Point Guard
Ronnie Price (DK $3600, FD $3700, 13.7 USG) Phil Pressey (DK $3400, FD $3600, 17.1 USG)
You could really roll out either one of these guys tonight if you’re looking to save some salary. They’re basically splitting time down the middle and both have a wonderful matchup against the Nets, who are 27th in DvP and give up the 5th most DKPTS in the league to PG’s (4th most FDPTS). When it comes to their playing style, they’re night and day. Price is going to be more scoring dependent and Pressey is going to rely on his peripherals. Personally, I feel a bit more comfortable with Price because of his starting role and his production over the last 6 games. If you erased his 8.8 DKPTS performance against the Rockets last week, you’ll see consistency everywhere else. He’s averaging 22.34 DKPTS in 5 out of his last 6. At his price, you’re hoping he reaches 18 fantasy points to reach value, which should be pretty easy considering his matchup. I mean, If you can get 28.8 DKPTS against the Chris Paul and the Clippers, you could look like a MVP candidate against Donald Sloan‘s defense.
Shooting Guard
O.J. Mayo (DK $4500, FD $3900, 17.9 USG)
I’d prefer to spend up at SG tonight on guys like Harden, McCollum, Thompson and especially Evan Fournier if Oladipo is out (Fournier is cheap enough to be considered solid value, given his minutes and production as of late).
But if you scroll down a bit, the only guy I might consider is O.J. Mayo. The matchup is brutal against a Celtics team that shuts down opposing backcourts, but he’s averaging 30.33 minutes over his last 3 games starting over MCW. He had a big game in ATL a couple games back but his fantasy score was inflated by 5 steals, which is not likely to happen again. As mentioned above, the best move is to avoid going this cheap at all and spending up a bit on a guy like Fournier.
Small Forward
Maurice Harkless (DK $4600, FD $4400, 15.0 USG)
I consider Harkless to be the ultimate tournament option on the board tonight. His price is really starting to reach a point where he’s nearly untouchable and he’s coming off a putrid game, when most of the DFS world was on him. In hindsight, I should have seen that game coming. I even mentioned it on the day that I wrote him up when talking about Thad Young, that Brooklyn plays big. That alone should have been my red flag to fade Harkless completely with so many others on him. But I had a hard time ignoring his recent production. Truth is, Harkless will likely be valuable only against other teams that prefer to play small. I think the game against the Jazz (17 points, 7 rebounds) was an outlier but look at the other teams he was playing well against in that 5 game stretch, GS and Houston (twice). That’s where we come full circle. This whole Harkless thing started against Houston on Feb 6, when he erupted for 30 DKPTS in 30 minutes. 4 days later against the Rockets again, he played 28 minutes and scored us 42.8 DKPTS. Portland won both games, so there’s no reason to think they’ll stray away from what worked for them already against HOU. A lot of people are going to be turned off by his last outing and his elevated price tag, but I can’t turn my back on him so easily with what he’s already proved he can do in this matchup.
Power Forward
Jon Leuer (DK $4200, FD $4100, 19.4 USG)
Ughh, I don’t wanna do this to you. I’ll try to keep this short but the PF position isn’t all that enticing to me tonight, especially under 5K. The guys I love most are all hovering around the 6K range. Leuer is not a recommended option by any means but just based on his recent play and matchup, I’ll throw him in here. Over his last 3 games, his USG has jumped up to 26.3%, as he’s averaged 1.38 fantasy points per minute (highest on the team in that span). All this is fine and dandy but there’s one major problem here and that’s the minute distribution. Kris Humphries has been starting, Chandler and Len are both expected to play tonight and Mirza has made his own case for more playing time. You’re probably going to see close to 20 minutes of Leuer, which doesn’t excite me at all. If one of these guys were to sit tonight, then I’d have a lot more interest against a BKLN team that’s 20th in DvP against PF’s, but with everyone back in the rotation, it’s best to stay away.
Center
Enes Kanter (DK $4800, FD $5000, 23.1 USG)
I really love Kanter’s price for this matchup against New Orleans. With an over/under of 222, he provides a cheap way to get some exposure to this one. I know it’s ridiculously difficult to predict whenever Kanter or Adams are expected to have nice games but if this season has shown us anything, it’s that Kanter does just what you’d expect him to do against a team that’s 29th in DvP. In the two games these teams have played this year, Kanter is averaging 17.5 points and 13 rebounds for an average of 35 DKPTS and 33.9 FDPTS. Also in his favor is that he’s averaging close to 30 minutes against the Pelicans. At first thought, you might think that those minutes are inflated with garbage time but the first time these teams met, the game stayed close throughout and Kanter still played over 31 minutes. My only concern with Kanter is the absence of Asik on the other end. With no Omer Asik, the Pelicans could easily put Anthony Davis at the 5 and Ryan Anderson at the 4 for most of the game, which would definitely hurt his value. No way in hell the Thunder would trust Kanter to keep up with AD. The more that I’m writing this actually, the more I’m convincing myself that Kanter should only be deployed in tourney’s. Nonetheless, I still love the upside.
Featured Image Credit: By Chris Green (Chrisg21090 at en.wikipedia) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
