NBA DFS Core Plays LIVE: Wednesday, January 18th

Andy Means (meansy53), a former Duke basketball walk-on, will be bringing Premium subscribers his top NBA DFS plays to build around on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Everyone’s favorite, Notorious, will be guiding you on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And on weekends, the GPP maestro you all know and love, STLCards, takes the reins.

GENERAL SLATE THOUGHTS

3:26 PM ET: A decent wave of news just now, with the Clippers officially ruling out Kawhi Leonard and Luke Kennard; they also have listed Ivica Zubac as questionable. Perhaps even bigger than that is Minnesota ruling out Rudy Gobert. I have updated the tables quickly to include Naz Reid as a new Core Play, and I will do another sweep soon for any other LAC/MIN updates.

1:55 PM ET: The initial run of the tables is up, and I will go back in to start adding more notes soon. The only news we have gotten since my last update is that Kyle Lowry and Caleb Martin are both available for Miami. Still waiting on injury reports from DEN and LAC…

1:20 PM ET: Bradley Beal is also expected to make his return tonight, so that removes another questionable tag (and also makes Washington quite unappealing since they are all priced up for the time without Beal).

1:05 PM ET: Somewhat of a slow start to the news so far today. Thus far, all we have gotten is confirmation that Donovan Mitchell is out and that Lauri Markkanen is in. I am tentatively starting to work on the tables while I await some of these other items to come out.

7:50 AM ET: We have a nine-game slate this fine Wednesday, and I will note that it starts 30 minutes later (at 7:30 PM ET) than we are used to seeing. So keep that in mind as you plan your evening. The ol’ “honey, I’m sorry, I think I really have to go to the bathroom right now…must’ve been something I ate” may work once…but I don’t think she is going to buy it if you stay in there for 45 minutes (hell, maybe she will!).

We only have two teams on the second night of a back-to-back tonight, so let’s take a look at each of those teams to see what might be on the horizon. And one of them is the Clippers…yay!!!

LA Clippers: The Clippers lost at home last night to Philly, a game in which they were without John Wall and Luke Kennard. Wall has already been ruled out for tonight, and as for Kennard…

The rest of the Clippers situation, predictably, is going to be a bleepshow. After last night’s game, Lue said that all of Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Luke Kennard would travel to Utah for tonight’s game but was noncommittal when it came to whether they would play. Several minutes later, it was announced that PG13 will be out for tonight’s game.

In regards to Kawhi, he still hasn’t played in both legs of a back-to-back this season; not even on that one a few weeks ago (on 1/5 & 1/6) when he played 18 minutes in the first game. And I’m supposed to think there is even a realistic chance that he might suit up tonight after playing 36 minutes last night?? Ha! We are calling him doubtful for now and keeping him out of projections.

As for Kennard (missed the last give games) and any other Clippers, we just won’t really know until they release their injury report later today. And even then, they have a history of shenanigans. For what it’s worth, the LAC/UTA game starts 90 minutes after the slate locks.

Denver Nuggets: The Nuggets handled Portland at home last night relatively easily. The only rotation player they were without was Jeff Green, who continues to be out with a hand injury. It is worth noting that Jamal Murray (foot and ankle inflammation) and Bones Hyland (ankle sprain) were questionable leading up to the game, but both ended up playing. So even though Murray just recently (1/5 & 1/6) played both legs of a back-to-back for the first time in who knows when, we shouldn’t be surprised if he pops up on their injury report later this afternoon.

(Side note: Rough night for Mr. Jokic last night, huh? 36 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists…on 13/14 from the floor. Dude missed exactly two shots all night—one from three and one from the free throw line.)

There are still plenty of questionable tags floating around out there on the injury reports that have been submitted, like:

Anthony Edwards, Rudy Gobert, and Taurean Prince (all three had Q tags leading up to Monday’s game too…and all three played)

LeBron James

Kevin Porter

Bradley Beal

Kyle Lowry

Lauri Markkanen

The situation that is looking like the main focus of the slate right now is with Cleveland, as Donovan Mitchell is listed as doubtful with a groin strain that caused him to miss his last rotation of the game on Monday. I realize that these two two teams (Memphis & Cleveland) are the two best defenses in the league but, like it always does, removing the team leader in usage rate (31.8%) and minutes per game (36.1) means there is a lot of opportunity to go around. It is likely that you see plenty of Cavaliers in those tables below later today.

And speaking of those tables, I will start filling them out this afternoon once the slate starts coming into focus a bit more in terms of news. A lot of Q tags we still need clarity on, and then let’s see if there is any tomfoolery from LAC or DEN.

NOTE: The closer we get to the slate locking, the less likely it is that I will have the necessary time to update the tables below. For the most up-to-date information, make sure you are watching Crunch Time and monitoring LineupHQ for my Core Play tags and our Premium NBA Projections.