Garion Thorne dives into tonight’s six-game featured NBA slate to find three players you need to put in your DraftKings lineups.
It’s the second-last Thursday slate of the NBA regular season. I’m shocked it isn’t a national holiday, honestly.
We’ve got six games on the schedule, with contests locking on DraftKings at 7:00 p.m. ET. Let’s dive into the matchups and find three must-start players for your lineups.
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA $150K Fadeaway [$50K to 1st]
PF Paolo Banchero, Orlando Magic at Washington Wizards, $9,900
Orlando are massive 15.5-point favorites in the game on the DraftKings Sportsbook, so I don’t want to paint too extreme a picture, but this is a must-win spot for a squad that is clinging onto home court advantage in the Play-In Tournament. As such, I wouldn’t expect to see too much of a reduced role from Banchero tonight — unless we get an absolute blowout. Banchero has struggled with his three-point shot in recent weeks, yet the former first-overall pick is still averaging 28.5 points over 35.2 minutes in his last six starts. Banchero’s also exceeded 50 FPTS in six of his past 11 contests. The Wizards present an uptempo matchup for the Magic. They’ve surrendered the most FPTS per game to opposing power forwards this season, as well. All told, it’s a fantastic environment for Banchero to flirt with his DFS ceiling.
Let’s continue to ride with the Swedish rookie. If you want consistency in a DFS asset, look no further than Larsson’s past three game logs. Logging exactly 30 minutes in each start, Larsson’s averaged 15.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 33.9 FPTS. That stretch includes a career-high 40.0 FPTS in a victory last week versus the 76ers. Larsson should once again find himself in Miami’s starting five on Thursday, with Andrew Wiggins (hamstring) ruled out for his fourth straight game. It’s a nice matchup, too. Memphis leads the NBA in pace for the season as a whole (103.9), which is mainly why the team is allowing the sixth-most opponent points per contest (117.3). The Grizzlies are also surrendered the most FPTS per game to opposing small forwards.
SG/SF RJ Barrett, Toronto Raptors vs. Portland Trail Blazers, $7,800
There’s a little bit of risk in trusting any relatively expensive Raptors’ asset at this point in the season. Toronto has shown its hand. It’s tanking and that even means augmenting the second-half minutes of it’s available players, if that’s what it takes to possibly lose a game. That said, Barrett is still seeing roughly 30 minutes on his non-rest nights and the tanking stigma might make the former third-overall pick a bit of a variance play on this slate. The Raptors will sit both Immanuel Quickley (rest) and Jakob Poeltl (rest) on Thursday, as is the pattern, yet the twist this evening is Scottie Barnes ($8,300; finger), who is questionable. Barrett logged 28.5 minutes in his last start and, with Barnes available, the Canadian forward managed an eye-popping 39.4% usage rate. Barrett is squeezing every last drop out of his limited time on the floor. I can only imagine how high that usage rate will be if Barnes is eventually ruled out. Keep an eye.
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