DraftKings NBA Core Plays: Saturday, December 9th

by Allan Lem (fathalpert) Last Updated 2017-12-09 23:45:24 Premium Content Part of the product Core4

Andy Means will be bringing Premium subscribers his top cash game plays and tournament pivots to build around. A former Duke basketball walk-on and now top-ranked DFS player, Andy will take an in-depth look into each of his core plays, and then blend it all together from a roster construction perspective. On weekends, the preseason maestro you all know and love, Allan Lem, takes the reigns.

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Saturday, December 9th

Hello Grinders. We have a big eight-game main slate on Saturday with a lot of news to account for. I need to start off the with following disclaimer. There are two big situations we need to monitor. The first is the Spurs/Suns game. After the game, Manu Ginobili said in this tweet that 5-6 of the Spurs weren’t making the trip. Pau Gasol, Tony Parker and Manu have already been ruled out, and Danny Green is a game-time decision with a groin injury. I don’t know if we’ll get news before tip-off on who starts for Parker and who else is sitting, but I have interest in the starting point guard against a weak Suns defense and they’d likely vault into a core play. Without news on who starts, I’m hesitant to write up Patty Mills or Dejounte Murray at this moment, so that’s why they didn’t make the list below. If LaMarcus Aldridge plays, he’s also in consideration as a core play as the offense will flow through him, but again, I’m hesitant to write him up without knowing for sure he’s even playing on this back-end game.

We also need to monitor the Orlando Magic situation. Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier are already out, and D.J. Augustin popped up on the injury report last night as questionable. Adreian Payne was recalled and is available to play. I think in tournaments it’s viable to roll out a Vucevic/Payton/Simmons stack as usage should be concentrated among them, similar to the situation we had in New Orleans recently when Anthony Davis was out and it was viable to stack Cousins/Rondo/Holiday. There’s risk to doing this in cash games though because if the game blows out, it’s possible some or none of them will hit value, so just keep that in mind. Today is shaping up to be a day where monitoring news will be crucial and my core plays will likely change as news trickles in. I’ll provide updates when it does but below are my initial thoughts based on what we know Saturday morning.