FantasyDraft NBA Core Plays: Sunday, January 28th

by Allan Lem (fathalpert) Last Updated 2018-01-28 16:09:53 Premium Content Part of the product SimLabs+

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.

Sunday, January 28th

Hello Grinders. We have a seven game main slate on FantasyDraft. Here’s some notes for Sunday:

Chicago Bulls – Kris Dunn (Out)
Cleveland Cavaliers – Dwyane Wade (Questionable)
Los Angeles Clippers – Jawun Evans (Out), Danilo Gallinari (Doubtful)
Los Angeles Lakers – Lonzo Ball (Out)
Milwaukee Bucks – Malcolm Brogdon (Questionable)
New Orleans Pelicans – DeMarcus Cousins (Out for year)
Oklahoma City Thunder – Andre Roberson (Out for year)
Philadelphia 76ers – Jerryd Bayless (Doubtful)
Phoenix Suns – Tyson Chandler (Questionable), Alex Len (Questionable)
Sacramento Kings – Willie Cauley-Stein (Out)
San Antonio Spurs – Manu Ginobili (Questionable)

The big news, of course, is the loss of DeMarcus Cousins. Per CourtIQ here, with Cousins off the court, Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday see huge usage bumps. I plan on attacking this until the sites price them to the point where they are unusable. It’ll be interesting to see how the Pelicans fill the void of Cousins. My guess is in the short-term, Davis moves to center and one of Darius Miller / Dante Cunningham will start. If you’re playing cash games, I generally try to avoid playing too many guys from the same team but given how condensed the rotations for the Pelicans can be, I think it’s a viable strategy to have several Pelicans on your lineup. I didn’t write up Darius Miller but he would likely be my third favorite Pelican behind Brow and Holiday, as you’ll see below. One other thing to monitor for the early slate is the status of Alex Len and Tyson Chandler. Both missed Friday’s game and as a result, Greg Monroe started but got torched by Enes Kanter. I think Monroe is in play if one or both are out again. This early slate is incredibly interesting as 5 of the 6 teams are in the top 12 in pace.