Starting 5 - Back to Back: Monday, March 16th

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.

There are quite a few teams playing frequently with the larger schedules over the last four days. Today we’ll take a closer look at the Back to Back tool and see what pops up. This is a nice tool to look at everything in a consolidated view, especially with a lot of NBA teams looking to give players a day off here and there down the stretch.

The goal will be to identify teams that may be more tired than usual and finding discounted players to use against them so we can make sure to have enough flexibility to get Russell Westbrook in our lineups tonight.

Point Guard – George Hill vs Toronto

Team B2B 2/3 3/4 4/5
Toronto Yes Yes Yes

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Toronto is playing their third game in four nights. After hosting Miami on Friday and Portland on Sunday they are off to Indiana to face the Pacers. George Hill has seen his price drop after a particularly uninspiring stretch of games over the last 10 days. Fortunately, as we saw on Saturday when he went for 30 points, eight assists and five rebounds, this was mostly a result of some foul trouble and a couple games where he was not needed for extended minutes.

The Raptors are the second-worst team against point guards over the last three weeks, so this is lining up to be a fine opportunity to utilize Hill in all formats today.

Shooting Guard – Kent Bazemore at Sacramento

Team B2B 2/3 3/4 4/5
Sacramento Yes Yes
Atlanta Yes Yes Yes

As we saw last night, the Hawks have continued to rest their starters in shifts when they are facing less-than-intimidating opponents. Last night Al Horford and Kyle Korver played while Jeff Teague, DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap rested. Tonight it looks like it will be Horford and Korver’s (broken nose) turn to sit. This puts Kent Bazemore in a likely starting role again against the Kings, who are finally home after a lengthy eight-game road trip.

Also in our favor, Sacramento has been absolutely horrific against opposing shooting guards this season, and over the last three weeks they have allowed 9% more fantasy points to SGs than any other team. Lock Bazemore into your lineups tonight as an excellent discount option.

Small Forward – DeMarre Carroll at Sacramento

Team B2B 2/3 3/4 4/5
Sacramento Yes Yes
Atlanta Yes Yes Yes

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Again we are going to go back-to-back (cwidt) and exploiting an advantage against the Kings. All season Sacramento has been in the bottom third of the league against small forwards. Rudy Gay is dealing with a strained patellar tendon and may miss another game.

Carroll should be rested after getting last night off and this lines up as an opportunity that we want to target tonight. Remember, to get Russell Westbrook in lineups tonight, we are going to have to find a couple bargain options.

Power Forward – Thaddeus Young at Minnesota

Team B2B 2/3 3/4 4/5
Minnesota Yes Yes Yes

Minnesota is back home after a four-game road trip last week that saw them lose every game, highlighted by last night’s 26-point shellacking at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs. As an additional bonus, Kevin Garnett and Nikola Pekovic are again questionable to play.

Narrative Bonus – This is really setting the table for Thaddeus Young to have a big night against the team that just traded him away.

Center – Brook Lopez at Minnesota

Team B2B 2/3 3/4 4/5
Minnesota Yes Yes Yes

Yes, another team to double down against is the Timberwolves.

With all their troubles against bigs this season (allowing the third-most fantasy points) and injuries in the frontcourt, plus the recent heavy workload, it is prudent to consider having Brook Lopez in your lineup, along with Thaddeus Young tonight.

About the Author

emac
Emac (emac)

Emac won the 2007 Fantasy Baseball grand prize (trip for two to the MLB All-Star game) in the Roto format on ESPN. He won again in 2008, this time in the H2H format. You can check out his ESPN Fantasy Experience here. Emac finished in the top ten for the DraftKings inaugural $1,000,000 Chase for the Crown promotion and also won the first ever MLB King’s Crown ($5k top prize) on DailyJoust.