Welcome in to Ben’s NBA DFS Building Blocks for DraftKings and FanDuel! In this article, I will highlight my favorite NBA DFS plays at each position for small-field tournament formats. If you’re interested in signing up for premium access, which grants you Core Plays for every slate, projections + expert picks and our premium Discord click HERE. You can also sign up for our plethora of AI-driven sports betting tools and access to my weekly betting card by clicking HERE. Let’s get into the plays…
Guard
Tyrese Haliburton
Hali needs no introduction, and the cover boy checks in as my preferred spend-up on Thursday evening. Indiana has been a factory of fantasy goodness this season, and they draw the Detroit Pistons tonight resulting in a ginormous 129 point team total. This is essentially the best possible match-up for him, and he’s averaging over 1.5 DraftKings points per minute this season. He was severely limited upon his return from injury, but should be ready to roll for a full allotment of minutes moving forward. We have him around 34 minutes tonight, which shouldn’t be an issue if this game remains remotely competitive. Expect a monster 20+/10+ game from Haliburton on Thursday.
Keyonte George
George will be arguably the highest-owned player on the slate tonight, but this is someone I view as good chalk given his price point. There’s not much value on the first game back from a week long break, and George feels very underpriced for his new role on this Jazz team.. He’s been starting and logging big minutes since the trade deadline — having played 30, 29, 33 and 41 minutes over his last four games. A few of those games included monster fantasy outputs, including a 54 DK point game against the Golden State Warriors. Now he draws an extremely soft match-up against a bad defensive Hornets team at home. Look for George to be one of the best point per dollar plays on both sites once again.
Forward
Bennedict Mathurin
As you can tell, the Pacers are a main target for me tonight against the Pistons. Mathurin is having a very solid sophomore campaign averaging just north of 0.9 fantasy points per minute. More importantly, he has a path to more secure minutes tonight. Mathurin is averaging 25.5 MPG this season, but we have him projected for around 29 tonight given that IND will be more thin on the wing than usual. Aaron NeSmith has been ruled out for tonight’s game, and he is averaging over 27 minutes per game this season — on top of that Buddy Hield was recently traded away before the deadline. These absences should lead for more minutes and an increase in per minute production / shot attempts making Mathurin one of the best-overall point per dollar plays on Thursday.
Center
Evan Mobley
Mobley is actually in a pretty tough match-up against a strong Orlando front-court, but appears underpriced for what his role should be in the second half of the season. JB Bickerstaff has already announced that he will no longer be on a minutes limit in his return from injury — thus we have him projected for north of 33 minutes on Thursday. This is a big increase from the upper-20’s he was seeing prior to their last game against the Bulls and is results in him grading out as one of the better F/C values on DK tonight. It’s also important to note he was finding his shooting stroke from deep prior to the ASB – meaning there could be a bit more upside here from his shot attempts.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
