Naz Reid (C, MIN): Week 18 Waiver Wire Pickups

Timberwolves center Naz Reid is a worthy consideration as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 18 of the NBA season.

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14-Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 17% of leagues

ANALYSIS: Barring an 11-game span all the way back in mid-January that lasted until the early days of February, the truth is that Naz Reid has been a barely-used player in Minny. He started 10 of those 11 games, and three more prior to that in December, but he then proceeded to hit the pine in the following 30 (!) games up to Apr. 13 when he came back to start a game... against Brooklyn no less! But if we're honest, he very well deserved that call.

Although Reid is playing low minutes on the year (20 MPG), the truth is that he's been rather efficient at it and has made the most of his chances. He's sustaining a pretty good 1.10 FP/min mark on the season (league average at 0.90) and in the last 10 days of play (five games played) going back to Apr 14 he's raised the mark to a monster 1.31 FP/min. Again, the comparisons are rather stupid because Reid minutes are around the 20-per, but even then that per-minute mark is on par with the ones averaged by the likes of Kristaps Porzingis, Clint Capela, or Christian Wood. No joke.

In the last five games, Reid has put up fantasy scores of 40, 28, 24, 18, and 38 FP. He's been coming off the bench for four straight matches now while playing between 13 and 22 minutes, yet he's dropped 10+ points in each of those and he comes off a 24-point outing on Wednesday against Sacramento in which he also contributed 7 boards and a couple of dimes while scoring 2 three-pointers. Reid is averaging almost 20 points and 8+ rebounds per 36 minutes and shooting 52% from the floor in April while attempting 8+ FGA per game.

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