What’s up everyone and welcome to Ben’s Building Blocks! If you’ve never read my content before, welcome. To those that have, welcome back. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports during NBA season. This article is designed for me to highlight the top plays of the day. Obviously, things can change rapidly in the NBA with injury news close to lock, so I would be sure to subscribe to our premium package for access to our Final Thoughts cheat sheet, our premium discord channel and my core plays. Our Core Plays product gives you the ability to tail all of our analysts in your contests each night. We do the work for you, and you simply plug and play with our premium Core Plays. With that being said, let’s hop into the plays…

Building Blocks

Donovan Mitchell

Mitchell is my favorite play on tonight’s slate, and I think he could really pop off here against the Grizzlies. Memphis plays a top-five pace in the NBA, which should help speed up the Cavs on Thursday night. He leads the team in usage rate (32%) and point per minute production, and we could see a statement game from the Cavs in this spot. They’re coming off a bad home loss to the Heat, and Mitchell came out said to the media earlier this week that the “sky isn’t falling”. We’ve seen Mitchell completely take over a few times already this season, and I’m betting on him at his price tag tonight.

Jordan Poole

It was expected for all of Poole/Draymond/Klay and Wiggins to be listed as doubtful for tonight, but Steve Kerr just had to step in and show some love to the fantasy community. Thompson has been ruled out, but both Curry and Green are listed as questionable to play tonight. It sounds to me like Wiggins has a pretty good chance to play. How I’ll be playing this is, if both of Curry/Green miss that will make Poole and Wiggins both top plays in all formats. Poole is going to be in play regardless with Thompson out, but if Curry also misses that elevates him from a good to a great play. Luckily, his price tag has come down since the team has been fully healthy and we can consider him viable in all formats on all sites tonight.

Value Plays

Santi Aldama

Memphis’ front-court is going to be thinned out on Thursday night with Jaren Jackson now doubtful — Steven Adams is already out. We’ve seen Aldama post some really nice games when given minutes earlier this season — and he’s averaging almost 0.95 fantasy points per minute during his sophomore campaign. Minutes have been the only issue for him since the team got healthier — he’s averaging just 21 per game but we have him projected for 28 tonight. He’s arguably the top value play on tonight’s slate, and is a lock on both sites for me.

Caleb Martin

With Victor Oladipo ruled out for the Heat tonight, we can look to Caleb Martin for some value on DraftKings. He’s not a huge point per minute producer, but he is certainly the type that can get hot shooting and put a decent score his price. With no Dipo, we are expecting more minutes from him — his season-average is 30 and we have him closer to 32 against the Knicks. He’s only $4,500 and popping as one of our top values.

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)