NBA Starting Five: Tuesday, March 1st
The Starting 5 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’re going to be using the Defense v Position to help identify today’s top plays at each position on DraftKings. Remember, this is just a piece of the puzzle. There are many other factors that are involved in selecting players and building a lineup, but analyzing how a team performs against each position is a great place to start.
Point Guard: Kemba Walker, Charlotte Hornets, $7,700
The Suns are allowing the most fantasy points to opposing point guards over the course of both the entire season and the last three weeks. Defensively, they’re just about the worst thing you can possibly imagine, and it certainly helps opposing players that they rank among the top teams in terms of pace.
The blowout is a concern, of course, especially with Phoenix being the road team, but Walker should be able to do enough damage in three quarters to either pay off, or come close to paying off his price tag. There’s also a chance the game stays close, in which case it would be reasonable to expect him to post a huge line. We’ve seen 50 to 60 point performances from Walker before, and that is certainly within his range of outcomes today.
Shooting Guard: Bojan Bogdanovic, Brooklyn Nets, $4,200
If the Lakers are playing, you can bet that there will be some solid plays on the opposing team. As usual, shooting guard is a position I’m simply not interested in spending at. The most expensive options are either hurt or far too inconsistent for me to reasonably consider using in anything outside of some tournament lineups.
Bogdanovic has been playing big minutes now that Joe Johnson is out of Brooklyn, and he’s coming off of a solid outing against a much tougher Clippers team. As you can see from the DvP chart, the Lakers have been dreadful against opposing shooting guards this season. We’re being given the opportunity to roster a decent player that should see big minutes against a team that hemorrhages fantasy points to every position. He’s a very solid value play today, and although he’s likely to be fairly high owned, I’m not interested in going another route in cash games.
Small Forward: Chandler Parsons, Dallas Mavericks, $6,600
I don’t love this pick, but small forward is dreadful today. Honestly, it will likely be the position I fill in today when building my cash game lineup as no one is even close to worth building around. I expect Carmelo Anthony to be popular, but I don’t care for him today. He certainly won’t bust, but I don’t think he’ll be worth his price tag in a tough matchup against Aminu. You may notice that the Bulls have been one of the worst teams in the league against small forwards, and while Luol Deng production has been good, I think the addition of Joe Johnson hurts him. I think we’ll see his production trail off, and he may a bit less court time as well. I’m not prepared to pay a price that’s mostly a result of a handful of big games, including two without Dwyane Wade.
So, Parsons becomes my de facto top play. He’s been playing well recently, and although Orlando ranks several spots lower than the Bulls in terms of fantasy points allowed to small forwards, this game projects to be significantly higher-scoring and faster-paced. Also, overall, Parsons is just a more reliable producer than Deng. This is one of those situations where you need to do a bit more than just plug in the guy with the best DvP matchup.
Power Forward: Thaddeus Young, Brooklyn Nets, $6,900
This one is close between Young and Aaron Gordon. Both have terrific DvP matchups, but I’m giving the edge to Young. He’s a more reliable option of the offensive end, and while Orlando has been playing pretty well, I prefer to take a player from the team that’s a 1.5 point underdog as opposed to a 5.5 point underdog. As you can see from the chart, the Lakers have been terrible against power forwards all season. This shouldn’t be surprising given they can’t defend any position and are ranked among the worst teams in the league in terms of rebounding differential. They’re also very turnover-prone, so that should help a player like Young who has the ability to rack up a lot of steals.
Young is a very solid option that I’ll be locking into my cash games today despite the likely high ownership.
Center: Brook Lopez, Brooklyn Nets, $7,500
It’s hard to go wrong at center today. Looking at the DvP chart, you can see that several of today’s options have great matchup. Lopez, Al Horford, Robin Lopez, and Hassan Whiteside all draw terrific matchups. I think Lopez offers the best combination of value, floor, and upside, though there’s a good chance my lineups end up having two centers tonight. The Lakers, of course, are terrible against opposing centers. Roy Hibbert is just awful, and, as I mentioned before, the Lakers do not rebound the ball well at all. That tends to happen when your starting center is a seven-footer that can’t rebound.
We’ve seen Lopez put together huge performance after huge performance, and while he does have his down games, there’s too much upside potential for me to ignore him in what should be a close game against the Lakers.