NBA

NBA Fantasy Basketball: Week 5 Steals

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Jarrett Jack tops the list of Week 5 NBA Fantasy steals. (AP)
Jarrett Jack tops the list of Week 5 NBA Fantasy steals. (AP)
Jarrett Jack tops the list of Week 5 NBA Fantasy steals. (AP)

About the author: For the past year, Mazer has experimented with multiple approaches to accumulate a guaranteed nightly profit in daily fantasy basketball. After extensive failures, he’s undefeated in a span from the start of the 2014 postseason to today. Fantasy Basketball is all about outsmarting your opponents, and much of that is done through grabbing the unfound star in free agency.

Note: All OWN%’s come from ESPN Fantasy Leagues.

Point Guard:

BKN- Jarrett Jack (19.5%)
Leading this week off, we’ve got our second Nets player to crack this list. He’s averaged 15.2 points, 3.8 boards, and 3.7 assists in 27.8 minutes in his last 6 games. Need I write anything else? I mean… he’s a Net, and you can’t have enough of those on any fantasy team.

MIN- Mo Williams (13.5%)
Let us all take this moment to appreciate Flip Saunders for giving our fantasy teams an opportunity to each own Ricky Rubio. Giving Mo Williams the nod in the T-Wolves’ last 3 contests over Zach LaVine, Williams has averaged 13.3 points and 9.7 assists per game. Regardless of how large of small your league is, you’re not finding nightly double-digit assists in the free agent market. It’s just not going to happen elsewhere. Take advantage of this while you still can.

Shooting Guard:

TOR- Louis Williams (6.2%)
As written in the holy bible of fantasy sports, “Ride the hot hand.” Williams has scored 22 and 36 points respectively in his last two contests.

Small Forward:

ATL- DeMarre Carroll (29.7%)
He’s finally returned from his strained groin and got all the kinks out in his first game back against Detroit (10 points and 7 rebounds).

MIL- Ersan Ilyasova (7.0%)
Continue to scorn Jason Kidd’s bucks, but don’t do the same to obvious fantasy production. Ilyasova is finally reaching some sort of fantasy relevancy, averaging 15.3 points and 3.8 rebounds per game ever since Kidd bumped up his minutes.

Power Forward:

SAS- Boris Diaw (13.1%)
With Tiago Splitter still not having a timeline to return, it looks like Boris Diaw has secured the starting spot. In that span of 3 games, he’s averaged a respectable 14.0 points, 6.0 boards, 4.0 assists, and a steal to coincide with some sneaky 3s at the 4.

WAS- Kris Humphries (2.6%)
Remember this guy? I wish I didn’t, either. You’re not going to get much from him besides a decent rebounding option, but if you want about 6 per game, then look no further than the Incredible Hump

Center:

MIN- Gorgui Dieng (25.0%)
With Nikola Pekovic sidelined for presumably the entire next week, nursing a sprained right wrist, there’s no pick-up I’d recommend more than Dieng. He’s been shining in Pek’s shadows all season, and once that spotlight opened, he did not hold back. 3 games starting, and he’s averaging 9.7 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 2.7 steals, and 2.0 blocks per game.