The Core
Luka Doncic- Every year DraftKings sends you a review email right before the start of the season, detailing your best lineup, average score and most-owned player. My most-owned player for 2018 was Luka Doncic, and that hasn’t changed a bit this season, especially with their stubbornness to continue pricing him under $10,000. Doncic has shown that he might be the most valuable young player in the entire NBA, and he has averaged over 1.7 DraftKings points per minute this season on the back of a 33% usage rate. This is not the same, grind you out, strong defensive Spurs team of years past. They rank bottom-ten in defensive rating and I don’t think they will be able to slow him down on Monday night. He’s my top overall play on the slate.
Spencer Dinwiddie- Dinwiddie was already going to be in my main lineup on both sites, but his ownership is set to rise significantly now that Kyrie Irving is also out for the Brooklyn Nets tonight, in addition to Caris LeVert. The Nets will be starved for offense tonight with those two players missing, and if you take them both off the floor this season, Dinwiddie owns a monster 39% usage rate with over 1.1 fantasy points per minute across nearly 90 minutes.
Tristan Thompson (DK)- Thompson is correctly priced on FanDuel, so he isn’t a “must play” for me there, but on DraftKings, it will be tough to avoid him at only $5,600. TT was up to over $7,000 just 8 days ago, and now gets the benefit of playing without Kevin Love (and Larry Nance). Thompson has been a point per minute player with Love and Nance off the floor this season, and should be expected to log heavy minutes tonight due to how thin the frontcourt is.
Note: With the news that Domantas Sabonis is in for the Pacers, I am adding him to my core section as well and he is one of my favorite plays on both sites.
Value Plays
Aaron Holiday- This is probably the easiest and highest-owned value play on the slate with Jeremy Lamb, TJ McConnell and Malcolm Brogdon all out for the Pacers. Holiday started the Pacers last game and played 34 minutes, while he played 28 the game before that with Brogdon playing 9 and McConnell playing 22. It’s clear that he should be needed for over 30 minutes of action tonight, and he has been around 0.8 fantasy points per minute this season — more than enough to project exceeded value.
Dzanan Musa- Musa logged 29 minutes in the Nets last game — which was also played without Kyrie Irving and Caris LeVert. He isn’t going to give you huge point per minute production, but he comfortably topped 20 fantasy points and he should be locked into a similar role tonight. At only $3,600 on DraftKings and the minimum of $3,500 on FanDuel, he is one of the better punt plays on Monday evening.
Danuel House- House is probably for tonight’s game after being out since the 11th. Prior to the game where he got injured, House had logged 30+ minutes in four of five games with fantasy totals 25 or more in all of the game where he exceeded 30 minutes…keep in mind this was when Eric Gordon was still playing. I guess you could worry about the minutes with him just coming back from injury, but the Rockets should welcome him back with open arms and he is cheap enough for me to consider him in all formats.
Cavs Value- Nance being out also affects some of the forwards, with both Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr projecting for more minutes tonight per our NBA Data Dashboard. Both are cheap enough to be used in all formats, but if I had to pick one it would probably be Osman who is a bit more trustworthy to me than a raw rookie like Porter Jr.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
