Max Strus (SF, MIA) - Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 14

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 6% of leagues

ANALYSIS: With the Miami Heat struggling all season long in terms of finding results and, perhaps more worryingly, finding a proper rotation given the multiple injuries issues of their players, the types like Max Strus keep putting on bulky reps and logging starts after starts.

Strus is coming off three consecutive starts, in fact, including a pair of games against the Bucks last Thursday and Saturday in which he played 41 and 42 minutes. In the game held immediately before those two, Strus also started (against OKC) and logged a massive 43 minutes, bringing his total tally to a ridiculous 126 MP in the last three games.

This month alone, in seven games played, Strus has started four matchups and averaged 34 MPG in the past two weeks of play spanning back to January 2. Obviously, under such a heavy dose of playing time, Strus' per-minute efficiency is very ugly at 0.83 FP/min, which is below the average line league-wide (0.90).

Strus, though, is benefitting from the large diet of minutes by putting up numbers on pure brute force. In the last nine games he's played (all but one with at least 26 MP), Strus has averaged a per-game 14-5-3-1 stat line. He's hit at least one 3-point shot in 17 consecutive games getting all the way back to December 12 and he's actually connecting on 2.5+ 3PM per game.

Not missing a free-throw shot since he went 1-of-2 on December 20, Strus has hit 15 freebies from then on while also shooting at a 42% clip from the field after Christmas. Strus is a steady 3+ RPG, 3+ APG guy if given his minutes, and he also has some steals upside. The problem, of course, is the volatility and the fact that you never know what the hell is going on in Miami with the rotation and the injuries popping up (or not) nightly.

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