Justin

James

He scored 16 points with five boards on Thursday and also scored 16 last Monday. James has had a solid summer and will be hoping to at least land a two-way deal with Orlando. He was the 40th pick of the 2019 Draft by the Sacramento Kings and has bounced around the G League for the last couple years.

James averaged 3.9 point and 0.8 rebounds in 8.6 minutes per game for the Kings last season. The Pelicans have a few players in protocols, but not enough to guarantee James enough of an opportunity to pick him up right now.

His salary for the upcoming would have become guaranteed on Monday and the Kings weren’t planning on using him enough to let that happen. He’ll be free to try to catch on with another team going forward.

This is unfortunate, as James scored a career-high 31 points Thursday night. Terence Davis, Louis King and Jahmi’us Ramsey will see their minutes increase, and each played at least 28 minutes in Friday’s one-point loss to the Grizzlies.

James popped off out of nowhere, nearly doubling his previous season-high of 16 that he had in late April. He made 12 of his 17 FGA, and only missed one of his threes, so he was en fuego to say the least. The bad news, however, is that, with the loss, the Kings are now officially eliminated from the playoffs. With that said, maybe James will get some more burn in the last couple of games as they officially have nothing to play for. Chimezie Metu had a career-high in points as well with 17 and four triples, while Buddy Hield struggled a bit with 16 and six dimes on just 6-of-17 shooting.

He’s coming off a knee injury but says he’s 100 percent, so we’re taking him off the injury report. He’s not expected to play a big role for the Kings this season.

It took six months to get there, but he’s ready to go for the bubble run. With news that Harrison Barnes has tested positive for COVID-19, it’s possible that James could be thrusted into a more important role. Keep an eye on this situation in DFS.

James’ absence won’t impact fantasy lineups, so it’s business as usual.

Bogey has been battling an assortment of injuries over the last few weeks and was forced to sit out Friday night due to the ankle issue. Trevor Ariza (personal) is not listed on the injury report for Saturday’s game, so he could see extra playing time if Bogdanovic is unable to play. Justin James would see an uptick in minutes as well.

Without Trevor Ariza (personal) and Bogdan Bogdanovic (ankle) unavailable, James was the main backup SG/SF in the rotation. Ariza is likely going to be back for Saturday, so James isn’t really worth adding unless there’s a change of course on the availability for Ariza and Bogdan.