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
We have a small three game slate on tap for Saturday, which results in limited injury news to monitor. Trae Young is listed as Questionable which will be the biggest news to drop. Seth Curry is also listed Q, with Goran Dragic and Bruce Brown already ruled out for the Nets. Young getting ruled in or out will affect the slate greatly, and once we receive that news we can begin to build what we perceive to be optimal lineups.
GUARDS
Without knowing the true status of Trae Young, I will once again be focused on Jordan Poole for the Golden State Warriors. I’ve written a ton recently about how Poole has completely taken over for the Warriors without Steph Curry, and for some reason, DraftKings decreased his price tag. Last time out, Poole was priced at $8,200 and responded with 64 DK points…but is now priced $7,200 against the Jazz. For the season, he owns a 25% usage rate but that number jumps to 30% with Curry off the floor. Furthermore, that number is approaching 32% over the last five games. His shot attempts per game are way up as well, and he has a strong case for top play on the slate.
FORWARDS
the F spot is tough tonight, and I think what I do here for my main team will be contingent on the Trae Young injury news. We would obviously get spikes for the supplementary Hawks players and they would become must-plays in all formats. If he’s ruled in, I like Kevin Durant as my top stud-level player tonight, fitting with my strategy to ride the stars that are in must-win games as the season winds down. We also have another Warriors player, Otto Porter, rating as a strong value in our projections. Porter has actually been a point per minute player this season for the Dubs, and has logged 27 and 29 minutes over his last two games. If Young is ruled in, I would likely side with Porter as my top value here in a hope to stuff in Durant alongside Poole.
CENTER
I love the mid-tier at Center today, starting with Andre Drummond against the Atlanta Hawks. I’ve been regularly playing Drummond over the last week and a half and he’s been churning out some big time fantasy performances given his price. Over his last four games, he’s averaging 37 fantasy points per game but remains priced at $6,000 on DraftKings. The Hawks play a bigger frontcourt which will play more into the style of Drummond’s play, and he gets a boost from the Nets injury situation as well. Nobody on the team sees a bigger usage rate bump with Bruce Brown off the floor than Drummond, and he will see a spike in rebounding numbers as well. I like him in all formats tonight in a game the Nets have to win.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
