The Core
Domantas Sabonis- Myles Turner and Goga Bitadze are both out again for the Pacers tonight, making Sabonis one of my favorite overall plays for what feels like the fifth slate in a row. He’s been logging monster minutes in the absence of these guys — 37 and 38 minutes over the last two games — and has routinely posted rates of 1.3 fantasy points per minute or better. His price tag doesn’t fully reflect the role he has on this team with these guys out, and I plan on taking advantage of that on Tuesday evening.
Joel Embiid- Let’s start with the injuries for the 76ers today…Al Horford has been confirmed out, while Ben Simmons is questionable. If you take Horford off the floor this season, Joel Embiid is averaging 1.9 fantasy points per minutes with a 32,5% usage rate, and if you subtract Simmons as well the numbers remain relatively the same. So, we do not need Simmons to be out to lock Embiid in, who is somehow priced at just $9,400 on DraftKings. There is a wealth of strong Center plays tonight, but it starts with Embiid for me…
Nikola Jokic- And it continues with Nikola Jokic, who is $8,300! What is happening? There was a few day long narrative last week that Joker was too chubby to be good anymore, and he responded by sinking back-to-back game winning buckets. This a player with legitimate triple-double upside, in a matchup with the Atlanta Hawks who rank bottom-three in defense to his position, and is barely over $8K? It makes no sense, and there is enough value on this slate that we can build around these three in our main lineups on DK. On FanDuel, however, you have to choose one of them .. and I lean towards Embiid for now even at an elevated price tag.
Value Plays
Cory Joseph- Cory Jo is the easiest value play on the slate for cash games today, he’s priced under $4,000 on both DraftKings and FanDuel and should be in line for a much larger workload with De’Aaron Fox sidelined. He never owns a massive ceiling, but we aren’t being asked to pay for one, and he has been around 0.75 fantasy points per minute over the last few seasons. We have him projected for 28 minutes, which should be plenty enough for him to comfortably beat value.
Tim Frazier- Frazier doesn’t project to play as many minutes as Joseph (for now), but he priced at the minimum price of $3,000 on DraftKings and was thrust into play this afternoon when we got word that Derrick Rose will sit out, while Bruce Brown is also questionable. Things can change if Brown also gets ruled out, but for now, we have Frazier slated to play 21 minutes against the Miami Heat. Similar to Joseph, he is not a huge upside play, but at 0.8 fantasy points per minute this season, I would be fine with around 16-17 fantasy points given his price. Fire up the stars and scrubs builds again today!
Philly Situation- Given the situation I discussed above with Embiid, we are going to have some value here if Ben Simmons is unable to play tonight. Raul Neto would start again, with Trey Burke backing him up, Josh Richardson will take over some ball-handling duties and we will have a more secure role for Furkan Korkmaz. If Simmons is out, all of these guys are in play for me for cash games, particularly Korkmaz, Neto and Richardson — if Simmons is in, I will likely only end up with Korkmaz who should be needed regardless due to the absence of Al Horford.
UPDATE: Simmons has been ruled in, while Trey Burke has been ruled out. I’m really only looking at Korkmaz from this group, but Simmons does become an interesting GPP play.
Tournament Plays
Kyrie Irving- Irving gets an extremely tough matchup on the road against an elite Utah Jazz defense, but all that should do is help keep his ownership down with Caris LeVert out. Irving sports a massive 33% usage rate without LeVert on the floor this season, and the Nets should be able to keep this game close enough that Irving is needed in the 4th quarter. Irving owns the second-highest usage rate in the league in the 4th quarter this season at 42.5%…
Bogdan Bogdanovic- Bogdanovic is an amazing tournament play tonight, with everyone focusing on jamming Cory Joseph. He owns a near 30% usage rate this season with De’Aaron Fox off the floor, and we have seen big fantasy games from him before. They priced him up enough that he won’t be a highly sought after option, but the upside is still there at his price and I plan on being overweight to him in GPPs.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
