Onyeka Okongwu (SF/PF, ATL): Week 24 Waiver Wire Pickups

Onyeka Okongwu is worth considering as a fantasy basketball waiver wire pickup heading into Week 24 of the NBA season.

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ROSTERED IN: 16% of leagues

ANALYSIS: The Hawks are currently the 10th seed in the East but are also tied for 8th and 9th with Brooklyn and Charlotte respectively. There's even a chance (albeit small) that Atlanta could rise as high as to reach the 7th seed if Cleveland flops and the other two low-seeded teams can catch a break either. This is definitely a no-joke situation for an Atlanta team that has found phenomenal production in bulky minutes from Onyeka Okongwu of late, so there might make sense for the Hawks to keep relying on him coming off the pine ROS.

OO has played 28 and 25 minutes in the past couple of games against a putrid team (OKC) and a direct rival (CLE) in back-to-back games to close March. The results were good-not-great, but enough for me to have Okongwu as a potential late-season steal through the WW: 10 PPG, 12.5 RPG, 2 APG, and a block in those two were the averages he just put up even on stupid 7.4% and 14.8% usage rates. Nothing truly remarkable, but something definitely worth rostering in deeper formats out there if you're needy.

Okongwu's shooting has been a little bit bouncy of late, but his overall efficiency is sublime since he hit the pine to play with the second unit. Just from the ASB on, the wing is putting up 1.02 FP/min compared to the 0.90 league average, has cut down his turnovers to only 0.5 TOPG in that span, and is providing his fantasy GMs with nightly 8-6-1 stat lines and 1.1 BPG on top of that. Again, nothing remarkable but surely useful and with limited self-damage even if you're part of a TO-penalizing league.

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