My Core
Karl-Anthony Towns- This slate is headed towards chalk city after a massive four team trade went down late last night, leaving the Wolves and Nuggets shorthanded for tonight’s game. Not only will the Wolves be without Jeff Teague, Shabazz Napier and Robert Covington — they also face one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA…the Atlanta Hawks. This game easily features the highest O/U on the night at 239 with the Wolves taking up a massive 121 of that. If you take those three players off the floor you will see Towns usage rate and per minute production both see a nice increase, which can be boosted even more against the team that allows the most DK points per game to Center’s this season. His price was hiked up above $10,000, but that’s not enough to keep me away tonight.
Nikola Jokic- If you though the Wolves situation was bad, here’s what the Nuggets are dealing with tonight:
- Will Barton (Q)
- Jerami Grant (Q)
- Paul Millsap (OUT)
- Mason Plumlee (OUT)
- Michael Porter Jr (Doubtful)
- Juancho Hernangomez, Malik Beasley (OUT, traded)
So, yeah, they are going to be thin. This is not a great matchup, but Joker is going to have to play all the minutes he can handle and he has been on an absolute tear of late. Over his last eight games, Jokic has posted 50+ DraftKings points six times with the two outlier games being 43 and 49. It’s not normal that I’m locking in two high-priced players back-to-back, but this slate screams stars and scrubs and it feels like he should be $500-700 more expensive.
Kristaps Porzingis- Can you see the stars and scrubs yet? Porzingis was in this exact column on Monday when he responded with 59 DraftKings points. Luka Doncic is out once again tonight, and Zinger has topped 50 DK points in every game he has missed this season…yet he remains priced at just $8,300. I will continue to ride with him until Doncic returns and I cannot see fading him in cash games on Wednesday night.
Value Plays
Timberwolves + Torrey Craig- As I pointed out above, both of these teams will need guys to log minutes tonight and it opens up tons of value in DFS. Jarrett Culver, Josh Okogie, Kelan Martin and Jordan McLaughlin are all strong plays in all formats (in that order) for the Wolves while Craig is a near lock for me even if we don’t get news on Barton/Grant before lock at 7.
Caris LeVert- LeVert was in the value section of this article on Monday, was not highly-owned, and responded with a monster 45 DK point game in 32 minutes of action. I pointed out that he boasts the second-highest usage rate on the team after Spencer Dinwiddie with Kyrie Irving off the floor, and he is still under-priced now that we know he can log over 30 minutes.
Reggie Jackson- I never like to play chalk Reggie Jackson, but it’s hard to avoid him with Derrick Rose out once again. He was a game-time decision on Monday and ended up shooting just 1-16 from the floor, which explains his poor performance, and I think it’s obvious he can crush his price tag if a few more of those shots fall tonight.
Note: It seems like with the value everyone will be on the same build in GPPs, so pivoting off some of the chalk plays like Culver and Okogie make sense in tournaments — while DeAndre Ayton seems like a smash play going up against the swiss cheese defense of Andre Drummond.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
