Week 17 is upon us, and for many fantasy basketball players, that marks the start of the playoffs. If you want a strategic edge over your leaguemates, you’ll want to use the NBA schedule to your advantage. Fantasy hoops analysts have talked ad nauseum about Toronto’s two games in Week 17 compared to five in Week 18, but that’s not all I’m here for today. I’ve included a chart with number of games played for each team, but this article will outline the strength of schedule for each team broken down by each position with over a dozen recommended waiver adds.

The methodology here was simple. I used FantasyPros Defense vs. Position tool to determine which teams allowed the most points to each position (FanDuel scoring is similar to standard-league scoring in points leagues), then I assigned a value for each team from 1-30 based on the points allowed. Based on the schedule, the matchups were totaled and then divided by the number of games played for the week. This methodology accounts for some teams playing more games than others for a given week. The friendliest matchup received a ‘1’ while the least friendly matchup got a ’30’.

While this article is based on points-league scoring, minor adjustments can be made for category leagues and your current roster construction.

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Scheduled Games

Point Guard

Potential Waiver Wire Adds: T.J. McConnell (59%), Malachi Flynn (37%), Reggie Jackson (30%), Jalen Brunson (26%), Killian Hayes (20%), Theo Maledon (16%), Facundo Campazzo (10%)

Shooting Guard

Potential Waiver Wire Adds: Luguentz Dort (54%), Danny Green (41%), Hamidou Diallo (13%), PJ Dozier (2%),

Small Forward

Potential Waiver Wire Adds: Saddiq Bey (41%), Josh Jackson (30%), Aleksej Pokusevski (23%), Patrick Williams (15%), Naji Marshall (9%), Paul Watson (6%),

Power Forward

Potential Waiver Wire Adds: Darius Bazley (44%), Chuma Okeke (33%), Marcus Morris (33%), Isaiah Roby (7%)

Center

Potential Waiver Wire Adds: Nerlens Noel (59%), Ivica Zubac (50%), Isaiah Stewart (33%), Daniel Gafford (22%), Mo Bamba (19%), Khem Birch (16%), Nicolas Claxton (6%)

Overall

Top-5 Overall Waiver Wire Adds:

• Luguentz Dort (54%)
• Isaiah Stewart (33%)
• Nerlens Noel (59%)
• Malachi Flynn (37%)
• Daniel Gafford (22%)

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Zachary Hanshew is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Zachary, check out his archive and follow him @zakthemonster.