DraftKings contributors Jeff Pratt, Nick Friar and Matt Meiselman join The Sweat to give their favorite DraftKings plays at forward for tonight’s NBA slate.
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Video Transcript
Jessie Coffield:
All right, let’s talk forwards, Nick. Who’s your favorite here?
Nick Friar:
Yeah, we talked about the Hawks game a little bit and I like on the other side of it. Trendon Watford at $6.7K, of course, he’s coming off of a big game himself and that’s not an outlier. He’s provided five times value in three of the five games he’s played in this month and the Hawks are 27th in defensive rating. And again, they’re playing their third game in four days.
I also like Scottie Barnes ($8,000) tonight if Fred VanVleet doesn’t go, and then Keldon Johnson ($6,300) is another guy if you’re not looking to roster to Murray necessarily, that’s a good mid-range guy where you can save a little bit of money and play that forward.
Jessie Coffield:
All right Matt, you saved a lot of money with your Luke Kennard pick, so are you going to pay up here forward?
Matt Meiselman:
That is exactly what I’m going to do, and I think this is a really good slate to play Giannis at over $12,000 because of the high price tag and also because maybe we have an Embiid vs. Jokic game going on. Maybe that’s the spot that people want to pay up for, because that’s the prime time game on ESPN between the two likely favorites for MVP.
But the thing Giannis potentially has going for him is that Rudy Gobert is dealing with an injury to his calf again for the Jazz and I think he’s probably not going to play tonight. And not having Gobert at the rim is just going to make this so much easier of a matchup for Giannis, so normally you would say playing against the Jazz in Utah is a really difficult spot—we just saw the Sacramento Kings put up over 120 points in Utah last game. When Gobert doesn’t play, the Jazz defense falls way way off a cliff, so Hassan Whiteside is a solid basketball player, but I just don’t think his defense can stack up anywhere close to Gobert, so this is just a lot better of a matchup for Giannis than people are realizing.
Jessie Coffield:
All right Jeff, what’s your strategy here at the forward position?
Jeff Pratt:
I’m going with Miles Bridges at $7,800. He’s coming off a huge 53.5-point performance against the Pelicans and he’ll get a favorable matchup to keep it rolling tonight against the Thunder. Like Nick touched on with Terry Rozier, Oklahoma City, they ranked 27th in DraftKings fantasy points allowed to wings, so expect Bridges to pick up right where he left off against New Orleans. And last game was just the second time he had a usage rate of 25% or higher in his last eight contests, but it worked out for Charlotte. Just look for him to keep building off of that positive momentum and stay aggressive tonight.
Nick’s Picks: Trendon Watford ($6,700), Scottie Barnes ($8,000), Keldon Johnson ($6,300)
Jeff’s Pick: Miles Bridges ($7,800)
Matt’s Pick: Giannis Antetokounmpo ($12,200)
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