NBA Starting Five: Monday, March 28th
The Starting Five series will provide Grinders a quick look at the day’s top positional plays, analyzed through the lens of our Daily Research Tools.
Today, we’ll take a look at the Defense vs. Position tool to give us a look at what players might be in favorable matchups tonight. I’ll look at both season long and three- week averages, and will use DraftKings pricing. I’ll also keep every player under $7,300 so that you can basically roster whoever you want in the G, F, and Utility positions.
Point Guard: Ricky Rubio, $6,900
I’m still debating where I’m going for cash games at PG because there is enough value to spend way up at PG. However, I can tell you that I plan on having plenty of Rubio in GPPs. Today is once again taking on a stars and scrubs feel, because there is plenty of value emerging due to players resting. That tends to create an ownership void in the mid-range, so we could get Rubio at a lower ownership number today in a great matchup.
The Suns are 29th in DVP against PG on the season and Minnesota checks in with a team total of 112 points, which is 10 points higher than their season average. That screams a big assist day from Ricky is coming, and his minutes have been fairly stable recently. He offers great double double upside and recently put up 50 DK points against the Suns.
Shooting Guard: Zach LaVine, $5,800
For SG, let’s take a look at DvP over the past three weeks. Devin Booker has been terrific offensively this year, but he’s giving it up defensively because the Suns are dead last in DvP against SG, both on the season as well as the last three weeks. With Minnesota’s team total sitting at 110 points, and their young starters playing quality minutes down the stretch, their entire starting unit is basically in play tonight. LaVine threw up a dud against an elite Utah defense, but that was fairly predictable. He’s otherwise continued to be very good and in three meetings with Phoenix this year, he’s averaged 32.8 DK points in only 26 MPG (NOTE: he’s now averaging 38.8 MPG over his last ten games).
Guys like Devin Booker, C.J. McCollum, and DeMar DeRozan are other SG on my radar tonight, but if you’re looking for value, Denver is allowing the second most fantasy points to SG over the past three weeks. Raymond Felton is cheap and playing big minutes with Chandler Parsons and Deron Williams out. With those two out, he’s averaged 36.5 MPG and almost 32 DK PPG in his last two games as the starting SG.
Small Forward: Maurice Harkless, $3,500
With all of the value out there, Kevin Durant will be the chalk at SF because it’s really easy to squeeze him in. Outside of Durant, I’m also interested in Gordon Hayward and Andrew Wiggins in the mid-range, but Harkless really jumps out as a quality value option tonight. He’s still just $3,500 on DK and is facing a Sacramento team that is 20th in DVP against SF and dead last in DvP against PF.
Harkless stepped into the starting lineup three games ago, because Portland is playing small ball with Aminu and Harkless as their starting forwards. He’s played at least 25 minutes in each of those three starts and is averaging 26.8 DK PPG during that span. He’s a guy who likes to get out in the open court, so a matchup with a fast paced Sacramento team is perfect for him. In two meetings with the Kings, he’s averaging 16.4 DK PPG in 18 MPG, and given his new starting role and increased minutes, he should continue to reach and exceed value.
Power Forward: LaMarcus Aldridge, $7,300
For PF, let’s go back to the three-week view. The Grizzlies’ season long DvP numbers are still strong, but they are no longer the same defense without Marc Gasol and Mike Conley. Without Gasol anchoring the middle, we can see that their DvP against PF has taken a big hit — they are 25th over the past three weeks, compared to 15th on the season.
The Spurs will be without Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard tonight so Aldridge will do all of the heavy lifting tonight. Using the RotoGrinders CourtIQ, Aldridge’s usage climbs to over 30% with all of those players off the court. He just shredded the Grizz for 59 DK points in 33 minutes on Friday night, and given the usage bump and depleted Grizzlies’ interior, he should feast here again, even if he only plays 30 minutes or so.
Center: Kosta Koufos, $3,500
We’re still waiting on official word, but DeMarcus Cousins is not expected to play tonight. Either Willie Cauley-Stein or Kosta Koufos should draw the start in place, although I expect it to be Koufos because he drew the start when Boogie missed a game last week. He’s going to be a very popular value option today because he’s excelled with Boogie out of the lineup this year. In the 11 games that Boogie has missed, Kosta is averaging 26.9 DK points, and put up 38 DK points in his start last week.
As we can see, Portland’s interior defense has been very poor this season; they are 28th in DvP against centers on the season. Willie Cauley-Stein hasn’t been great with Boogie out of the lineup, but he has been very good over his past two games and it makes sense for Sacramento to get their young rookie more playing time down the stretch. He’s averaging just over 36 DK PPG over his last two games, and is just $200 more than Kosta. He looks like a solid pivot from Kosta, or a guy to pair with Kosta (my guess is most lineups will feature either Kosta OR WCS) to help differentiate your tournament lineups tonight.
UPDATE – I’ve now seen conflicting reports on Boogie’s status for tonight, which is par for the course for March NBA. Monitor the situation throughout the day, but if he does end up playing, two other centers with great DvP matchups are DeAndre Jordan and Hassan Whiteside.