Isaiah Stewart (PF/C, DET): Week 17 Waiver Wire Pickups

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 21% of leagues

ANALYSIS: While fellow Piston and rookie Saddiq Bey has been the most coveted and talked-about player among Detroit's freshmen, the truth is that Isaiah Stewart has been as close to Bey as it is humanly possible. And Stewart keeps getting better by the day. In fact, being available in almost 80% of Yahoo leagues with almost that same percentage of the season's games already in the books is still incredible and hard to comprehend by this very writer.

Stewart didn't have the greatest of starts to his career, that I must concede. It took the rookie until at least mid/late February to start getting things right and acclimate to the L, but once he did he's been fantastic playing for a tanking Pistons squad. From Dec. 28 (debut) to Feb. 23, Stewart had just three games (in 29 GP) of 25+ FP while playing fewer than 18 MPG on that span. From that day on, though, he's played 25 more games, averaged 23 FP, and fallen below 25 FP in just 14 of them. Even better, he's had three games of 30+ fantasy points already with two of those three coming this very month on Apr. 8 and yesterday's game against OKC.

Speaking of that Friday game... Stewart is coming off his best game as a pro, which took place yesterday in a match he started, in which he played just 32 minutes, but in which he also dropped a 15-21-3 dub-dub to go with 2 blocks and a 58 shooting percentage from the floor on a season-high 12 FGA. The 50 FP against the Thunder are his best fantasy mark, and he also dub-dubbed (16-13-4-1-1) against San Antonio a little over a week above to reach 42. Those kinds of performances are not going to keep coming daily, but Stewart is getting there and raising the bar nightly. Detroit will keep testing its rookies' waters to see what they have in town and give them reps ROS, so adding Isaiah Stewart to your deep-league squads is far from the worst thing you can do with a month of games still there.

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