NBA Fantasy – Salary Cap Edition: Week 19 Insight and Projections

After a shortened week of games due to the All-Star break, the league is now in full swing with exciting matchups and captivating storylines unfolding.

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Roster choices become increasingly important with the regular season winding down, and the battle for points will be fought tooth over nail. There are impactful moves to be made accordingly by

NBA Fantasy Salary Game

players. 

Here’s what you need to know for Week 19:

Last week’s story

A shockwave reverberated through the basketball world Thursday when

Victor Wembanyama

was announced to be out for the remainder of the season with a blood clot in his right shoulder. The second-year forward/center had been the frontrunner for Kia Defensive Player of the Year and was fresh off his first All-Star selection.

Wembanyama ranked third among all players with 54.6 fantasy points per game (FPPG) thanks to his unique two-way play. Though costing $17.2M — the sixth-highest salary in fantasy — his production justified a pretty penny, featuring 50-plus fantasy points in 65.2% of games played. 

He’ll wrap his 2024-25 season with 2510.2 total fantasy points (TFP), ranking third in the league before his injury. Fantasy general managers who relied on Wembanyama as their nightly leader can look to

Giannis Antetokounmpo

($17.8M),

Domantas Sabonis

($16.9M), or

Jayson Tatum

($16.5M) as fitting replacements in the front court.

Game to watch

Cleveland Cavaliers (47-10) vs. Boston Celtics (41-16), Friday at 7:30 ET

For the fourth and final time this regular season, a potential Eastern Conference Finals preview will take the stage. Boston leads the series 2-1 — winning the last meeting 112-105 on Feb. 4 — and carries a five-game winning streak into Week 19. Cleveland, meanwhile, boasts the league’s longest-active stretch at seven wins running while maintaining a six-game lead for first place.

Expect stars to rise to the occasion. Tatum, sitting third in the NBA with 2598.1 TFP, has averaged 53.6 FPPG across their three battles, outdoing his season-long mark of 48.1. For the Cavaliers,

Donovan Mitchell

typically elevates his play to a whole new level, putting up 51.6 FPPG against his season average of 39.2.

Schedule sights

There’s a wealth of teams with four-game weeks ahead of them — 18, to be exact — but it’s the Indiana Pacers (32-23) that should draw your fantasy focus. Following a Monday challenge against the streaking Denver Nuggets (37-20), they’ve got three losing opponents on tap.

Tyrese Haliburton

and

Pascal Siakam

figure to be great fantasy bets accordingly. Those two have propelled the Pacers into fourth place with a 16-5 record since the new year, and have worked their way up to 22nd and 28th in the TFP rankings, respectively. 

Haliburton in particular has been on a roll, topping 40 fantasy points in eight of the last 11 contests. The fifth-year guard just secured his 10th showing this season with 50-plus via 56.2 against the Los Angeles Clippers (31-25) on Sunday.

Transaction targets

Toumani Camara

emerged as one of the highest-value options during Week 18. He tallied 40 or more fantasy points consecutively for the first time all campaign with 44.9 on Thursday and 48.0 on Saturday for the Portland Trail Blazers (24-33), setting a season-high with the latter figure.

The second-year forward had reached the 40-point plateau just twice earlier this campaign — scoring 41.0 on Feb. 1 and 44.0 on Jan. 14. But with a salary of $7.6M and the consistency of 25 or more fantasy points in eight of his last nine, the time seems right to invest.

Over in the east, the Brooklyn Nets (21-35) are now victors in seven of nine after losing 12 of their previous 13, and

Keon Johnson

is a major reason why. He’s accumulated six games with 30 or more fantasy points during that stretch while submitting a high of 42.7 back on Feb. 5. 

With a mark of 19.9 FPPG that ranks eighth among all Nets, the fourth-year guard doesn’t jump out on paper. Don’t be deceived — he’s largely exceeded that number since earning a greater role around Week 10, and regularly appears among the GameDay top-value scorers for just $5.1M.