Fantasy Basketball Waiver Wire: Cole Anthony

The Orlando Magic are one of the surprise teams early in this NBA season, with a 6-2 record. But Wednesday night brought a season-altering injury, as guard Markelle Fultz suffered a torn left ACL against the Cavaliers. He’s done for the season, so in steps Cole Anthony.

The Magic took Anthony 15th overall in this year’s draft. To say he’s off to a rough start would be an understatement, shooting just 30 percent from the floor and 4-for-21 from 3-point range. He has also nabbed just three steals thus far.

But with Fultz out, Anthony started the second half of Wednesday night’s game. He wound up playing a season-high 32 minutes, with eight points (4-for-12 from the floor, 0-for-4 from beyond the arc), four rebounds, three assists and a block. Through eight games he’s averaging 8.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game.

Anthony was not a great shooter in his one season at North Carolina (38 percent from the floor). But his 3-point rate (34.8 percent) wasn’t dead weight, and frankly it can’t get much worse than it’s been in his first eight NBA games.

Fultz is leaving behind the second-highest usage rate on the Magic (25.3 percent), and the third-most shot attempts (13.0 per game). Those things may get spread to others a bit (Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier, Nikola Vucevic, Terrance Ross), but Anthony is lined up for starter minutes.

Opportunity is the lead driver of fantasy value, and Anthony has it in front of him now.

Cole Anthony ESPN Ownership: 20.7%
Cole Anthony Yahoo! Ownership: 32%

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