What’s up everyone and welcome to Ben’s Building Blocks! If you’ve never read my content before, welcome. To those that have, welcome back. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports during NBA season. This article is designed for me to highlight the top plays of the day. Obviously, things can change rapidly in the NBA with injury news close to lock, so I would be sure to subscribe to our premium package for access to our Final Thoughts cheat sheet, our premium discord channel and my core plays. Our Core Plays product gives you the ability to tail all of our analysts in your contests each night. We do the work for you, and you simply plug and play with our premium Core Plays. With that being said, let’s hop into the plays…
Building Blocks
Dejounte Murray
This is going to be an extremely chalky slate for cash games — with most of the key injury news breaking early in the day. Obviously, more stuff can pop up closer to lock but it will be hard to avoid Dejounte Murray with no Trae Young tonight for the Hawks. He sees massive rate increased across the board with Young off the floor, especially when it comes to time on the ball and his assist%. Overall, this game should still be competitive and he’s priced as if Trae is playing. He’s already had a few monster games this season with Young out, and I’m not sure how tonight will be any different if the game is close in the second-half.
Zach LaVine
LaVine is a great cash game / single entry option tonight with DeMar DeRozan doubtful — but I don’t view him as a must in tournaments. Even with DeRo out, he’s going to be pretty scoring dependent, but he can certainly get hot against this Wizards team. He paces the team in usage rate with DeRo off the floor at just under 32%/ We have him projected for over 38% ownership tonight, and it’s clear that most users will be building around him and Murray on their main teams. I prefer getting to Nikola Vucevic in GPPs over LaVine — he’s projecting for 25%+ less ownership and around the same points – but it comes down to positional scarcity and how people will be building their teams. Overall, he’s a better per minute player than LaVine and the Wizards have been torched my opposing big-men as of late.
Value Plays
Duane Washington + Dario Saric
Phoenix was in the exact same situation last night — all of Chris Paul, Devin Booker, DeAndre Ayton and Landry Shamet will miss tonight’s game. Duane Washington owns over a 35% usage rate with these guys off the floor, and will be very aggressive on the offensive end. He’s taken 17+ shots in each of the last three games and will likely be top-three in overall ownership on Wednesday night. He’s a must-play for value in cash games. Saric was the big surprise last night, he played 30 minutes in Ayton’s absence and nearly messed around and got a triple double. Obviously, it’s a back-to-back but both these guys are going to be needed for big minutes again. Saric is still only $3,500 on DK and is grading out as a top value for tonight.
Nerlens Noel
Noel was forced in as a must play with 20 minutes to spare prior to lock last night, and will once again be massively-owned with both Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart out for the Pistons. We know that he has fantasy point per minute ability, and will be forced into minutes due to these injuries. Detroit got completely blown out by Philly last night, but Noel still logged 20 minutes. He will likely play closer to 25 in a close game, and he is still minimum-priced across the industry.
OwnersBox Top Play
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Alperen Sengun
I love this spot for Sengun tonight, and want to make sure I get exposure to him somewhere in my lineups. Stephen Silas mentioned recently that he wants to get Sengun going more, and he’s responded by topping 30+ minutes in each of his last two games. There’s some definite foul risk going up against Sabonis, but the match-up couldn’t be better. Sacramento allows the third-most points in the paint this season and Sengun has shot 14 and 15 times over those last two games with those increased minutes. There’s always blowout risk, but this game should be extremely fast-paced and has one of the highest O/U’s on tonight’s slate. I foresee a potential monster game for Sengun on Wednesday.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
