Happy Friday, everyone!
The NBA is gifting an exciting 10-game slate of action to start the weekend, with the first seven games on DraftKings’ featured DFS contest.
Plenty of elite, star-studded teams — including the championship-favorite Oklahoma City Thunder and Boston Celtics — will play, so there are a lot of must-starts for tonight’s contest. Here are my top three:
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PG Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Charlotte Hornets, $11,600
I should’ve learned my lesson about targeting the Hornets yesterday when I figured that the New York Knicks would beat them easily, even without Jalen Brunson, and New York went on to lose by 17. But as Oklahoma City proved when the two teams faced off twice earlier in the season, the Thunder are not the Knicks. By advanced stats, Oklahoma City has been the best team in the league all season, with a plus-12.6 net rating, while New York has been merely good. That’ll make all the difference — while the Knicks, especially without Brunson, are capable of slipping up against a terrible opponent, the Thunder are not. I don’t think I need to run through Gilgeous-Alexander’s stats, but just know that 48-point, three-steal (71.0-FPT) performances like the one he dropped on the Detroit Pistons on Saturday are the expectation and the norm.
Charlotte has been one of the league’s worst teams teams since the All-Star break, posting a 5-12 record and a negative-14.0 net rating, and it’s had the league’s fourth-worst defense after being near the middle of the pack all season. The Hornets haven’t even had any particular strengths, giving up the eighth-most points, fourth-most rebounds, and 11th-most assists per game, and they also rank in the bottom 10 in fast-break points and points off turnovers. Plus, given that it’s the second night of a back-to-back, I’m not confident that LaMelo Ball ($9,800) or Mark Williams ($8,700) will even play. Expect Gilgeous-Alexander to impart plenty of damage in three quarters of work.
SG Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves vs. New Orleans Pelicans, $9,700
I recently stumbled upon a text to one of my friends from freshman year of college, in which I predicted that Edwards would be a bust prior to his first appearance in an NBA game. Thankfully for Minnesota fans, I was very, very wrong. Edwards’ jump shot has caught up to his elite slashing skills, and now he’s a two-way, three-level scorer who turns his game up in the postseason. The Timberwolves, too, are peaking at the right time; although they’ve lost each of their last two games, they were on an eight-game winning streak before that and are mostly keeping pace with the Golden State Warriors for the sixth seed in the Western Conference.
These two teams played on Wednesday, so we have a recent sample of how this game will go. Edwards shot the ball horribly during the contest, converting just five of his 19 shots, but he managed to score 29 points (47.5 FPTS) thanks to a 15-for-17 performance from the charity stripe. Overall, he’s now gone to the free throw line 37 times across his last two games, by far the most of any player in the league. Some regression to the mean can be expected in terms of his shooting, which will raise his fantasy ceiling, and he’ll probably still go to the free throw line a lot — New Orleans has been the eighth-most foul-prone team in the league this season. The Pelicans have given up the fourth-most fantasy points to opposing shooting guards and have now lost three of their best perimeter defenders for the season.
PF Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards, $9,900
To be clear, the Wizards have improved tremendously after threatening to be the worst team in NBA history before the All-Star break. Not only is Washington no longer the worst team ever, they might not even be the worst team in the league — technically, the Wizards are tied with the Utah Jazz for the worst record in basketball. In terms of recent form, it isn’t a competition, and I’d be shocked if Washington didn’t ultimately pass Utah before the end of the season, especially given the Jazz’s egregious tanking tactics. Since the All-Star break, the Wizards are a very respectable 6-8 with a league-average defense, and second overall pick Alex Sarr ($6,700) is making a late charge for an All-Rookie First Team nod.
They’re still a fantasy target, though, because they’ve played at the league’s seventh-fastest pace since the All-Star break and have still struggled to patrol the paint. Since the intermission, Washington has still given up the second-most rebounds and fourth-most points in the paint, and especially as of late, the six-foot-10 Banchero has made rebounding a big part of his game. He has recorded three double-doubles in his last four games, and he ranks sixth in usage since the All-Star break, so his scoring totals are also ridiculously high. Banchero has taken 20 or more shots in each of his past five games, so you can expect a similarly prolific performance again tonight.
