Trey Murphy III (SF, NOP) - Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 15

BALLER MOVE: Add in 14+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 18% of leagues

ANALYSIS: With Zion Williamson out until the end of the month (if not more) and Brandon Ingram getting back for a month now but never actually making it to the court, Trey Murphy III has been one of the main beneficiaries from the absence of the Pelicans' top two players.

It is true that New Orleans has suffered those two injuries a ton with their record flopping massively as of late, but it's not that Murphy (or perhaps better said, Murphy's fantasy GMs) care about that. Trey M has started 26 games in a row now spanning all the way back to November 28. He's logging 30 MPG since then, and although his minutes went down a hair through December, they have bounced back up as of late.

In January, Murphy is playing 31 MPG, averaging a 12-3-1-1 line with 0.7 BPG on top of that. The efficiency is not good on a per-minute basis but that's mostly because he's logging 30+ minutes more often than not, so it's impossible to average good FP/min on such a large load of playing time.

Murphy, though, is racking up numbers if only because of the bulky workload he's getting these days. He's played 34+ minutes in four of the last five games he's started from January 11 to January 20. He's scored 15+ points in those four outings while shooting 53.7% from the floor in that 10-day, five-game span.

Ingram and Zion could very well remain out for one more week at the very least and New Orleans won't risk a damn thing once they return, most probably easing them in through a week or two after their comebacks. The Pels are in fourth place and 1.5 games clear of the fifth team in the West so they can operate with some margin of error.

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