Welcome into the Saturday edition of TFantasy Basketball Top Plays and Fades! We have a four game slate tonight with some big names already out and others returning from suspension.
Let’s get this slate started off right with a few things. One, thank you for reading again because Friday night was basically terrifying. Not much went right, and those days do tend to happen in DFS. The goal is to just have far less of them and we’re going to try to right the ship today with our Fantasy Basketball Top Plays!
Two, the Sixers have already ruled out Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiid and Wilson Chandler while this is the first time we have the Pacers on a slate without(sadly) Victor Oladipo. There are going to be a ton of minutes to go around, and if you play cash, playing up to four Sixers might be totally viable. Most of the Sixers value will likely be mentioned throughout, but we start with the use have in just about any format tonight.
Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Point Guard
Top Play – Ben Simmons, Sixers
The price tag would generally make me shy away from Simmons but we got word about Butler and Embiid before the slate was put out, so he is basically priced accordingly for his role tonight. This is pretty simple to break down because this will be the Simmons Show without those two players and in the sample size we have, he’s been excellent in this situation so far.
With everyone off the floor, Simmons is garnering a large 1.34 FPPM to go along with a 27.9 percent usage. I’ll be honest, I thought the usage rate might be a little higher but it is a massive 5.3 percent bump over what he sees normally. The FPPM is basically the same but there’s ceiling for more given Embiid and Butler aren’t coming back on the court tonight. It’s entirely possible Simmons is the highest owned player on the slate.
Honorable Mention – Damian Lillard, Blazers or you can double up on FanDuel with TJ McConnell for Philly
Fade – Trae Young, Hawks
This one isn’t quite the same case for both sites because on DraftKings, Young is a little bit better priced and I can make the case that he’s still in play on that site. However, FD the pricing is very different and he’s more expensive than Jamal Murray of the Nuggets. I will give in and say the floor does seem a little safer from the start of the year and the minutes have slowly crawled back up. I just don’t believe there is much of a ceiling tonight.
With Young, you really need him to have a double-double for him to pay off the price. That is a possibility but the Blazers are only giving up the ninth fewest assists to point guards through the league. Portland is near the bottom of the league in steals per game, but Damian Lillard might have an outlier game with steals because Young is third in turnovers per game. The only two ahead of him are Russell Westbrook and James Harden who do plenty to not worry about the turnovers. Young isn’t on that level and he’s much more likely to end on 30-35 fantasy points.
Honorable Mention – Mike Conley, Grizzlies
Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Shooting Guard
Top Play – CJ McCollum, Blazers
I’m highly interested in Aaron Holiday of the Pacers, since he’s going to get some playing time now that Oladipo is out for the season. I would reserve him for GPP only, and risky at that because he still could only see about 12-15 minutes. Instead, we welcome McCollum into this space for one of the first times all season. It seems like McCollum has maybe, possibly started to make the turn this year and maybe is adapting to the role with sharing the floor with Lillard almost exclusively. Over the past four games, McCollum has scored at least 20 real points and would have approached 30 this past game had they not blown out the Suns. That capped the Blazers guard at just 25 minutes, but he was over 1.0 FPPM in those minutes.
Those same blowout concerns do carry into tonight, because the Hawks are in Portland but the spread is just 10.5 points(it could have been higher) and the total is within two points of the Warriors/Celtics game. The Hawks are stone worst in fantasy points per game to the shooting guard position which includes the most real points. If there’s every a spot for McCollum to shoot the lights out and have a ceiling game, this is it and the price is still very reasonable given his mediocre production on the season overall.
Honorable Mention – Andre Iguodala, Warriors
Fade – Klay Thompson, Warriors
DeMarcus Cousins has been back for three games and we’ve seen it have a dramatic effect on Thompson in two of them. Yes, the other game was a massive game for Thompson because the man hit 10 straight three pointers. Considering that is an NBA record, we can safely say that’s an outlier. The other two games, Thompson has totaled 21 points. That’s it, that’s the list. One of the reasons for that is Cousins himself. It’s a very small sample size of under 20 minutes, but when Steph Curry and Kevin Durant are both off the floor, Cousins has a usage over 35 percent while Thompson is under 25 percent. It seems to be a harbinger of what is ahead for Thompson.
On top of the new concerns of playing with a usage hog and FPPM master in Cousins, Thompson will likely have to deal with Marcus Smart for a large portion of this game. Smart has a good reputation as a very good defender and the net rating backs it up. He sits at a career high +8.1 while on the court, which means he has every chance to limit Thompson. There’s too many factors for me to feel comfortable with Thompson tonight.
Honorable Mention – Justin Holiday, Grizzlies
Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Small Forward
Top Play – J.J. Redick, Sixers
I said I might be heavy Sixers given the situation tonight but I think it’s possible that my second player in after Simmons might just be Redick. Yes, the matchup doesn’t look great on paper. Denver is a good defensive team and it could potentially be easier to defend this team without Butler and Embiid but there’s still going to be shots that need taken tonight. Redick should be on the forefront of that because Simmons isn’t exactly the most prolific shooter in the association. As a matter or fact, Simmons has not attempted a three pointer all season long. One of the main sources of perimeter shooting is going to be Redick.
It is fair to note that the Nuggets only allow the second fewest three-point attempts in the league and the second lowest field goal percentage on those shots. This isn’t exactly a spot that I would normally chase, but sometimes volume trumps all other factors and since Simmons is not necessarily a shooter first, Redick should get plenty of looks. Sign me up.
Honorable Mention – Taurean Prince, Hawks
Fade – Tyreke Evans, Pacers
This is a very calculated fade, because Evan is bound to be popular in the absence of Oladipo. In cash, I might just lock him in and take my lumps if he has a bad game because a good chunk of the field will have the same game that I get. In GPP, he’s probably a good player to get away from because the ceiling isn’t exactly there for him, despite, his usage rate of near 30 percent and 1.04 FPPM without Oladipo on the floor.
So far, the Pacers have been without Oladipo for 11 games with previous injuries. In those 11 games, Evans is averaging 10.4/3.5/3.1 which really isn’t that great. The better play by the numbers would be Darren Collison, who sits at 9.7/4.0/8.0 in those same 11 games. If I get the feeling that Evans will be chalky tonight, it’s really a great time to fade.
Honorable Mention – DeAndre’ Bembry, Hawks
Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Power Forward
Top Play – Al-Farouq Aminu, Blazers
If it seems like I’m picking on the Hawks…well, it’s because I am. Realistically, why wouldn’t you want to pick on the Hawks? They’re super young, play at a very high pace, lead the league in turnovers which creates opportunity in transition, etc…they’re really the perfect package in fantasy when they can manage to stay in a game. That last part remains to be seen, but Aminu is simply priced too low on DK especially at just $4,500. He only needs 27 DK points to hit 6x and that should be well within reach tonight.
The minutes have been a bit of a roller coaster this season and the usage is buried under 14 percent. He’s just never going to be a high usage player but the FPPM is still respectable at 0.83 on the year. If he plays 28-30 minutes in this type of pace, he should easily scorch his price tag and Atlanta is the worst team against power forwards in basketball. He should be able to rack up a couple steals to inflate his total, making him a great play this evening.
Honorable Mention – Draymond Green, Warriors
Fade – Thad Young, Pacers
The big man for the Pacers is coming off a huge game of over 50 fantasy points last game and the price has jumped accordingly. Young has stayed virtually the exact same when Oladipo has been off the floor this year, so we’re not chasing an uptick in production by playing him. What we are chasing is the game log and the perception that Young is better without Oladipo, which hasn’t been the case by the numbers so far.
Not only does Young have those factors working against him, the Grizzlies matchup is flat-out terrible. They give up the least DK points, least real points and the fifth fewest rebounds across the league. I’d just rather not chase a big game in a bad matchup when other people might give the circumstances (the price on DK is a lot more fair than FD).
Honorable Mention – Jaren Jackson, Jr., Grizzlies
Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Center
Top Play – Nikola Jokic, Nuggets
I would really recommend giving the Ringer NBA Show podcast from Friday a listen if you like Jokic. They interviewed him on that show and he was pretty fun to listen to. If you were looking on this page for someone else but the Joker for the top play, tough cookies. I wrote him up yesterday but wasn’t able to use him because of a one game suspension, so the good news is he’s fresh for tonight. He’s drawing a Philly team that won’t have Embiid, so he should destroy them in any way he chooses, with his normal triple double upside.
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Any stat that Philly carries into this matchup against centers can be thrown right into the trash. The Sixers have literally nobody that can hang with Jokic down low or swing out to try to guard him at the three-point line. He might be my favorite stud on the entire slate, I just hope we get the Jokic that shoots and is aggressive. That’s the only fear when you play him is he’s too passive.
Honorable Mention – Myles Turner, Pacers
Fade – None
I have to be honest, none of the centers on this slate look like full fades. You can make a string case for Jusuf Nurkic, given the weakness of the Atlanta front court and in the paint. He is very pricey and has had a habit of letting me down when I play him, but that’s not a reason to fade a player.
Marc Gasol and Myles Turner could both very easily have very solid games, but keep an eye on Gasol. He’s been battling injuries and there would at least be some potential he sits out. Al Horford, DeMarcus Cousins, Dewayne Dedmon and Kevon Looney are all at fair prices that don’t warrant a full fade. I’m likely just locking in Jokic and moving on with this spot.
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