Richard Jefferson Daily Fantasy News, Rankings, Projections

Jefferson will not play in tonight's game against the Chicago Bulls after previously missing Wednesday's practice with tendinitis in his left knee. The absence of Jefferson from the Cavaliers rotation will likely open the door for some extra playing time for Derrick Williams with Kyle Korver also unavailable, although Iman Shumpert has already been announced as available to play in tonight's contest after missing two consecutive games with a sore right knee. Jefferson had been consistently seeing minutes in the low-20s, but he was never a viable fantasy option to begin with and his absence does little to alter the projected fantasy value of any of the Cleveland wing rotation pieces.

No real surprise here, but both LeBron James and Kyrie Irving will rejoin the Cavs starting lineup after sitting out Saturday's game. Both James and Irving are viable DFS targets, although Irving is the preferred play this evening given that LeBron's price tag is inflated (he's up to $11K on FD) and Kyrie actually picks up the biggest bump in usage with Kevin Love off the floor. Small forward is also a pretty deep spot tonight, with both Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler in better situations on the high-end of the salary pool. Richard Jefferson will start this evening, but he's not a recommended DFS target with the Cavs rolling out a trio of options (Derrick Williams, Channing Frye and Jefferson) to help fill the void left by Kevin Love.

Channing Frye is expected to start in place of Richard Jefferson tonight. Frye will return to his normal role and is expected to approach 30 minutes tonight. Frye should be able to make salary-based expectations tonight. He's no longer priced under $5k, making it difficult to fit in over all the other value plays that have considerably more upside than Frye. Considering there are so many elite PF plays on the slate tonight, Frye is not a mandatory option. Still, he's viable if you're looking for a play in the later slates.

Jefferson will remain in the Cavaliers starting lineup for tonight's game against the Milwaukee Bucks, sending Channing Frye back to the bench to resume his reserve role. LeBron will start and presumably play his normal allotment of minutes in Monday's contest after previously being listed as questionable on the Cavaliers' injury report due to an illness that had forced him to miss one game. Given the uncertainty of how LeBron perform while dealing with the aforementioned illness, he is better reserved as a tournament option on tonight's slate against a Milwaukee squad that ranks 20th or worse in DvP against opposing small and power forwards.

Richard Jefferson will start in his place, but Kyrie Irving is the player to target. Irving has a ridiculous 47.2% usage rate when James and Kevin Love are off the floor. He averages 1.43 FanDuel points per minute, according to our CourtIQ tool, which is a gigantic jump from his normal rate of 1.06 fpts/min. Chicago, which currently has a messy situation at point guard, ranks 20th in DvP against the position.

Love did not travel with the team and will not play in tonight's game against the Dallas Mavericks as he continues to deal with back spasms. According to Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue, Love will stay behind in Cleveland to have an MRI on his ailing back for further evaluation. Richard Jefferson will draw the start at power forward in Love's absence and should split power forward minutes with Channing Frye and LeBron James. With Love and J.R. Smith off the court this season, Kyrie Irving actually leads the Cavaliers with a 6.3% usage rate differential (37.4%), which immediately vaults him into consideration as a top point guard option on tonight's slate despite the less-than-ideal matchup with this slow-paced Mavericks squad.