The Core
James Harden- We have a light six game slate on Monday night, and heading into the slate it’s clear that I want as many pieces of the Houston New Orleans game as possible. It features a huge 245 O/U with a relatively close 6 point spread, both teams are running at a top-five pace this season and they both have little interest in defending too. This game should be a feast of fantasy points, which means the first player I’m putting in my lineups tonight is James Harden. I’ve gotten Harden low-owned in cash a few times within the last week, but that won’t happen tonight given the game environment. He has overcome his early shooting woes, topping 70 fantasy points in each of the last three games, and is pretty easy to prioritize even at his price.
Russell Westbrook- Much has been made about Harden/Westbrook eating into one another’s usage this season, and while that may be true, Westbrook is still averaging just under 1.5 fantasy points per minute, with Harden over the 1.5 mark. Westy has been great at stuffing the stat sheet again this season, and this type of fast-paced game plays into their strengths. He’s been hurt by blowouts recently, but we should see a full allotment of minutes from the former MVP tonight and he is under-priced on both sites due to the limited minutes over the last week. These guys are definitely capable of both having big games, and I want to plug them in together into my main build tonight.
Brandon Ingram- Like I said, I want as many pieces as I can get from this game, and if I’m locking in those two I need at least one guy in my core from the other side to run it back. That happens to be Brandon Ingram, who has continued his full-on breakout mode as we head into the end of the first month of the season. Ingram has topped 40 DK points in all but two games this season — the outliers being a 36 fantasy point game and a 15 pointer in a game where he played just 13 minutes. He has hovered around 1.4 points per minute this Lonzo Ball off the floor this season (Ball is out tonight) and that comes with a 31% usage rate as well.
Value Plays
Chris Boucher- I said on the livestream today, that if I was running 150 lineups tonight, I would have 100% Chris Boucher. He is way too cheap on both sites for the role he will play with Serge Ibaka sidelined, and he is honestly a really good fantasy player as well. He played alongside Marc Gasol quite a bit in yesterday’s game, so he does have the ability to do so, which makes me pretty confident we will get at least 20 minutes from him tonight. He’s been over a fantasy point per minute this season, and was close to the 1.5 mark in 2018. He’s the clear cut best value play on the slate.
Norman Powell- We can target the Raptors again for value here, as Kyle Lowry remains out. Fred VanVleet gets the biggest bump, but his price is high enough that he is no longer considered a must play. That leaves us Powell who played 26 minutes in Lowry’s absence yesterday, posting 27 DK points.
Outside of those two I have no firm stance, as there are a lot of viable cheap options but none that stick out as clear must plays. I will be including names like Marcus Smart, Rudy Gay, Derrick Favors, JaMychal Green and Kenrich Williams (if he starts) in my value pool for tonight.
Tournament Play
Luka Doncic- Luka is an amazing leverage play on this slate in a “tough” matchup with the Boston Celtics. Everyone knows to target the big totals in NBA and that will definitely push people towards the Harden/Westy combo while Doncic goes overlooked. Luka has shown huge triple double upside multiple times this season already, once in a very similar situation to this against a “tough” Los Angeles Lakers defense. The pace in this game isn’t great, but the spread is just 3.5 and if goes down to the wire I wouldn’t be shocked if Luka beat out Westbrook’s fantasy point total on Monday night.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
