Captain/MVP: Gilgeous-Alexander (Optimal), Hartenstein, Simons, Grant
Flex: J. Williams, Camara, Clingan, Wallace, Wiggins, Joe, Caruso
Pending Injury News: None
On a day dominated by the football conference championship games, we have a 1-game showdown slate in the NBA! The best part is that injury news is quiet as everything seems to have been announced, but it is NBA, so we’ll keep an eye out for anything late-breaking. Let’s get to it!
Our game has the Oklahoma City Thunder visiting the Portland Trailblazers, with the Thunder being massive 14-point favorites. The spread is high enough we’ll want to be aware of blowout potential and who that benefits, as well as recognize that Lu Dort is out, so that is a lot of minutes to fill. It’ll most likely be Aaron Wiggins who starts in his place, and he also closed their last game, so we know he has Daigneault’s trust to fill that role. The Thunder have been fluid with their starting lineup, with Isaiah Joe and Cason Wallace swapping often to fill the 5th spot. All three of these guys are capable of putting up an optimal price-considered score, but it’s hard to pinpoint which of them it would be. Joe is more of a scorer and three-point shooter, so he is favored on DK, while Wallace usually relies on his defensive stats when he finds his ceiling, being better on FD. Wiggins usually finds a ceiling score less often, but can be more reliable to at least have a nice floor. We would throw Alex Caruso into this group of Thunder guys who will all be in the rotation and play enough minutes we’ll want to consider them, but we would not play more than 2 from this group of four guys, and playing only one is also good. If building and wanting a blowout guy, Kenrich Williams and Ousmane Dieng would be the guys to target, as Jaylin Williams’s price is still too high given that none of these guys will have much, if any kind of role outside of a blowout. The Thunder will welcome Isaiah Hartenstein back after a couple of weeks off from injury, and we’d expect him to slot right back into the starting lineup and play 30-32 minutes in a non-blowout. While the matchup isn’t a walkover, we wouldn’t expect him to have too much trouble with Clingan and Williams, and will be the double-double threat he was this month before his injury. He also has had sneaky assist upside, averaging 4.9 a game in January. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is quite likely to put up the highest raw score, and the clear optimal CPT/MVP choice. There’s not much we need to say about him outside that, we know who he is. Jalen Williams has been more of a floor guy than a ceiling guy with where his price is at with Hartenstein coming back to the lineup. He has to be considered on a showdown slate as he’ll still post a nice score when looking at raw points, but he is the one we are least excited about in the higher price range.
We are less excited for the Portland side, as they are expected to have everyone back today outside of Ayton, and also OKC is great defensively with Hartenstein. Donovan Clingan has been a beast on the boards and getting blocks, his only problem is getting minutes. When we were on him Friday, he only played 18 minutes which was less than his projection, he just had such a high FPPM that it worked out. While we can never expect someone to score 2 FPPM, he’s still scored fantasy points at a high rate this year and is in play even with quite a difficult matchup. Jerami Grant is still reasonably priced and played 34 minutes in each of his last three games. He hasn’t shot great since coming back from his own injury, but the price is still low enough that the game it falls, he can break a slate. Anfernee Simons has benefitted from Grant being back and having less attention on him, letting him score more efficiently en route to at least 21 points in their last three games. There’s a good chance Toumani Camara is asked to guard SGA, giving him a minutes ceiling in the mid-30s. He scores a lot of fantasy points without having to touch the ball between getting boards and stocks, and he is an intriguing play. If this game goes the way of blowout, it’s tough to nail down a Portland guy because of the health in their rotation, and recently Billups has stuck with the starters for quite a while in the fourth quarter. If wanting to look for a guy in that mold, it’s probably Dalano Banton as he’ll get a lot of the time with some of the starters before pulling everyone, or maybe Rayan Rupert, as he’s had the best FPPM in Portland’s limited blowout run this month. Good luck tonight everyone!