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
Alperen Sengun
It’s always a good night when we get to fire up my boy Sengun, and I can confidently call him one of the top-overall options on Wednesday night. Sengun has been absolutely crushing as of late, he’s playing big minutes and the offense is going to run through him tonight with both Kevin Porter and Jalen Green out. He’s put up almost 50 points per game over his last three contests and the biggest thing for him is the minutes loads. He’s topped 35+ minutes in five of his last six games — the outlier being a 30 minute game vs Cleveland in a blowout. He averages almost 1.4 fantasy points per minute with KPJ/Green off the court — and should be able to feast against an under-sized Thunder front-court.
Precious Achiuwa
I’m going to double-center on DraftKings tonight, with Precious Achiuwa being a border-line must-play for me in all formats. OG Anunoby is still out for the Raptors — and Achiuwa has been logging huge minutes as of late. He’s topped 33+ minutes in five of his last six games, and Toronto will likely need him for 35+ tonight against a huge Utah front-court. He’s reached 30+ fantasy points in five of his last seven games, and he is still not priced according to his current role. Utah is vulnerable in the paint where most of his damage comes, and I think it could be another big game for Precious on Wednesday.
Value Plays
Eric Gordon
Gordon is going to be one of the highest-owned players on Wednesday’s slate, but it’s warranted with both Jalen Green and Kevin Porter Jr out for the Rockets. Gordon will draw another start for the Rockets tonight, and he’s actually been a monster with those two players off the floor this season. Across a 36 minute-span, he averages over 35 fantasy points per game and gets the largest usage rate increase on the team at over 9%! These are massive rates for someone priced in the $5,000 range and he will handle the majority of the ball-handling duties as well. It never feels good when Gordon is chalk, but I can’t argue the projection for his price tag.
Doug McDermott
We are pretty starved for value as it currently stands, which is leading to McDermott catching a 25% ownership tag. Both he and Jaylen Nowell are popping in terms of ownership, which shows how little value is currently available. McDermott is not a huge per minute producer, but he’s going to hoist up 4+ three pointers and if you catch him on the night he’s hot shooting he can pop off for his price. We have him projected for around 24 minutes tonight against the Kings. This is the perfect example of someone you can use in cash games, but I wouldn’t want him un GPPs at this expected OWN%.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)