Best lineup strategy for Trail Blazers vs. Suns NBA simulation Showdown

The featured simulated basketball contest on DraftKings for Wednesday afternoon is between the Portland Trail Blazers and Phoenix Suns. Here, we’ll go over how to approach lineup construction for the fantasy basketball contest.

Captain’s Picks

There’s a lot to unpack at Captain in Blazer-Suns. The pricing is pretty close together at the top so I’ll just rattle off a few names:

Damian Lillard ($16,800)
Devin Booker ($16,200)
CJ McCollum ($15,000)
Hassan Whiteside ($13,500)

After those four, the field gets a bit weaker, but there are still good mid-range plays at Captain. As for the studs, Dame stands out only $600 more than Booker. Lillard has had some off games this season, but he’s also scored 50 points. Booker is in a similar stratosphere as Dame and is a little cheaper.

Chances are the ownership goes to those two at Captain. This makes CJ and Whiteside good plays. Whiteside I like a lot because of the rebounding floor. If I had to rank these plays, I’d probably go with Lillard, Whiteside, Booker, McCollum.

FLEX Options

There are a lot of appealing mid-range plays, like I said. Deandre Ayton ($5,600) seems criminally underpriced here. Ayton is almost averaging 20 and 10 this season (19 and 12). He’s only played 30 games, which lowers his variance. I’d consider Ayton almost a lock in this field.

If we’re looking for a similar value that has emerged due to injury, Rodney Hood ($2,400) for the Blazers is the guy. He torn his Achilles and was ruled out for the season after 21 games. In those 21 games, he averaged close to 30 minutes per contest in the starting lineup at wing. Considering this price, there’s no reason not to take a chance on Hood.