Welcome to our NBA DFS Building Blocks article! Each day, we will dissect injury news and breakdown our favorite plays at each position. We also provide Core Plays nightly for our subscribers, as well as projections and a premium discord channel. You can sign up for access to today’s Core Plays and projections by clicking HERE — and can get access to a single day pass for just $5 HERE. Now, let’s get into today’s slate…
INJURIES
In addition to players already ruled out, we have some massive Q tags tonight including Karl-Anthony Towns, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson. Whether or not these players are ruled in or out can completely re-shape this slate so if you plan on playing tonight be sure you can follow close to lock news.
GUARDS
Guard is pretty open for me in optimal builds tonight — as we have quality options across the pricing tiers. Donovan Mitchell is the top spend-up, Kevin Porter Jr is a great mid-tier option and we have Kris Dunn for value. Mitchell is arguably the top spend-up tonight, in a great match-up vs Charlotte. This is a really good pace-up spot for the Jazz, and Mitchell has continued to smash without Bojan Bogdanovic. Charlotte has struggled at times this season to defend the three, and Mitchell has grown more confident in his shooting stroke as the season has gone on. He isn’t overly expensive at $9,000, and one of the top plays in all formats for me tonight. If you plan on playing Mitchell, I would recommend getting some correlation on the opposite side of the game with Lamelo Ball. Ball has been one of the most consistent fantasy producers over the last month and is top-four in total touches over the last five games.
Speaking of touch leaders — Jordan Poole has completely taken over for the Warriors without Steph Curry. Poole is coming in pretty low-owned in terms of projected OWN%, and that makes him a priority play for me. He is taking 19 shot attempts per game over the last five games, up six from season-average.
FORWARDS
Forward is the most uneasy position for me as of now, with no clear standout play. A lot of this will come down to how injury news breaks, and we could get some nice value opening up here. For now, Jae’Sean Tate sticks out as the top cheap play, in a great match-up with the Blazers. Both Houston and Portland are terrible defensive teams, so this game could go one of two ways. There could be tons of fantasy goodness, or the bad offenses could win-out and it’s an ugly game all-around. I don’t think I would want to game stack two terrible teams, but grabbing one or two pieces for a mini-correlation is playable in all formats.
CENTER
Center comes in with some hefty ownership projections on some of the more expensive options. Our highest projected owned option right now is Kristaps Porzingis, who benefits from no Kyle Kuzma for Washington. Porzingis was one of my favorite plays yesterday, citing his major increase in per minute production with Kuzma off the floor. He didn’t have a great game, but the Wizards got boat-raced from the start of that game and were never in it. This is a better match-up, but with it being a back-to-back + little to play for I would want confirmation he is starting and good to go here.
My favorite center would actually be Bam Adebayo if Jimmy Butler gets ruled out. Bam has posted over 1.3 fantasy points per minute this season with Butler off the floor. He would be my top option here contingent on that news breaking. Should Butler play, I would be focused on the injury news. We would be getting top value plays at this position if one or both of Towns/Randle are ruled out.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
