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
As I noted last week, we are to the point in the season where creating content gets very tricky. Injury news is going to be plentiful, and a lot of it will come closer to lock after articles have been posted. This is why it’s advantageous to sign up for our premium product! I’m always in Discord and available to update thoughts on stuff when news breaks close to lock. For now, a lot of big news has already dropped for this slate. Boston is resting their main guys in addition to Al Horford and Robert Williams being out. In addition to that, the Thunder are without SGA and most likely Darius Bazley as well. News also broke today that quite a few Blazers players will be out for the remainder of the season. There are some miscellaneous Q tags as well, so be sure to stay tuned to Discord for any updates.
GUARDS
You’ll notice that the common theme of tonight’s slate is the Thunder, Blazers and Celtics as I alluded to in the injury blurb. That kicks off here at Guard with both of Theo Maledon and Tre Mann sticking out as top value plays. These two are the team-leaders in fantasy point per minute production with their injured players off the floor, around 1.1 fantasy points per minute each. Payton Pritchard is sticking out at just $3,900 for the Celtics as well. They haven’t ruled out either of Marcus Smart or Derrick White, but those two players are much more crucial to the teams playoff success than Pritchard is. Both Smart and White are viable GPP options, but Pritchard is likely to get steamed in cash games at his price.
We also have Caris LeVert sticking out for the Cavs. His time with the Cavs got off to a rocky start, but he has now had his minutes limit lifted. We can expect 30+ minutes tonight in a game the Cavs do need to win. I think Smart has a higher ceiling if he gets the minutes, but LeVert is probably the safer cash game selection.
FORWARDS
Forward is more of the same with Aleksej Pokusevski, Keon Johnson and CJ Elleby catching high early ownership projections. Poku has the highest ceiling there and I’m most comfortable eating chalk there on both sites as opposed to the Blazers guys. That being said, Greg Brown (see below) would take a jump above the aforementioned Blazers if he’s ruled in. Jonathan Kuminga is my favorite forward tonight on both sites with the Warriors likely to be down all of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Kuminga has shown per minute ability this season, and he can really take over in these games the Dubs are thin. He is a lock for me in all formats as of right now.
There’s so much value tonight and not a ton of places to spend it outside of Trae Young and Nikola Jokic. Jimmy Butler is probably the top spend up at this position, but he isn’t someone I’d like to roster outside of large-field GPPs. Young and Jokic will be the priorities in cash games so you’re going to be naturally low-ownership on most other star-level players on Monday.
CENTER
Center is dominated by the Blazers situation, with Drew Eubanks expected to log heavy minutes again tonight. He could get some relief if Greg Brown is ruled in, which would make both strong plays in all formats. Brown is obviously cheap, but Eubanks is worth his mid-tier price tag as well. He’s basically been a point per minute player over the last few weeks, and his minutes are pretty much the most secure on the team. It’s a strong match-up as well, the only issue here is this game is way after lock so we aren’t going to know the status of Brown when we finalize builds.
With all of the potential value, jamming in Nikola Jokic against the Hornets is in play for all formats. Charlotte is one of the worst rebounding teams in the league, and there is no player on this slate that can rival the raw ceiling of Joker. He is the top play in all formats on Monday.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
