 What's going on and welcome to the NBA DFS Q&A show. My name is Tom Vecchio. I'll be here for the next 30 minutes taking your questions about tonight's NBA Slate. As always, this is found every Wednesday on the Fandle YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook pages. You can follow me on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. We have a six game slate tonight. It's looking pretty good. We have a lot of value and that value has changed throughout the day because we have a massive amount of updates when it comes to injury information. So very recently, we just saw the norm power for the Clippers. He plans to play. The report from Mojenowski is that a final determination will be made prior to pre-game, pre-game warm-ups. How many minutes will he be playing? Will he be in the starting lineup? Those are two important questions. And then for the Suns, they ruled out Jay Crowder, Deandre Ayton, Chris Paul, Devin Booker, four out of there, five starters. We saw David Mitchell, Mike Connelly all ruled out. And on top of that, we have Zach Levine, Tatum Brown listed as probable. Bob Donovich is questionable. Gallinari is questionable, et cetera, et cetera. So we are in a spot where the value that we had in the morning has slightly changed for tonight. We're still waiting for some final updates. Let's hop right in. DJ on Facebook is asking a six man question. The classic, who's coming off the bench? Who could be in a spot to play? Big minutes put up plenty of points. I think we're at a number of ones I'm gonna go back to Bob Donovich. As always for the Hawks, they have plenty of motivation. He continues to knock down some three corners, which we love to see giving him that nice scoring upside. So looking through some of the teams that have a motivation of what they can or cannot be clinching, moving around in terms of seeding, that's very important these final few days of the season. So always looking to that is a good indication of where we're gonna be seeing minutes. So he's always an option. I guess now because Jordan Clarkson is going to be in the starting lineup with Trent Forrest is listed as questionable. So Forrest plays, I'll have interest in him because his role should be elevated coming off the bench. Now that Jordan Clarkson would be in the starting lineup. So that's something to keep in mind. But we also can be looking to Bismarck, the Anbo or Tory Craig for the Suns simply due to the volume of minutes they could be playing because four of their five starters for the Suns are ruled out. So that's where it'd be going initially right now. Also always looking to Derek White for some nice scoring upside for the Celtics. He's been a very nice pickup for them at the trade deadline. Saban on YouTube is asking, how's it going? Favorite bets for today in the sports book. So I've only made two bets today. Smaller slate, trying to keep things tight, especially at the end of the season. I'm big on Dwight Powell today for the Dallas Mavericks. I spoke about him on the Daily ISO. I took the over on 20.5 on his PRA, points, rebounds, assist. A little bit of juice there sitting at minus 113. Love this matchup for him going up against Detroit. We do see the Mavericks as a team that still has something to play for. So we should see their starters out there for a full set of minutes. We've seen some good stuff from Powell in recent games, not expecting him to go for 22 and 13 as he did in the most recent game against Milwaukee. I think that's a little bit of an outlier. I'm expecting something more around this range, his normal output of double digit points, getting close to double digit rebounds in some of these games and getting too close to the over on 20 and a half. So that's the first bet I made. I know it's probably gonna be close, but I really do like this matchup against Detroit, not worried about their defense and obviously plenty of motivation for the Mavericks. And then the second bet that I made was Trey Young, the over on his three pointers. Going to that, Trey Young over three and a half, shooting for that plus money. Hawks lost last night. They are another team that has motivation. They can move up or down in the standings in the final few days. Matchup against the Warriors is a good one. So I've made two bets, very simple. Trey Young over three corners, white pal over PRA. You know, it's a smaller six game slate, but I was much to choose from. Want to be very selective in the bets that I'm making. Savanna is also asking, how would you stack slash use OKC for value? So last night for OKC, what's the best way to look at this? Let's just bring up OKC because last night they had what is realistically a six man rotation last night. They played seven players, but it's realistically a six man rotation where waters came off the bench and one played four minutes. So their starters are out there for nearly the entire game outside a bit critchy. And then Olivier Sar came off the bench, played 30 minutes. So this is realistically a six man rotation. It actually could be slightly extended tonight. Maybe if we see Poku back in there. But when it comes to the value for OKC, basically everyone's going to be in play simply just due to that volume of minutes. So Poku's in there. We want to be going there, but he's obviously not a value play. Georgios Kalizakis, who was assigned yesterday, could be in for a big set of minutes. So I'd be certainly going to him. Jaylen Horde had a massive game last night, not expecting a 20-20 game from him again, but for him, Simpson, and if big critchy is out there, I'll be going to them. So three players that could realistically see 35, 38, 40 plus minutes, all under $5,000, those are the players from OKC I would be going. I think not only there for OKC, but we also have to look at the potential value for the Suns now, because four of their starters have been ruled out. So this is going to be their projected starting line of campaign Landry Schermet, Mikhail Briggs, Cam Johnson, Javail McGee, immediate value for them with Mikhail Briggs at $5,600, being the most expensive option. Campaign should be a very, very popular option along with Cam Johnson. I like Bismock-Biambo potentially coming off the bench for them at $3,800. It's not like Javail McGee's going to be out there for the entire game. We have seen Bismock-Biambo. He was actually very productive earlier in the season when Bolch Javail McGee and Jandre Aitin were out. We saw a Biambo putting up some double-double. So I like him coming off the bench at $3,800. So despite it being a smaller six-game slate, there's a lot of value tonight. And I think it leads me in one direction as I mentioned on the podcast, which would be not paying up a center. And I think the value that we now have potentially with McGee or going to Bismock-Biambo just leads me to trying to jam in Luca Trey Young, Kevin Durant. That's realistically where I want to be going. I like rostering Luca at shooting guard simply just due to the positional eligibility so I can get some value at point guard. I'm still gonna be big on Ishmith for Washington. He's been looking great in recent games. So really going to Young, Luca and Durant as my main three. And you can pay for three players over 10.4 tonight. That's a great option. Brandon on Facebook is asking, is Bridges a must-play since the Phoenix players are out? I don't think he's a must-play. I think you want to be getting some exposure to Phoenix overall. It's not like one of them is going to be a must-play. If I have to choose, I'm gonna be taking, I'll be taking campaign at point guard. That's ultimately where I want to be going. If I have to choose a must-play out of Phoenix, it's gonna be campaign for him, for me at Phoenix for a must-play and then probably Cam Johnson. Those are the two top for me. McKayle Bridges is certainly fine. He's a player that I love rostering just because he can do so much, knock down some threes, add in some steals and some blocks, but campaign would be my number one value from the Phoenix Suns. Grimm is also asking, Landry Schemit, Jalen Horde, who has more value? So let's just, so Schemit is 39. Let's just see, are their salaries the same? Whoops, thunder. 45, so I would take Landry. I would take every bit of salary relief I can to boost this potential remaining because I think Horde is certainly fine. There's no doubt about it, but I would take just a little bit of savings with Landry there. DJ is asking about the three by twos tonight, the two plus threes in the first three minutes. Looking to the Knicks net is good. It's a little bit of juice at 132, which is, you know, that's okay, depending on how much you want to lay. I would certainly look to the Hawks and the Wizards. I guess this goes in line with my pretty young debt, not surprised to see him knock down some threes. Bulls and the Celtics only a minus one of four. You know, Jazz Thunder, this game I would say I'm probably not interested in, you know, especially that we don't have Donva Mitchell out there. So that's probably not a game I'd be going to. Knicks net I think is clearly number one, but it has a little bit of juice. I'd be going there and probably the Hawks and then the Bulls probably in this order. One, two, three. If you're willing to lay the juice or you want to throw it in a parlay, it obviously won't matter at that point. You know, plus two 58, it's not bad. I mean, plus 600, that boosts it up a little bit, but these are probably my two favorite for the Knicks and the Nets and then the Hawks for the three by two. So when you're looking at the value on tonight's slate, I think we're going to see some pretty similar value options obviously, but I also think we're going to see that, you know, transition into pretty popular or pretty consistent roster builds because there's no one top tier really at center to pay up or if you want to go to Rudy Gubair or poor Zingis, I think that's fine. I don't have a whole, you know, a ton of interest in Vucevich tonight. And in fact, you know, I kind of made a case against poor Zingis on the podcast today because his minutes have slightly trended down where he broke, you know, past 30 minutes in a few of these games for the Wizards, but it's the final week of the season. And now we're seeing him under 30 minutes in four straight, in five straight games. They're on the second night of a back to back. He's 8,900. So I'm slightly concerned about poor Zingis, his minutes overall and his ability to reach value. So I'm not really looking to poor Zingis. You can make the case for Gubair because this matchup going up against OKC is obviously very easy. No one's doubting that it's not easy. There's obviously a little, you know, a little bit of extra usage in the offense because Donvid Mitchell and Mike Conley are out, but he's still $8,800 in a game that has a 15-and-a-half point spread. So I'd rather take some of the mid-tier like Andre Drummond or simply drop down and take some of this value. Dwight Powell is 4,900. Theombo, 38, and of course, Javail McGee at 35. So Min salary guy, Javail McGee in the starting lineup really just helps with roster instruction overall. Again, prioritizing the guards and the forwards on tonight's slate is not going to be like a hot take. That's not going to be a shocker for a lot of people that are gonna be paying up for as many of these top stars that can fit into one lineup. Grimm is also asking rank starting value, Tomas Satoransky, Zaire Simpson, Jordan Clarkson and Marcus Smart thinking starting Tomas Satoransky and Marcus Smart. So I made a case for Marcus Smart tonight because this is a game environment that I really like. It's close spread. The bulls are, I don't want to say desperate, but the bulls certainly haven't looked amazing in some of these recent games. Their defense is certainly lacking. We know that Marcus Smart is probably the option for the Celtics, among their starters that's probably gonna be going a bit overlooked. I'm not gonna be expecting him to go massively overlooked but of course, Tatum and Brown should be the most popular options for them but Smart simply does so much. So Satoransky I think is fine when you're looking at the point guard position overall I would certainly look to go from 4,500 trying to get to campaign at 49 if you have that flexibility. I think he's gonna be a better overall play tonight so I would try and find $400 to go from Smart and Satoransky to Smart and Payne tonight. Born to Laugh is asking start Daniel Tice for the Boston Celtics. Generally not a player I go to. Just doesn't have enough offensive usage. Obviously this is a smaller sample size for the Celtics but he's not a player I particularly like. We're not gonna see him producing a whole lot that's a very small sample size so not really looking there. If you're at that same salary at $4,900 I'm big on Dwight Powell tonight. So if you can find if you, $200 from 4,700 to 4,900 I think Dwight Powell is a much better option going up against Detroit. A player that's producing over one thing to a point per minute for the Mavericks. He's at 1.06 before I look. See, it's at 1.06 for Dwight Powell. It's a modest usage rate but he's getting it done. And this is a decent sample size over 300 minutes for Dallas so I would look to pivot from Tice to Dwight Powell at 4,900. It's only a $200 difference that probably shouldn't impact your roster instruction of course the same position eligibility center slash power forward for both of them. So I'm looking to get Dwight Powell in there. He's an option that I like. You can certainly look to change some of these top stars if you wanna prioritize getting Kyrie Irving. You wanna take a little bit of savings there. He's only $8,600 which I think we would all say is pretty affordable. If you wanna go to Tatum or to Martin Rosen I think those are certainly fine options but Trey Young, Luca, Durant are my top options. They all have motivational play. They're all looking to secure their seeding. They're not looking to move down in seeding obviously. So that's important great game environment between Washington Atlanta, Brooklyn and New York that actually should just be fun just due to the rivalry. But I think we're gonna see plenty of points in that game. So I'm liking this game particularly for a lot of points as the overrunner would indicate up at 2.29 which is the second highest on the slate. Not a shock there. I think we should see RJ Barrett be very popular. I think they're going to have him for me. Makes nice option as well for his three point upside. You have the same question on Simpson, any value? So Simpson, if he's gonna be in the starting lineup for OKC, I think he's a, what is it? Yeah, point guard around. I think he's a fine option at 4,700. At certain, there's nothing wrong with going to him. At this salary tier, I'm simply prioritizing a few players ahead of him. I like paying ahead of him. If I can get up a few more $100 to Jordan Clarkson at 53, depending on how tight your rush of instruction is $600 if you can get there, I prefer Clarkson and Payne over Simpson. That's really where I'd be going. That's what comes down to him. And frankly, Seth Curry, if you're looking to just take the player because he has positional eligibility, he's not on the injury report today. So he should be good to go. It's in here somewhere. Seth Curry, not on the injury report. So he's gonna be in the starting lineup or should be in the starting lineup for the next. So I like the $4,000 salary on him. It's looking like a good matchup for scoring overall. So the value ultimately on tonight's slate is somewhat of splitting hairs. It's also the same thing for some of the top tier players. You're splitting hairs here between Luca and Trey Young. I simply want to get both of them in my lineup because the 60-70 point potential from both of them is there. Kim Durant had a modest game last night in the grand scheme of things. We saw Kyrie have a huge game, but I'm expecting big points from him. They need him out there. They need to be securing wins as well. They can in theory move up if Cleveland continues to lose. They also can move down if Atlanta wins tonight in a winnable match against Washington. So the team behind them or the team that they're tied for, I guess, they're very, very aware that the Hawks can move up and they can move down. All the seating when it comes to the playing is important in the last, what is this, five days of the season? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, yeah. So five days of the NBA season. Like this is very, very important. Hopefully there's no major updates when it comes to injury for the rest of the slate. If Norm Powell plays and he's in the starting lineup for the Clippers, it comes down to how many minutes he's gonna play. You know, it's gonna be 15, it's gonna be 20, it's gonna be 25, it's gonna be 30. If he's all the way up at 30 minutes, like he's not in a spot to be limited in any capacity. That's the spot I would have interest in going to him, but if we don't have clarity on how many minutes he'll be playing, I'm probably very hesitant to go to Norm Powell in any capacity, probably in literally any capacity. It's a bit of a jump to go from 66 to 7,600 to get to RJ Barrett. I mean, Mikhail Bridges taking $1,000 of savings is a spot I'd rather go. There's no like direct pivot away from him because if Powell's in the starting lineup, Roco should probably be coming off the bench for the Clippers. So I would have very, very limited interest in Powell if he's not gonna be on a full set of minutes, simply just due to, you know, his inability to reach value if he's not playing a full set of minutes. Do you expect Ayodo Sumo to go nuts with Levina? Levine is listed as probable, right? Levine, oh yeah, Levine's listed as probable here. Let's give this a refresh. Levine was out last night. So just double check that because, yeah, Powell, there's no update on Zach Levine. He's listed as probable. So that's one thing I would double check wherever you saw that news that Zach Levine is out because he's officially listed as probable. I'm gonna be sticking with Derosin and Levine when it comes to the bulls. They need to get their scores going against the Celtics who are, you know, frankly, the better team. Well, that's what we see Ms. Rhodes favorites. So Ayodo Sumo is not an option. I'm truly considering tonight. His salary is obviously wonderful, that low, but I think there would be probably a variety of options I'd be considering ahead of him. He's, yeah, shouldn't guard only $3,600. So $3,600 all the way down here. I mean, Landry's $3,900. I mean, I think that's the clear play to get to. Seth Curry again, only $4,000. I'd probably be trying to find the $300 to try and get to Landry Schumann at 39 over Dosumo. Oh, Lonzo Ball out for the season. Yeah, that news was came out earlier, right? That Lonzo's out. I don't think that's too much of an issue. Like he's been out for a while and they've been kind of running with this rotation for, I mean, definitely weeks, but multiple months at this point for Lonzo being out for the rest of the season. You know, frankly, what it comes down to for Dosumo is that he's not the highest offensive usage player. He can be consistent based on his salary, but you know, whether he's in the starting line or not, whether Levine has been in around some of his games, he has a pretty modest amount of production in the grand scheme of things where, you know, mid-20s, maybe 30s is where he's reaching his upper ceiling, but he's more realistically in the low 20s to high teens for production. So just because they get the final confirmation that ball is out, it doesn't really change things for Dosumo when balls already been out for, you know, a good portion of the season. So when it comes to the balls, I look to DeRose and I look to Levine for that high volume shots. I look to Vusevich in certain matchups. Tonight is not one of them. I often look to Vusevich when it's a loaded slate because I think he's a player that can go overlooked at times. You know, whether or not he's gonna be popular tonight really does an impact in my decision-making of how, if I want exposure to him. And frankly, I probably want zero exposure to him and just simply removing him from the player pool because I want to be focusing in on the mid-tier plays with Andre Drummond or dropping down and taking the value with Dwight Powell, with Javelin McGee or Bismock-Biambo just to kind of aid in the roster construction process which would be prioritizing Trey Young, Luca and Kevin Durant tonight. Who is Sumo? Ayo Dosumo, the shooting guard for the Chicago Bulls right here. He's been a good value play this year at times. You know, earlier in the year, he was certainly crushing a lot of assist props that was on for a good portion of the year. But, you know, their offensive usage has changed a little bit and we still see DeRose and Levine leading the way. Caruso is back in the lineup. That, you know, slightly changed things for their rotation as well. Pat Williams is now back on the starting lineup, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm not really looking to Dosumo at all tonight. You know, as always, it comes down to having a tight group of value plays that I like prioritizing the top tier players that I want and, you know, filtering in a good amount of the mid-range plays. There's a lot of value on tonight's slate. You know, RJ Barrett is a player that I really want exposure to. It's tough because I have to be prioritized one of the top tier stars and get to RJ Barrett, which, you know, changes the natural roster instruction. So if you want to get RJ Barrett in and you want to get to, so Zaire, he's a point guard only. So these are some of the things that you have to, you know, go through. So I would go to Shaman and listen, $7,000 for two players remaining. You have Young, you have Durant, you have RJ Barrett, you have plenty of value in there. But that's looking pretty solid. You know, getting a player in the mid-range like RJ Barrett that can reach for a higher ceiling changes things when it comes to your line of construction. Also changes things, like if you're going to Derosen and Tatum tonight, and obviously it's a good amount of savings dropping down and taking 2K of savings. Brian is asking, Brian on Facebook is asking Jason Tatum and Al Horford. I'm always a fan of Jason Tatum. Always, always a fan of Tatum. Why? One because he's the high usage player, but this volume of shots is beyond consistent. He's taken plenty from downtown. Sure, he's been a little bit inconsistent from the three pointers in recent games, one of five, three of nine, oh of five. But with his volume this high, when he gets going for four, five, six, three pointers, and he just does a, you know, amazingly consistent job of filling up a stack sheet. I'm always a fan of Jason Tatum. This is a player that can outperform his salary, you know, on any given night. And like I said, the bulls are struggling on defense recently. This is why we see the Celtics as seven point road favorites. This is also a potential playoff atmosphere, you know, playoff matchups or playoff type atmosphere wouldn't be too much of a surprise. Now, when it comes to Al Horford for the Celtics, we obviously want clarity that he will be playing. He's also been consistent as of late. I'm not really worried about the matchup overall versus the Chicago Bulls. It really comes down to who you're prioritizing in this tier. And for me, when it comes to my roster construction of how I'm prioritizing players, Al Horford's kind of in this, you know, no man's land where he's not a value play. He's not a top tier, so it's tough to get him in. I have no issues with him going to, if you're going to go to him tonight, I think he's in a great matchup. I think he'll see plenty of production out there. For me, I'm simply looking, you know, above him and below him when it comes to salary. So always a green light on Tatum. I think it's, you know, a green light if you're looking to prioritize Al Horford tonight, I'm not worried about him producing. It's just not fitting into my personal line of construction tonight when I'm, you know, prioritizing some of the guards and I need to find value at the forward positions. So that's what it comes down to. It's really just a preference thing. And for me, the preference tonight would be Luca, Young and Durant's. That's really it. And that means I need to find value and I simply just don't have the, or if I roster Durant at small forward, it means I need to find value at the powerful position. And I simply can't afford to play Al Horford. That's mostly what it comes down to. So if there's no other injury updates, Levine Probable is always good to see. Players being listed as Probable is always good. Update on Norman Powell Minutes is something that we're gonna need some clarity on. I assume he'll be in the starting line if he's good to go. Woj, Wojnowski on Twitter said that he's expected to go. He plans to play. They're gonna make one final check before his, you know, pregame routine, et cetera, et cetera. That'd be one thing to check from Norman Powell if you're looking there. The immense value lies with the Phoenix Suns tonight. You can be legitimately going to any five of their starters. I'm personally going to campaign as number one overall. Then Cam Johnson, then Probable Landry, then Bridges in that order. Of course, Javier McGee is gonna be in there because of the salary relief that he offers. And again, fitting into roster instruction overall. The Thunder also offer immense value. We just need an update on who's gonna be available for them because they had, it was only like 10 players dressed last night or whatever it was. And they only ended up playing six of them. So some clarity on the Thunder would be good for the bets that I made tonight. I've only made two, you know, it's a smaller slate when, you know, kind of keep things tight, be selective, Dwight Powell over 20 and a half PRA. Little bit of juice there. Love this matchup against Detroit. Pace-up spot for the Mavericks. They are 30th in the league in offensive pace. While we see Detroit sitting up at 13th, it's an easy matchup. The Mavericks have plenty of motivation, et cetera, et cetera. All those things are good to see. The Atlanta Hawks, Trey Young over three and a half, made threes at plus 128. Those are the two bets I made. Trey Young and the Hawks also have motivation. They need to be securing their seeding when it comes to the play in there, of course, locked into it, whether or not they get to eight or nine or 10, whatever it might be. They have motivation. They lost last night. This is a winnable matchup against the Wizards. But I think obviously outperformed a bit last night against the Timberwolves. So a lot of value on tonight's slates. Again, I think we're gonna see some pretty similar line of builds just because the value pushes you in a certain direction, depending on where you are getting that value, whether it's at the guard position or at the center slash power forward position, it's just gonna naturally cause you to spend up at the opposite. So if you wanna get to Porzingis, I think that's fine. Again, not a player. I'm personally prioritizing on tonight's slate. I don't love his minutes being scaled back in recent games under 30 minutes in five straight games and his salary is still up at $9,000. When he was $7,500, when he recently returned and he was still under 30 minutes, that's okay. Because he's obviously a little bit cheaper, but his minutes being scaled back ended being closer to the end of the season. I'm not gonna be surprised if you only placed 25 minutes tonight. So I'm not going to Porzingis due to that. I'm not gonna go there because of the spread for Utah. Not worried about the match against OKC. Again, just naturally fitting into the lineup builds does not work for Rudy Gopar. How high can the Bulls get? Standings-wise, that I don't know off the top of my head. I don't know every possible permutation of the standings. Like if they went out and the Raptors lose out, I guess they could jump to five. I don't think they can jump to four just because there's not enough games left for them. They have, they make up four wins for the, can they make that up? They only have three wins. So they only have three games remaining. So they can't make up four. So the best they could get is five. And that, and, you know, of course, the Raptors would have to lose. So they do have motivation. I don't know if Cleveland can catch them like this. Are they locked into the play-in or the, I don't know if they can catch them. And I assume that the self or the, yeah, they can catch them. So they're locked into six at most five and it's only if the Raptors lose. So they technically do have motivation to get to five, but how much of a difference does that make in the grand scheme of things when they're, you know, would they end up playing Milwaukee or into playing the semi-sixers? I mean, you know, kind of pick your poison at that point for Chicago. I think they need to figure things out defensively before they're worried about, you know, losing one game or trying to pick up one extra game when it's going to be a tough matchup regardless. So tight value on tonight's slate. Don't go too crazy with the player pool. Prioritize the top tier options. And again, the two bets that I made Dwight Powell over 20 and a half PRA and Trey Young over three and a half made three pointers. Both players with motivation, both players in good matchups to get that done. So we will have a, we have an MLB show playing for tomorrow, obviously MLB opening day will be live about an hour before the first game going over some bets for those, that seven games slate tomorrow for MLB opening day. As always, you can find this on the Fandle, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook pages. You can follow me on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. And until next time, good luck in your contests. All right.