Welcome to the NBA Yahoo Cup Picks for Round 18! The NBA has a seven-game slate tonight, and the pattern of the majority of games being under a 10-point spread continues. Five of the seven games are within 10 points, but only three games have a total above 225 points. Two of the players featured will come from those games, and one player will likely be worth playing even at his popularity in Yahoo fantasy basketball today.
This is a free-to-enter, multi-round, single-entry Yahoo fantasy basketball contest with 24 rounds where the top 6,950 entries overall and top 540 entries per round share $50,000, with $10,000 to first overall and $100 to first per round. Scoring will be cumulative across all rounds. Your five lowest daily fantasy basketball scores will be dropped, and you can enter at any point, but enter today to give yourself the best chance to compete for the title. Click here to begin the chase!
The focus will be on three players — one guard, one forward, and one center — for NBA DFS picks for the Round 18 NBA Yahoo Cup contest.
Yahoo Cup Fantasy Basketball & NBA DFS Picks | Round 18
Best NBA Fantasy Guard: Dejounte Murray, San Antonio Spurs — $47
This is the second straight NBA Yahoo Cup that Dejounte Murray has been the featured guard play, and he is in an incredible spot tonight. The San Antonio Spurs face the Atlanta Hawks, and the game not only carries a 232.5 total, but the Spurs made a surprising trade yesterday at the deadline. They dealt guard Derrick White to the Boston Celtics, but the newly acquired players are not expected to play tonight. When White has been off the floor this year for the Spurs, Murray has had a 27.8% usage rate and 1.52 Yahoo points minute on top of an assist rate that jumps to 43.8%. Both teams are in the bottom 12 in defensive rating, and the Hawks are down to 27th, while the Spurs play at the fifth-fastest pace in the league.
Another bonus for Murray is he is tied for the league lead in steals per game (two), and he will defend Trae Young for most of the night. Young is a fantastic player, but he is fourth in turnovers per game (4.1), and with steals counting as 3 points on Yahoo, Murray could score over 10 Yahoo points on steals alone tonight. Additionally, Murray is seventh in points scored as the ball handler in the pick-and-roll, while Atalanta allows the 11th-most points per game in that play type. With White off the floor Murray will have the ball in his hands even more, and his game is so well rounded by contributing to every stat category that he is worth his high salary in an elite game environment.
Not only does Murray look like a great play tonight for Yahoo lineups, but Awesemo projections have him slated for 8.5 rebounds tonight. His rebound prop is a great bet, which is sitting at over/under 7.5 tonight, and OddsShopper has an expected win rate of 61% when betting the over.
Best NBA Fantasy Forward: Jerami Grant, Detroit Pistons — $26
Any game involving the Charlotte Hornets has been a target all season long, and it will be no different when they face the Pistons in Detroit tonight. The Pistons seem likely to be without Cade Cunningham, as he missed the game last night for his fifth straight absence. Jerami Grant seems to be finding his footing a little bit after missing almost two months of action. Grant has a 25.6% usage rate and 0.90 Yahoo points per minute when Cunningham has been off the floor this season, and the Charlotte matchup can pull a big game out of anyone that has a usage rate over 25%.
On the season Grant has averaged 5.1 points per game as a spot-up shooter, and Charlotte is allowing the second-most points to spot-up shooters this season. Additionally, Grant has been averaging around 30 minutes per night since he has come back, and the matchup is quietly very fast. The Hornets have been a top-three team in pace all year, but Detroit is 11th, helping explain the high total of 226 points. Grant is one of the primary scoring options with or without Cunningham, and the salary should probably be a couple of dollars higher.
Best NBA Fantasy Center: Goga Bitadze, Indiana Pacers — $15
Goga Bitadze may well be popular tonight, but the salary relief offered by playing him is very difficult to pass up, even in a difficult matchup against the Cavaliers frontcourt. The Cavaliers are first in points allowed in the paint, and that is less than ideal for Bitadze since he is averaging eight touches in the paint and scoring 7.6 points per game in the paint since Jan. 20. That is when Bitadze has been getting the bulk of his minutes, and that was around the last time Myles Turner played. Not only is Turner still out, but Domantas Sabonis is now playing for Sacramento, so Bitadze’s size is desperately needed for the Pacers tonight. As long as Bitadze can stay out of foul trouble, he should see around 30 minutes of court time, and the 1.02 Yahoo points per minute are a great fit at this low of a salary.
