The Brooklyn Nets are just a single game into their current three-game road trip and it’s already been a grind. After announcing that both Kyrie Irving (personal) and Landry Shamet (ankle) would not be joining the team on the west coast, we had to sweat out the status of James Harden ($12,000) all the way to tip-off of the team’s 116-112 victory over the Trail Blazers on Tuesday evening.
Well, things don’t get any easier on Wednesday. Brooklyn is matched up with a Utah Jazz squad that leads the NBA in net rating (8.0) and has only dropped six contests since the beginning of February. Let’s break tonight’s matchup down from a Showdown perspective.
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA Showdown $120K Fadeaway [$30K to 1st] (BKN vs UTA)
SHOWDOWN STRATEGY
Captain’s Picks
James Harden ($18,000 CP) – Could I go with something a little more complex? Sure, but why waste the effort? Harden’s the obvious choice for your Captain’s slot for good reason on Wednesday, as the Nets will continue to be without Irving and Kevin Durant (hamstring). Across the 897 possessions Harden’s logged without either of his two All-Star teammates on the court, he’s registered a massive 1.68 DKFP per minute with a 34.7% usage rate and a 57.4% assist rate. To put that last number in perspective, Russell Westbrook currently leads the NBA with a 47.4% assist rate for the season as a whole. That’s how dominant an offensive force Harden can be when given some extra opportunity. Harden’s also surpassed the 60.0 DKFP plateau six times in his past nine starts.
Donovan Mitchell ($15,300 CP) – The Jazz can come at you in a lot of different ways, so it’s not always easy to single out an single asset of theirs in a Showdown setting. That said, no one on the team has more raw upside than Mitchell, who is carrying an eye-popping 33.9% usage rate in the month of March. The Louisville product has been in amazing recent form, averaging 34.3 points and 53.4 DKFP across his past three starts — which is truly the area where Mitchell stands out the most on this Utah roster. The guard has racked up 10 performances of at least 50.0 DKFP so far in 2020-21, while you’d have to combine the outputs of Rudy Gobert ($9,800), Mike Conley ($7,600), Jordan Clarkson ($7,400) and Bojan Bogdanovic ($6,400) to get to that same total elsewhere. Not to mention the Nets surrender the third-fewest opponent rebounds per 100 possessions (41.6), which really limits the ceiling of Gobert, in particular.
Value UTIL Plays
Nic Claxton ($4,400) – Like most reserve big men, Claxton’s efficiency numbers are actually pretty decent, he just needed the chance to play more to become relevant. To wit, coming into tonight’s matchup, the sophomore is averaging a robust 1.14 DKFP per minute — a ratio that has real meaning now that Claxton’s found himself an established piece of Steve Nash’s rotation. Claxton’s logged at least 20 minutes in his past four games, even scoring 16 points in each of his past two. The result from a fantasy perspective? The big man has exceeded 26.0 DKFP three times. Obviously, we’d all be open to getting 6x or 7x value from Claxton once again this evening.
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot ($2,000) – Let’s go with a second Nets’ asset in the value section, as the team is currently searching to fill minutes at both guard positions. Tyler Johnson ($3,600) is another bench piece that’s viable on tonight’s slate due to Brooklyn’s injury woes, but I’ll turn first to the cheaper Luwawu-Cabarrot. TLC had been a DNP-CD in two-straight games before Tuesday’s contest with Portland, yet he was able to shake off the rust and log 27.2 minutes in the win — the fourth-most run of any Nets player. There’s no guarantee that that happens again on Wednesday, but at a price point this depressed, Luwawu-Cabarrot really doesn’t need to do much to bring back value.
Fades
Jordan Clarkson ($7,400) – Clarkson’s entire aesthetic is that he can explode at any moment, but the veteran guard has really been struggling with his offense the past few weeks. Going back to Mar. 3, Clarkson has shot a paltry 34.7% from the field, which has translated into him scoring just 0.97 DKFP per minute, despite a huge 29.8% usage rate. Conversely, the less expensive Joe Ingles ($7,000) has been on fire, sporting an ungodly .932 true shooting percentage within that same span of time. With Ingles logging more minutes than Clarkson and racking up more DKFP, why would you ever pay more for the latter’s services?
THE OUTCOME
While I respect what the Nets have been able to do without Kevin Durant the past couple of months, I have to side with the Jazz on Wednesday. Playing on the second night of a back-to-back is tough enough in a vacuum, but doing so in Utah is almost unfair. The Jazz are 14-2 ATS in their past 16 home games and they’re 4-0 ATS in their last four home games against an opponent with a winning record. They simply perform well at Vivint Arena.
Final Score: Utah 117, Brooklyn 110
Set your DraftKings fantasy basketball lineups here: NBA Showdown $120K Fadeaway [$30K to 1st] (BKN vs UTA)
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