The Core
LeBron James- Wednesday night presents us with another slate that will have a heavy focus on stars and scrubs roster construction. There are a ton of injuries across the full set of games, giving us an abundance of value and the ability to easily prioritize LeBron James who will be playing without Anthony Davis. The Golden State Warriors have pretty much been the worst defense in the NBA this season, and LeBron will have free reign to demolish them in every way possible with nobody other than Kyle Kuzma (?) to steal big usage away from him. He’s averaging nearly 1.75 fantasy points per minute without AD on the floor this season, and we should expect a vintage King James performance tonight.
Karl-Anthony Towns (DK)- So, the core gets a bit messy for me tonight because we have so much value, you can basically pair whoever you want with LeBron on your main team. On FanDuel, however, you can only play one Center and KAT doesn’t come at as big of a discount as he does on DraftKings. It’s no surprise given how DK has priced things this season, but Towns is listed at just $9,300 tonight against the Spurs. Is the matchup great? Not really, but I don’t often weight matchup as heavily as other factors such as usage and point per minute production. If you want to feel better about the matchup, though, the Spurs are outside the top-15 in defensive efficiency against opposing center’s this season. He’s been one of the best fantasy players in the entire NBA so far in 2019, and I will take 80+ Dk point upside at this price all night long.
On FanDuel, Towns isn’t going to be in my “core” most likely — see below — but is better suited for GPPs. James Harden or D’Angelo Russell are the next most likely spend ups for me alongside James
HUGE NOTE: WE HAVE NO IDEA IF KAWHI LEONARD IS GOING TO PLAY TONIGHT. IF HE ENDS UP GETTING RULED OUT, IT’S LIKELY LOU WILLIAMS, MONTREZL HARRELL OR BOTH ENTERS MY CORE SECTION. BE SURE TO MONITOR NEWS.
Value Plays
Kyle Kuzma- I’m not going to go into a ton of detail here because its pretty clear why Kyle Kuzma is an elite value play tonight. He’s a way better player than his price indicates, hes’s been priced down both due to Anthony Davis and due to his minutes limit, both of which won’t play a factor tonight. As you know, AD is out, and the Lakers have given him 25, 24 and 25 minutes in three straight games, a number that should rise closer to 27-28 tonight.
Ben McLemore- McLemore is not a sexy fantasy option by any means, nor does he boast a huge ceiling, but he is $100 off the minimum price and our Data Dashboard has him projected for 27 minutes tonight with Eric Gordon and Danuel House out for Houston. Hoping for 15 fantasy points isn’t that big of a stretch — he’s around 0.6 FPPM this season — and this allows you to possibly get another stud in alongside James and Towns on DraftKings.
Jaren Jackson Jr- The biggest issue with JJJ has always been his tremendous ability to rack up fouls, which he has avoided the last two games resulting in 30 and 38 minutes…32 and 44 fantasy points. Charlotte has been crushed by big men this season, and despite the strong games DraftKings has kept Jackson under $5K…a salary that we know he has the ability to smash should he stay out of foul trouble again this evening.
Robert Williams (FD)- Williams is one of my favorite obscure players to watch in the NBA. He also is really good for fantasy when he gets the minutes, and that could be the case tonight with Daniel Theis out and Enes Kanter just returning from injury. He’s posted over 1.25 FPPM this season, and he currently grades out as the best value option on FanDuel tonight per our Data Dashboard, priced at just $3,900. There’s a lot of positional flexibility with the value on DK so he isn’t a must, but it’s hard to ignore his price on FanDuel especially when we want to get in LeBron first and foremost.
Raptors- The Raptors are one of the most banged up teams in the league right now with Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka and OG Anunoby all out tonight. The main targets here are going to be Chris Boucher and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, who will be desperately needed in the frontcourt. Jefferson has much more stable minutes, so if choosing just one I would ideally like to land on him, but Boucher has been a PPM beast this season and we should expect at least 22-23 minutes from him tonight. Fred VanVleet is also still a great option with Lowry out, but RHJ and Boucher are two of the top values on this slate for all formats.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
