Week 22 Value Maxing: Cut the Dead Weight and Stream Hard
Why The Wolves And Suns Are Bad Holds, And How To Turn One Slot Into Six Or More
Week 22 is one of those playoff weeks where the schedule itself is a weapon. The big edge is not just finding streamers. It is knowing which roster spots are basically dead and turning them into more games than your opponent expects.
The Week 22 Schedule
Daily game counts:
Monday: 10 games
Tuesday: 4 games
Wednesday: 12 games
Thursday: 3 games
Friday: 10 games
Saturday: 6 games
Sunday: 9 games
The main pressure points are easy to spot.
Wednesday is the big clog day with 12 games.
Monday and Friday are 10-game days, so they are often streamable for most teams but not guaranteed.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday are much more favorable for roster flexibility.
There are also very few back to backs, which helps with rest risk but makes it harder to create huge streaming chains.
Team Game Counts
Four games (20 teams)
Atlanta
Brooklyn
Charlotte
Chicago
Denver
Detroit
Golden State
Houston
Indiana
The Clippers
Memphis
Miami
Milwaukee
New Orleans
Oklahoma City
Orlando
Portland
Sacramento
Toronto
Utah
Three games (8 teams)
Boston
Cleveland
Dallas
The Lakers
The Knicks
The Sixers
The Spurs
Washington
Two games (2 teams)
Minnesota
Phoenix
That split is the backbone of the week. Four game teams are fine. Three game teams need to be evaluated by timing. Two game teams are where the real decisions get brutal.
Why The Wolves Are A Trap
Minnesota is one of the ugliest schedule spots on the board. They have only two games, and one of them lands on the 12-game Wednesday. That means the team effectively gives you one usable game early in the week and then leaves you with almost nothing.
Fringe Wolves players are not worth protecting in a playoff week.
Even useful real life contributors can become lineup dead weight if they only help you once.
If you can turn that roster spot into Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday production, you should strongly consider it.
Why Phoenix Is Better But Still Flawed
Phoenix also has only two games, but their shape is different. They play Tuesday, then have three days off before their next game. That makes the team more usable than Minnesota in some formats, but it is still not a great spot to hold fringe players.
Keep the true core option if you need him.
Move on from the obvious low-end pieces.
Do not cling to role players just because they have a recognizable name.
Phoenix is better than Minnesota because there is at least some timing usefulness. But once you get into the bottom of the roster, the two-game schedule still crushes value.
How To Read The Three-Game Teams
Not all three-game teams are equal. That is a major theme here.
The three-game teams are:
Boston
Cleveland
Dallas
The Lakers
The Knicks
The Sixers
The Spurs
Washington
Among those, New York stands out because its three games are on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. That makes it different from the others, which all have at least one game on Wednesday.
Why that matters:
If a team plays Wednesday, it is harder to stream around them.
If a team avoids Wednesday, you can use that roster spot more aggressively on the other days.
So even when two teams both have three games, the timing can make one much more streamable than the other.
The Core Streaming Plan
The simplest approach this week is to turn one slot into six total quality games.
The standard route looks like this:
Start with Monday and Tuesday.
Use one stream to cover the Monday-Tuesday back to back.
The Monday-Tuesday pool includes Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio and Washington.
Ignore Wednesday.
Wednesday has 12 games, so that is your dead day.
You are not trying to force a streamer into that spot.
Move into Thursday and Friday.
A second stream can cover the Thursday-Friday block.
New Orleans is one of the better options here.
Finish with Saturday and Sunday.
There are only three teams in that weekend back to back cluster: Charlotte, Milwaukee and Sacramento.
You can use that as your final move or, if needed, stream Sunday as a one-off.
That is the basic shape of the week. One slot, four moves, six games.
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Robbin Marx
NBA Fantasy Analyst
Experience: NBC Sports - Rotoworld, HashTag Basketball, Bleav Network