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…
Injury’s to Monitor
Brandon Ingram (out)-
Domantas Sabonis (out)-
LeBron James (Q)-
Jimmy Butler (Q)-
D’Angelo Russell / Anthony Edwards (Q)-
Anfernee Simons(out)-
Christian Wood (Q)-
Will Barton(Q)-
Guard
Truly massive slate on tap for Wednesday night, which is going to leave my player pool a bit beefier than usual. For starters, we have several stud-level players in amazing spots. Luka Doncic is on a tear, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can’t stop scoring, and we have both De’Aaron Fox and CJ McCollum getting boosted due to injuries on their respective teams. How I’m personally going to build on this slate is focusing on these elite ceilings at the top of Guard, and then siding with the mid-tier and value type players at Forward and Center. It’s no exaggeration that Doncic has probably the highest non-Jokic ceiling on this slate, but it’s going to come down to if we value him significantly higher than the other three names I typed above. McCollum is my favorite of the bunch, and he will once again benefit from the absence of Brandon Ingram. He’s averaging over 1.5 DK points per minute since joining New Orleans with Ingram off the floor — and wasn’t needed for major minutes last night due to a blowout. I’m personally going to plug him into my build first.
SGA vs Fox is the next conversation for me — clearly Gilgeous-Alexander has the higher-ceiling, but we save $1,000 by dropping to Fox. Fox gets a boost with Sabonis out tonight due to suspension — while SGA has been feasting with no Josh Giddey for the Thunder. For now I’m going to lean with SGA over Fox slightly, but it will ultimately come down to roster construction.
If you’re looking for a mid-tier PG play — look no further than Brandon Williams with Anfernee Simons out again. Williams price has shot up since his game on Monday, but he has been a team leader in usage rate with McCollum, Simons and Nurkic off the floor.
Forward
As I noted above, I like the mid-tier and cheap plays at this position and that starts with Marvin Bagley at $5,000. Bagley has a huge opportunity here with Isaiah Stewart out, and is coming off a game where he played 36 minutes. Chicago is a lackluster paint defense as I noted in Monday’s article and Bagley is tops on the Pistons in paint touches behind Stewart. He has a really nice ceiling for his price tag, and I hope that the want to build stars and scrubs leaves him overlooked. Outside of Bagley we have Harrison Barnes and Herb Jones who are getting the same injury boosts as Fox and McCollum. Jones has been coming on in recent weeks and with no Ingram our Projections Portal is projecting him for over 30 minutes. He’s arguably my top value play on tonight’s slate.
Center
Center is going to feature the highest-owned value play on the slate — and that’s Damian Jones who is projected to start in place of Domantas Sabonis. Knowing the Kings, I would like that confirmation that he is starting, but as long as he is he will be tough to avoid in all formats at his price. Outside of Jones, Jonas Valanciunas is picking up ownership with Ingram out — even after his dud last night. I think he’s a fine play, but one I will be fading at high-ownership due to a mediocre match-up and no true per minute boost with Ingram off the floor. I would actually prefer pivoting to his opponent, Wendell Carter Jr, in all formats.
Carter is enjoying a breakout season for the Magic, and is the top per minute player on his team. He has a higher projected ceiling than Jo Val, and is someone I’m more comfortable with as a mini-correlation with my McCollum + Herb Jones stack.
Main Lineup Musts: CJ McCollum, Marvin Bagley, Herb Jones, Damian Jones
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
