NBA Today: Dallas Keeps Losing

This week, LeBron James passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the most FGs in NBA history; Trae Young excited the home crowd in his debut for Washington; and Jayson Tatum (Achilles) is projected to make his season debut on Friday. Other Fantasy basketball stories we’re tracking include…

Cooper Flagg Returns

In late-February last year, we talked about how the Dallas Mavericks were in a world of hurt, but honestly, that was luxury compared to the way things have gone this season.

Having dropped five straight games (and eight of the last 10), Dallas has fallen 2.5 games behind Memphis for 11th place in the West and 8.5 games behind the final spot in the play-in tournament, all but ensuring a second straight season out of the postseason.

The good news is super rookie Cooper Flagg (foot) returned to action on Thursday; the bad news is the Mavs play tonight in Boston, which will be welcoming the return of superstar Tatum for his season debut.

As for Flagg, after a one-and-done career at Duke in which he enjoyed some huge games, he went first overall to Dallas last season and has enjoyed a stellar rookie campaign, notwithstanding the recent injury. In fact, he’s just the ninth player in NBA history to record 1,000 points, 300 boards and 200 assists in the first 50 games of his career (see video below).

While he showed some rust on Thursday (shooting just 7-for-22 from the field and 1-for-4 from beyond the arc), he was wisely being eased back in (just 26 minutes), yet managed to salvage his Fantasy performance with six assists and a season-high four blocks (including this out-of-nowhere swat). In fact, the block party helped him amass 46 Fantasy points, almost eight above his season average.

Since a very hot December, Flagg’s shooting has regressed but he showed signs of developing into a volume scorer before getting hurt last month. Expect his PT to ramp back up over the next couple of games, but we’ll be surprised if he starts seeing the kind of minutes he was getting in December given that Dallas is playing for lottery balls now.

Still, it was good to see Flagg jack up four attempts from downtown despite seeing limited minutes; this is a trend we’d like to continue as he rounds out his overall game down the stretch. Honesty, at 24 P/40, he’s become a more dynamic scorer than we expected at this stage of his career.

Flagg offers great size at the three and is a superb defender. His ball handling skills are a work in progress, but for now, consider him a top 20 SF for the rest of the season.

Jrue Holiday’s Comeback

In 2023-24, the Portland Trail Blazers bottomed out with just 21 wins and have been steadily building since. The following season, they improved to 36 wins, and thanks to a decent run of late, have already reached 30 wins this season.

Portland is currently holding down the final play-in spot in the West and opened a six-game lead over 11th place Memphis, so a return to the playoffs (or at least the play-in tourney) for the first time since 2020-21 seems highly likely.

Now, let’s be clear: the Blazers have a hell of a long way to go before they are considered contenders (currently +500000 to win the NBA title this season as per FanDuel), but they are trending in the right direction.

A pleasant surprise for Portland has been recent play of veteran guard Jrue Holiday, who has paced the team in points in seven of the last nine games. On Wednesday, he poured in a season-high 35 on 13-of-19 shooting while adding 11 dimes, a whopping eight three-pointers and five boards. Holiday has now scored 23 or more points in three straight games and is playing like a must-own Fantasy asset.

Last season’s Social Justice Champion award winner isn’t playing as much as he did at the start of the season, but his PT has been on the rise since February. But what we really love about Holiday this season is that even at age 35, he’s managed to evolve and is now canning more treys per game than at any time over his lengthy career. It’s been a fantastic comeback season for him; consider the former Celtic a top 40 option at PG for the remainder of 2025-26.

Waiver Wire Pick of the Week

Baylor Scheierman, SG, Boston Celtics (ESPN: 0.8 per cent; CBS: 4 per cent): Boston’s 2024 first round pick has been off the Fantasy radar to date, but his recent uptick in PT has caught our attention (three times over the last six games he’s played 30 or more minutes). Yes, Scheireman could lose some of that to Tatum down the stretch, but double-digit points in four of the last six with some solid rebound and assist numbers (and some treys, to boot) deserves a long look. If nothing else, he’s an intriguing DFS play with his increased bucket count of late. Scheierman has provided a spark on the wing with Tatum out, so it will be interesting to see how things play out down the stretch.

RotoRob Tune of the Day

Robert Levon Been and Peter Hayes share vocals for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Here’s “Ain’t No Easy Way,” the second single and probably most popular track from their 2005 album Howl.