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Hope everyone enjoyed March Madness as the Championship game did not disappoint. This week is a great week to be a sports fan as we have the Final 4, The Masters, baseball season starting and the NBA season nearing the finish line. Let me start out by saying tonight’s slate is brutal. Twelve games at this time of year in the NBA means we need to watch for news/lineups basically all night. There are games starting every half hour so it looks like a good night to build our lineups as the night goes on as I expect some late news to drop.
INJURIES
- Lebron James – Q
- Anthony Davis – Q
- Kyle Lowry – Q
- Zach Lavine – Q
- Jonas Valanciunas – Q
- Cole Anthony – D
- Malcolm Brogdon -D
- Franz Wagner – Q
- OG Anunoby – Q
- Goga Bitadze – Q
- Dillon Brooks – D
- Jalen Suggs – Q
- Bogdan Bogdanovic – Q
- Danilo Gallinari – Q
- Seth Curry – D
- PJ Tucker – Q
- Jaden McDaniels – D
- Caleb Martin – Q
- TJ McConnell – Q
- James Johnson – Q
- Dwayne Dedmon – Q
- Markieff Morris – Q
- Alex Len – Q
It’s April NBA and the news isn’t going to stop today with 12 games on the slate. Be ready to late swap as we should be able to bank on some solid low owned plays opening up after lock.
GUARDS
At Guard we have close to a lock button play in Tre Jones. The Spurs are without Dejounte Murray tonight (although there’s always the chance we get PoP’d) so a $4,000 Tre Jones looks like the best value on the slate. He should play 30+ minutes and is right around a fantasy point per minute producer with Murray off the court. He smashed in his last 2 games and I see no reason to try and fade him at this price point. Lock him in for cash games and tournaments. Another play that I’m hoping doesn’t get steamed up tonight is D’Angelo Russell. This is a price tag play as he’s all the way down to $6,400 on DK and gets to face a bad Wizards team. Russell is starting to see big minutes as he’s played 35 and 37 minutes the last two games. He produces well over a fantasy point per minute on the year so he just looks underpriced in this spot. A couple other tourney plays I’ll throw out are Fred VanVleet and Trae Young. I like correlating lineups as they face off against each other and have historically had success against one another. Trae put up 66 and 50 fantasy points in his last two match-ups with Toronto and VanVleet has averaged 1.25 fantasy points per minute versus Atlanta this year. I’ll be stacking those two in a number of lineups this evening.
FORWARDS
Forward has some great spend up options but not much I like value-wise. Aleksej Pokusevski is my favorite play at Forward in a game with the Blazers that OKC is actually favored in. “Poku” is getting big minutes of late and produces at a rate of 1.16 fantasy points per minute with Shai and company off the floor. He’s priced reasonably at $6,700 but there is big upside here if he sees 35 minutes. He looks like a fine play for cash games and tournaments tonight. If looking to spend up at Forward tonight you really can’t go wrong with Giannis or Durant. They are priced within $200 of each other, in cash games Giannis looks like the play, but in tournaments with Giannis garnering double the ownership I don’t mind pivoting to a single digit owned Durant in a great match-up with the Rockets. If Houston can keep this game close, Durant could have another monster game coming off a 72 fantasy point outing.
CENTER
Center is loaded as always with Jokic and Embiid again on the slate. They are the two highest priced plays on the board and with good reason. Jokic has 5 straight games of 70 fantasy points, so obviously he’s a great play even at a $12,500 price tag. We just need some more value to open up to get Jokic into lineups. For cash games Anthony Davis looks fine at $9,000 with Lebron ruled out. AD has been at 1.44 fantasy points per minute with Lebron off the floor but the issue is he’s most likely going to be chalky in a match-up with the Suns. It kinda feels like the Lakers have thrown in the towel on their season as they are 2 games back of even making the play-in tournament. I could see a Suns blowout in this spot so I’m expecting to be underweight on AD in tournaments tonight. One last GPP Center play I like tonight is Jakob Poeltl. With Murray off the floor Poeltl produces at a rate of 1.12 fantasy points per minute. The Spurs are fighting for their playoff lives and they face the Nuggets and Nikola Jokic, so I’m expecting Poeltl to be needed for a few extra minutes tonight. Also, the Spurs already seem to be extending the minutes of the starters to try and make the playoffs so I can see Poeltl getting up to 34 minutes tonight. He’s priced at a discounted $6,600 tag and ownership projections have him at 1% owned. For large field GPPs tonight I love getting overweight on Poeltl in this spot.
It’s a huge slate and I’m still digging in as their are an endless amount of options for tournaments. I’m expecting a lot of news to drop so don’t get too married to any play on this slate. Hopefully we can close out this NBA Season with a bink!
Cash Plays: Tre Jones, D’Angelo Russell, Aleksej Pokusevski, Anthony Davis
GPP Plays: Trae Young, Fred VanVleet, Tyler Herro, Kevin Durant, Jakob Poeltl
Max
