Yahoo Fantasy analyst Dan Titus and Justin Henry examine some rookies and other fantasy options moving into increase workloads due to injuries and trades.

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I'm Titus. That's Justin Henry. Let's get to the points. Before we do, though, if you haven't joined a Yahoo Fantasy basketball league today, you could be entered to win a $100 e-gift card that you can spend at the NBA store. So all you have to do, download the Yahoo Fantasy app, join a league. It's that simple. All right, J, we were texting last night during that Warriors-Sixers game, man, and we got some thoughts.

But one of the things I want to talk about today is some role changes. Like players that have seen an uptick in minutes, or their role or situation has changed because of trade rumors, perhaps. At the top, though, man, after watching that Sixers game, I have to tell everybody pick up Paul Reed now if you haven't. He's still available in 75% of leagues, but after that Embiid injury. I'm a little bit worried. But as part of that, another-- some more news came out for Tyrese Haliburton. He said that he's going to be on a minutes restriction for a while. What does that mean for Andrew Nembhard?

JUSTIN HENRY: Andrew Nembhard, he's played pretty well. He played well during Tyrese Haliburton's absence. And even since Haliburton's comeback, he still maintained a role. So for a guy that was on the do-not-trade list, this is a guy that the Pacers wanted to keep, this is a player that I would want to roster. And he's undervalued right now because if Tyrese Haliburton really is on a minutes restriction here over the next few weeks, he's going to provide some good value, good assist. Especially in your category leagues, this is a player that I'd want to have on my roster.

DAN TITUS: Agree, man. Like, he averaged 18 and 8 with Haliburton off the floor. And I think he's passed TJ McConnell now. One of the other injuries that happened, Julius Randle, we don't know the extent of how long he's going to be out. But it sounds like it's going to be a multi-week absence, at minimum. And I know you like Precious Achiuwa. I haven't totally gotten there yet, but the one thing I will say, volume is king. And this guy was averaging only 18 minutes a game for Toronto. Now he's already up to 29 over his last five with the Knicks.

JUSTIN HENRY: Tom Thibodeau has a way of trusting guys that play well for him. And Precious Achiuwa had his opportunity against Toronto, against his former rival. And guess what? He performed. And since that time, we've seen his minutes creep into the 30s, which you want to see for a Tom Thibodeau-led team. That means these are the players that he's rocking with. 18 points last night. He's played his way into a nice role.

I'm not expecting 15 and 10 from precious Achiuwa. But if you can get 7 to 10 points, 7 to 10 rebounds in a game. He's averaging over a block a game since his time that he's had the minutes up tick. This is a player that may not be a top 75 player, but he should be rostered as he's going to be a top 150 player if he's getting these minutes moving forward, especially with Julius Randle on the shelf.

DAN TITUS: And it's crazy because he's available in 82% of leagues right now. Like he's under 20%. So if we're talking-- we're usually talking shallow league guys, like we got to-- not that I'm trying to tout, but we was talking about Jonathan Kuminga being that dude well before he actually became the guy. And this is the time that you want to grab these types of players, because it doesn't seem like Julius Randle is coming back anytime soon. So yeah, you got to take advantage of that.

JUSTIN HENRY: These are guys, especially as the minutes increase here in the second half of the season, or you see them start to attain a role, these are players you want to keep in your rotation consistently, instead of just throwing them back to the waivers.

DAN TITUS: Yeah, speaking of throwing back to waivers, I think Dereck Lively is a guy that has been in and out of the lineup. He's been off the injury report. Now he's back on it. He's a guy that's still available in 40% of leagues that I think is going to be really good for fantasy managers as the season progresses. His minutes have gone up every single month.

And I think this is going to be the point in time where we really see this pendulum swing in terms of his role as the starting center with the Dallas Mavericks. Because when this guy plays 30 minutes, man, he's averaging 14 and 12. That's like Jalen Duren numbers right there. And I don't know that we're going to get that every night. But I'm just saying if he winds up on waivers somehow, some way, this is a guy that you're going to want to scoop up. I think he's going to be good later on.

JUSTIN HENRY: Yeah, when you start talking about like rookies who can make an impact, it's easy to look-- Brandon Miller has obviously taken on a larger role with the Hornets, but I start to fish down a little bit further. And you don't always hit on these guys, but sometimes when you can see minutes start to uptick, like Gradey Dick out in Toronto right now, he's starting to see 20 minutes a game over the last five, six games.

Another player that I'm looking at is Amen Thompson for the Houston Rockets. He's quietly upped his production over the last few weeks. And since he's been healthy since the start of the season, and come along here, we're seeing the stocks. We're seeing a lot of what we see with the Ausar Thompson in Detroit. So Amen Thompson, not a name that you must go grab right now, but somebody to keep a radar on as this Houston Rockets team continues to progress.

DAN TITUS: And hopefully, the Rockets don't make a move for someone like Mikal Bridges because that would definitely stunt that production. But we don't know. We'll see what happens. The trade deadline is coming up next Thursday. We'll be back in two weeks around the All-Star break to get to the points.

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