We have a nice ten game slate on tap tonight, and some pretty big news broke mid-day with Nikola Jokic confirmed sitting out tonight due to a one-game suspension. I’m going to go a bit more into roster construction now that we’ve got that news, mainly because I think that changes the slate massively as a whole. Let’s get it!
Jam Them In
James Harden- Ohhhhh baby, this is our last chance to roster James Harden without that bloodsucker Chris Paul coming back and messing everything up…that means there’s still a chance that he goes for 100+ FanDuel points! After his “down” 51.7 point performance in only 30 minutes against the 76ers, he dropped a cool 95 FD points in 40 minutes against the Knicks, and was only moved back up to $14,000. I won’t be fading him again tonight, and will be building my lineups around him, especially with the value opening up.
Shabazz Napier- Napier is our next cash game lock, with Spencer Dinwiddie not expected to play for the Nets. Dinwiddie has yet to miss a game this season, so we really don’t have much to go off, but if we look at the last game D’Angelo Russell missed, Napier was the primary back-up point guard and touched 30 minutes. He should see his run regardless of the score, and $3,800 he becomes a staple of my lineups.
Mason Plumlee- With Jokic out, Plumlee becomes an easy play at under $4,500 on a slate where we wanted to spend down at center anyways. He should get up towards 30 minutes in an excellent matchup with the Phoenix Suns who are on a back-to-back and in the midst of a three in four days stretch.
Giannis Antetokounmpo- This one might come as a shock to some, but with all of the value on this slate and given FanDuel’s low score drop scoring, I think we can easily jam in both of James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo tonight. Giannis hasn’t flashed his big-time ceiling recently, but mainly because he hasn’t been extended minutes wise due to some blowouts. He hit 35 minutes in his last game, resulting in 51.5 FanDuel points, and we can hope that the Charlotte Hornets keep pace with the Bucks enough in this game to see him reach 32+ again. Either way, Giannis ceiling is second to only Harden’s on this slate, and I would love to lock in the floor of them together given the abundance of value.
Injury Watch
Minnesota- We have a big situation to monitor here with Jeff Teague and Derrick Rose both questionable. If one is out, Jerryd Bayless sees a bump as well as Andrew Wiggins, and whichever one is active. If they are both out, which is a legitimate possibility, Bayless opens up the opportunity for us to take two $4K and below point guards and not even count on a low score drop from either of them. It also would boost the projection on Wiggins, who saw a lot of time running the PnR last night and it resulted in one of the best games from him in a long, long time.
Phoenix (yuck!)- I just want you all to know that I loathe the Suns, and any slate that they are on is always complicated 100x. That being said, we have to look at them again tonight even with no TJ Warren, Ayton, and De’Anthony Melton. Jamal Crawford may or may not play given the back-to-back, and even then we should see some quality minutes for Elie Okobo. Another cheap guard, you can see why I don’t think it will be hard to fit in Beard/ABC in the same lineup.
Filling Out Our Roster
Denver Nuggets- I touched on Plumlee above, but we should be looking to play potentially one or two more Nuggets players in our cash builds as well wit Jokic out. Both Will Barton and Paul Millsap see usage bumps to around 27%, and I could easily see locking them both in along with Plumlee. If you need even more savings, Trey Lyles becomes interesting to me in tournaments, with the above two being more cash game plays.
Montrezl Harrell- I love this matchup for Harrell, and I love that he is under $7,000 on DraftKings as well. This Bulls team is horrid defensively even under their new Head Coach, and their bench ranks bottom-five in defensive efficiency which bodes well for Harrell, who is not a starter. We have attacked the Bulls with bigs all season, and Harrell makes sense coming off a price decrease.
Noah Vonleh- With Luke Kornet out, and God knows what going on between Fizdale and Kanter, we have to consider Noah Vonleh in all formats. He’s played 30 minutes in each of the last two games, and draws our favorite matchup for a big man tonight against the Brooklyn Nets.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
