NBA DFS picks August 9: A Harden day’s night

NBA DFS forward plays:

The thing that stands out at forward is Paul George. He was providing the same as Kawhi anyway. Now with Kawhi out, George is definitely worth the price. He’s an absolute steal on FanDuel.

Denver and the Clippers barely contained a revitalized Jusuf Nurkic. Good luck Embiid. You’ll need it. Embiid might have a good game too, but I’ll take Nurkic at the discount so I can pay for Harden.

Tobias Harris coming up big with Simmons out thickens the plot at forward a little. You have Ingram with Zion out and Tobias with Simmons out. It’s a tough decision, and if you’re using Harden, you have to choose. If you have the stones to fade Harden, you can get a build with PG, Ingram, and Tobias. I’ll let you know how it does.

Both DraftKings and FanDuel made it really hard to jump on the Al Horford train tonight. He’s comparatively priced way too high. There’s no way his ceiling is 7x value. We’re going to need that to take down a GPP today.

There is going to be value somewhere up front for the Kings tonight. Do you use Alex Len or Harry Giles? I prefer Giles. Neither are safe. That said, Len is probably the most healthy he’s been all season. Take that for what you will. He’s still not playing much if any over 20 minutes though. The bad news is that the Kings don’t have the size to take it at Houston. Both value picks could fail miserably.

Conversely, P.J. Tucker makes a very interesting play on the other side. Jeff Green is still criminally underpriced, but he’ll take you C slot on DraftKings. He’s a little higher on FanDuel, but not enough to chase me off.

I like Nerlens Noel with Adams out, but don’t expect miracles. Darius Bazley is splitting the time evenly with Noel, and was honestly more aggressive than the highly-touted Noel. I’m leaning towards Bazley for $500 less.

If you’re into punting C on FanDuel, Ivica Zubac is going to ravage Brooklyn. He’s one of my favorite plays on the entire slate for the price. Marcus Morris is a very strong play with Kahwi sitting as well. I’ll be pairing the Clippers frontcourt with the Rockets backcourt in a few lines.

I see you Marc Gasol in a revenge game. I don’t know that I’ll use you,. but I see you.

There is so much value on this slate, and we’ll need it. I usually like the idea of a middle build on slates like this, but most of the middle tier feels like a trap. I’m just hoping that I landed on the right values.