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
Zach LaVine
LaVine will be no secret tonight against the Pacers — he currently owns a massive 33% ownership projection in our Projections Portal which makes him one of the highest-owned options on the slate. Mostly, that’s due to the absence of DeMar DeRozan which increases his ceiling projection and overall output. He averages just south of 1.2 fantasy points per minute with DeRozan off the court this season, to go along with a huge 32% usage rate. It’s a strong match-up as well against Indiana, who is a bottom-five defensive team. Overall, I’m fine with him at this ownership and he is hard to avoid on a main team on either site.
Mid-Tier Centers AGAIN
Once again we have the same situation we’ve had since the trade deadline with Mark Williams and Zach Collins popping as high-owned options in the mid-tier. These guys price-tags have come up, but not enough to push them out of cash game consideration. To make matters better, they face off against each other in the highest-total of the night — 243.5. There should be plenty of offense in this game, and I think individually it’s a great spot for both of them. Pairing them together in cash games will be a popular build on DK, so pivoting to a high-priced center in tournaments is a great way to differentiate your build. You can also pivot off Collins to his teammate Charles Bassey for lower-ownership in your GPP builds.
Value Plays
Ayo Dosunmu
Obviously all of the Bulls get a bump with no DeRozan, but they also have Goran Dragic and Alex Caruso listed as questionable tonight. Dosunmu is already popping in our Projections Portal as a high-owned option and that’s with Caruso still projected in. We have Ayo around 32 minutes and over 25% ownership, numbers that will increase even further if Caruso is ruled out. Regardless, he’s a fine play in cash games on both sites.
We got some Boston news already, but I will likely be interested in Grant Williams for value if he’s ruled in. Stay tuned to Final Thoughts and the Core Plays for that decision.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
