Welcome to Week 8 of the fantasy season. At this point in the season, teams and players should be settling into their averages. Specifically, players will be ‘regressing to the mean’, or ‘rising to the mean’. Players with slow starts finally kick it into gear, and players with fast starts begin to fade toward their expectations. Of course, there are exceptions to both sides where breakouts stay breakouts, and busts stay busts. Notably, we are past the ‘surprise free agent’ phase, where the likes of Trey Murphy or Bol Bol will be available on your waiver wire. The two most valuable roster tools at this point are trades and streaming. So with that in mind, have confidence in making moves to make your team better, whether that’s through trade or free agency.
As usual, Tuesday and Thursday are the low nights and have 3 games each. Streaming is still valuable and two teams this week have advantageous schedules. If you are in a rush, jump down to see the top streamers for the week, but first, let’s look at some trade targets for the week and get into the schedule.
Fantasy Basketball Schedule Preview
Trade Targets:
Buy Low:
- Rudy Gobert
- Fred VanVleet
- J. McCollum
- Bennedict Mathurin
- Paolo Banchero
Sell High:
- Anfernee Simons
- Jerami Grant
- Tobias Harris
- Trey Murphy
- Bol Bol
While you work the trade market, don’t forget to optimize your lineups for this week. Here is the schedule and streaming options for week 8:
This week’s schedule:
- Monday (12/5): 8 games
- Tuesday (12/6): 3 games
- Wednesday (12/7): 11 games
- Thursday (12/8): 3 games
- Friday (12/9): 10 games
- Saturday (12/10): 8 games
- Sunday (12/11): 7 games
Teams with 4 games this week:
MIA, ATL, TOR, IND, MIL, LAC, CHA, DET, ORL, LAL, DAL, PHO
Teams with 3 games this week:
PHI, UTA, CLE, BKN, WAS, MEM, MIN, GSW, HOU, NYK, SAC, OKC, BOS, DEN, CHI, NOR
Teams with 2 games this week:
SAS
Streaming Targets: Optimize your Streaming:
The following teams offer the best schedules to maximize your games played. Depending on your league the players available will vary, but the players below should be available in most 12= or 14-team formats.
MIAMI HEAT (MON/TUES/THURS/SAT)
- Max Strus (SG) – Strus’ minutes are getting squeezed a bit with a healthy team returning for the Heat, but his role will continue to be to provide points, threes, and a small number of peripheral statistics. Given his schedule this week, Strus provides streaming value.
- Caleb Martin (SG/SF) – Martin takes a back seat on a healthy Heat team, but Martin offers streaming value with a four-game schedule this week. Look for Martin to provide points, threes, and maybe a few rebounds.
- Haywood Highsmith (SF) – Highsmith is getting minutes for the Miami Heat, averaging 26 minutes in the last week. Highsmith is in no way a priority in the Heat scheme but can provide points, rebounds, and a faint resemblance of a 1-1-1 stat line (three, steal, block). He could be a deep-league option.
DENVER NUGGETS (TUES/THURS/SAT)
- Bruce Brown (SG) – The huge benefactor of MPJ’s absence, Brown has put up top 75 value over the last 2 weeks. Until MPJ returns, Brown will be a must-roster and even when he does, Brown should remain valuable as a multi-category stat producer.
- Bones Hyland (PG) – Faulty play has limited Bones’ role over the past few games, but he is still capable of providing points. While I don’t think he will be breaking out for this Denver team this season, he could be useful in a pinch if you need points on Tuesday or Thursday.