, played 26+ minutes in all four matches, and averaged an ever healthier 31 MPG in those games.

The playing time we like, of course, but the production didn't fall behind in the slightest of ways: 14-1-1-2 as the per-game average in those games, hitting 1+ triples every day, and topping at seven (seven!) against the Nets last Wednesday. All four matches considered: 28 FGA total hitting a ridiculous 68% of them! Rivers is a pure heater, no more, no less. He's going to light the net, full stop. Yes, he's provided tons of steals of late, but other than that, he's just a viable streamer if you're hurting for points, percentages, and freebies/triples. The turnovers suck, the assists are low, and he's not precisely great at rebounding/swatting shots. Don't get Rivers for what he's not, but surely value him if he fits your particular scoring needs.

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