Welcome to another wild NBA slate with guys being ruled out left and right; the first question of today is “what to do with the Bucks,” because their entire starting rotation is out and we have a bunch of guys with multipliers ranging from 1.75x – 2x. My general take here: Portis is the strongest play but he’s going to be massively owned. It’s possible they take it easy on him (especially if the game blows out), as well as Connaughton, because they’re obviously resting other starters; those two are key parts of their rotation. Thanasis, Nwora, and Teague are all more interesting tourney pieces to me who don’t project as well but, with their multipliers, could all run into massive games. My personal rule here would be every roster has to have 1-2 Bucks, as it’s hard to envision a scenario where someone doesn’t get there, but it’s also hard to see a scenario in which 3+ put up the kind of scores you need.
Ok, with that out of the way (which caused a bit of a rewrite on this), let’s get into positions:
Steph Curry has a 1.3 multiplier for some reason, which is awfully bizarre but I’m happy to take advantage of it in one of the best possible matchups. He’s close to a lock-button play for me – expect high ownership but this is a spot where I want to be overweight the field. There’s nobody else I feel strongly enough about to lock, so I want to mix and match exposure to Rozier, Bogdanovic, Young, Walker, Brown, Oubre, Teague, and maybe a little smidge of Murray and LaVine. Also, watch the Clippers – Jackson and Rondo are both listed as questionable. If Jackson plays, I don’t mind a splash of him. If he sits, Rondo becomes appealing, while if both are out, Mann and Kennard become interesting leverage plays off of the more highly-owned Bucks guys.
As with Curry, we have another weird multiplier situation, with Embiid at 1.3x (and forward eligibility, whee!). He’s another guy who’s close to a lock button play for me. We also have Portis here, leaving not a lot of roster space to mix around, but I’ll want some Kawhi, some Towns, some Randle, some Nwora, and some Thanasis. That’s probably about it for me at this position – Jaylen and Oubre, when I play them, will go in guard spots today. If you want to make a case for Bridges, Zion, or Timelord here, I can see it, but I don’t think I’m personally going to be diving that deep.
You can play Embiid here, of course, and we have a lot of other F/C guys who can slot in here. You can also look at Joker (despite a low multiplier, at least it isn’t 1x!), Capela, Vucevic, and Zubac would see a boost if Jackson and Rondo sit as it removes a couple of primary ball handlers from the Clippers offense. Overall I probably want to play one of the top F guys in my C spot most of the time, because there are more high-multiplier tourney options at F than there are at C today.
