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

Ja Morant

Morant is the top spend-up on tonight’s slate for me, and gets a nice boost with Desmond Bane out for the Memphis Grizzlies. Obviously the supplementary guys for Memphis get a boost with a player like Bane off the floor — but Morant has actually seen a major increase in production with him off the court this season. Morant averages around 1.48 DK points per minute this season, a number that spikes to nearly 1.65 if you take Bane off the floor. Not only is he better per minute, but his usage rate gets up to 40%! I like this match-up, and I think he’s a no-brainer play in all formats tonight.

Lauri Markannen

I don’t LOVE this play, but this is a smaller slate with limited options especially at Small Forward. Markannen was as average as it gets for the Cavs last season, but is in full breakout mode for the Utah Jazz this season. He has strung together some monster fantasy games already, and ranks second on the team in usage rate while being first in per minute production. New York has not been the slow, strong defensive this year that we are accustomed to. They currently rank top-ten in pace, and 24th in defensive rating as a team. Overall, it’s actually an above-average match-up and Lauri is ranking as out second-highest raw points projection tonight behind only Paul George.

Value Plays

Jarred Vanderbilt

Sticking with the Utah Jazz theme, Vanderbilt is one of the better value plays currently on the slate and is actually inside the top-three in our Projections Poral projected ownership as of right now. He’s been a point per minute fantasy player this season, and is projected for upper-20’s in minutes tonight against the Knicks. Not only has New York struggled defensively, but they’ve really struggled to rebound the ball without Mitch Robinson and that’s Vanderbilt’s specialty. I don’t think $4,700 is true value, but for cash games this is what we’re working with as of now. He isn’t a must play in GPPs, but you can do worse in cash games / single entry builds.

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. 

Kevin Durant

Ja Morant is my priority on other sites tonight, and I’m unsure if you’ll be able to fit in multiple stars into your build. Pricing has been a bit looser on OwnersBox, which has be also focused on Kevin Durant. Sacremento is a terrible defensive team, and this game is separated by just 1.5 points on the spread. Durant has been a force with Kyrie Irving out — and has topped 55+ fantasy points in each of his last three games. If this game stays close, he will most likely be having a huge night so stacking him up with one or two Kings players makes sense in your tournament builds.

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)