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

James Harden

Harden is going to be high-owned across the industry tonight, but he’s the clear number one play in all formats for me. He looks like he’s regained the step he seemingly lost last season from watching the games, and he is playing a huge role on this team. After one week of play, he ranks second-overall in minutes per game. His potential assist numbers trail only Tyrese Haliburton, and this could be a monster spot for the 76ers offense. He’s a triple double threat with this role and I love the game, he will be a staple of my lineups in any builds.

Lauri Markkanen

Assuming Markkanen is good-to-go on the back-to-back, he once again is checking in as a top option. I can’t believe I’m typing this out, but Markannen has been one of the most surprising players this season and draws another strong spot tonight against the Houston Rockets. Likely to see the nonexistent defense of Eric Gordon, Lauri is averaging 1.27 DK points per minute and over 37 minutes per game. He’s only priced at $6,400, and we have him inside the top-four in overall projected ownership tonight. I wouldn’t look to be super overweight on him in tournaments given the B2B and the fact that it’s Lauri Markkanen — but he is one of the best plays for cash games and single entry contests on Monday.

Value Plays

Devin Vassell

Vassell has been in this value section every day he’s played, and will continue to be as long as he is priced this way. He’s playing 30 minutes on average with a point per minute mark, and second on the team with a 22% usage rate. Spurs/Timberwolves features the highest O/U on the slate tonight and he’s way too cheap on DraftKings. Minnesota has been one of the worst teams defending shots from three the first week of action, which sets up really nice for Vassell. This is a potential ceiling spot for under $6,000 in salary and he will be massively owned again on Monday night.

There isn’t a ton of standout value tonight, but someone like Usman Garuba is in play for Houston especially if Alperen Sengun is ruled out.

OwnersBox Play

If you’ve never checked out OwnersBox Fantasy — CLICK HERE and use Promo Code KARMA for a 100% deposit match up to $500 along with a free $10 DFS contest entry. The great thing about OwnersBox is the super-flex format and it allows for some really unique builds without having to force certain positions into your lineups. 

Jayson Tatum

Tatum is one of our highest ceiling projections tonight, and I love getting some exposure to him since it’s unlikely he makes my builds on other sites. I picked Tatum to win MVP last season, and it looks like he will actually have a chance of achieving that this year. Chicago really doesn’t have anyone to defend him and his 32% usage rate is one of the highest marks in all of basketball.

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)