We had an exciting opening weekend for the WNBA. Now we are on to week two, it should be a great season a head of us! I was able to takedown the WNBA Windmill on Sunday for $2,250!!! Ended up tying for first and splitting the $3000 first place prize with someone. Today we have a couple exciting games on tap. This year we only have 3 game slates, so every slate will be a great DFS slate. Last year we had a bunch of 2 game slates which were just not very +EV. Oh yeah and no 11 am weekday games!

I’m going to be switching things up this article and focusing on my favorite cash plays for the slate while giving a good GPP pivot off them. These may not be in my core for tonight but I will be giving my favorite player from each tier, so in that case if you are forced to play someone at that price you know actually who to plug in! WNBA is a little different than other sports where I don’t see myself forcing a cash lineup in I just let it naturally flow into something. I could be looking at two completely different cash cores that may only have one or two plays in common.

Guards

Top-Tier

Courtney Vandersloot: The Sky hit us with a late starting lineup change. They decided to move Diamond Deshields to the bench, giving Kahleeh Copper the start. Deshields is dealing with nagging knee inflammation, so Wade decided to keep her on the bench. If we are able to get news that this is happening again, I will be looking at Vandersloot to have a big game. Normally I prefer paying up at forward instead of guard in cash but if I need to pay up on guard I will be locking in Vandersloot over anyone else in this tier.

• • GPP Pivot: DeWanna Bonner (Knee injury so risky play)

Mid-Tier

Jasmine Thomas: Thomas has an easy matchup against the Mystics. I even like the double Thomas stack tonight. J Thomas had a poor outing against the Lynx, but what I did love to see out of her was she continued to shoot the ball even though it wasn’t falling. I was worried about Bonner stealing usage frmm her this season but she still continued to look for her shot and get involved in the offense. Now with Bonner dealing with an injury that we need to monitor today this could lead to both Thomas’ having huge games. Good news is the poor showing last game will lead to decreased ownership. In WNBA I don’t care about ownership because there aren’t computers saying who to play so the bad chalk is worse in WNBA than other sports. Let’s hope recency bias keeps her ownership low tonight.

• • GPP Pivot: Riquna Willams

Cheap-Tier

Sue Bird: Draftkings did a great job pricing up players who had great games, but they seem to forgot about Sue Bird. Even though she is approaching 40 and took a season off while recovering from a knee injury. Bird seemed to not miss a beat and dropped 24.5 fantasy points in only 19 minutes of play. I locked her in on Saturday I will probably end up locking her in again as she can get me a safe 20+ points and lets me save salary to fit expensive forwards.

• • GPP Pivot: Kahleeh Copper (Check if she starts again)

Forwards

Top-Tier

Nneka Ogwumike: Both Nneka and Parker have great matchups tonight. Chicago is not good defensively and especially from the front court. We just saw A’ja Wilson and Angel McCoughtry tear through this defense. Nneka is capable of replicating that into a 40+ point fantasy game here. The Sky also play at one of the highest paces in the league which will lead to even more fantasy points. Nneka will have a lot more playing time tonight compared to their 30 point smackdown against the Mercury.

• • GPP Pivot: Alyssa Thomas

Mid-Tier

Alysha Clark: I’m not a huge fan of this tier and I actually have one of my cash builds end on her and I’m trying to decide if I want to keep that line or not because I love the rest of the line I might just force her in. Clark is one of those sneaky plays every slate to hit value but it just a little over priced. She is coming off a 24.5 fantasy point performance last game and looks to build on that tonight. She is more out there for her defensive help and could lead to a lot of steals while lined up against some young players on the Lynx.

• • GPP Pivot: Cheyenne Parker

Cheap-Tier

Brionna Jones: With Jonquel Jones opting out for the season we had to see who would fill her spot and where would all those minutes go? Well we now know Brionna Jones will be a big part of this team. She won’t see the huge offensive production you will get from Alyssa Thomas and DeWanna Bonner, but like we see in the NBA, centers that see big minutes for cheap are always great plays. Jones will be forced into another huge minutes game as the Sun continue to be without Plaisance who is recovering from a back injury.

• • GPP Pivot: Azura Stevens

As we know a lot could change throughout the day. Make sure to check out Final Thoughts before the slate starts at dfskarma.com!

You can also follow @DFS_Joey on twitter where I will be reacting to news and giving out free nuggets of information.