Guard
Bradley Beal- My first building block tonight is Bradley Beal, as it appears Russell Westbrook will sit out on the second night of a back-to-back. If Russ ends up playing, I will update my thoughts in Discord as to who replaces Beal. As for now, we are assuming him out and that presents a smash spot for Beal. You can tell he is fed up with losing. After he was spotted praying on the bench last night, (LOL) you would have to assume he is playing motivated basketball from here on out as he auditions for a trade. His per minute production jumps to over 1.6 DK points per minute with Russ off the floor, almost on par with Luka Doncic. He also averages almost 40 real points per 36 minutes without Westbrook. Should Russ be ruled out, I won’t overthink it and Beal will be the first player in my lineup on both sites.
Forward
Aaron Gordon- I love attacking the Sacramento Kings, and will be doing so again tonight with Aaron Gordon. The Kings present a nice pace-up spot for the Magic (top-ten in pace) and remain dead-last in defensive rating as a team. They also struggle in the paint, allowing over 50 points in the paint per contest. While that sets up well for Nikola Vucevic, it also bodes well for Gordon. He’s third on the team in drives per game, and third in paint touches per game. He also continues to play de-facto point guard with Markelle Fultz out, and has actually been close to a triple double average despite shooting the ball extremely bad. You would expect that shooting to rebound eventually, and there’s no better matchup to do it in. AG is actually one of my favorite plays on the slate and a 20 point triple double from him is my bold call on Wednesday.
Center
DeAndre Ayton- Ayton is not someone that I typically play in DFS, but I can’t get away from his price of $7,300 on DraftKings. He is surprisingly only a 1.1 fantasy point per minute player this season, but I guess that makes sense given that he plays alongside Devin Booker and Chris Paul most nights. That being said, he gets around a 1.5 point per minute boost with Booker off the floor, and he will miss tonight’s game due to injury. Oklahoma City has struggled to defend big men all season, and we should see more offensive touches for Ayton with Booker sidelined. If he was more expensive I wouldn’t be on him, but I think there is a lot of value in his price tag on Wednesday night.
It’s a massive 12 game slate, and we are going to need some value to fit in these guys accordingly. We already will have some with the Wizards, but there are a number of other situations to monitor as well. Be sure to check out Final Thoughts and stay tuned to discord for updates. Also, we now have a voice channel in Discord used for answering questions up until lock! This feature is locked to subscribers only and has been a huge success in the few days we have done it.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
