NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today: Austin Reaves + RJ Barrett! (March 10)

Monday brings a new week, with a tremendous 10-game featured slate, locking at 7:30 p.m. ET on FanDuel and DraftKings. Let’s get into the top NBA DFS picks and building blocks, including RJ Barrett and Austin Reaves, with ample alternatives from their respective matchups under consideration.

These picks are based on the latest information available. For the most up-to-date lineup updates, visit our NBA DFS Starting Lineups Page!

NBA DFS Picks Today – Building Blocks: Monday, March 10

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NBA DFS Picks Today: Building Blocks

The team also does not want to overwork the 29-year-old big man who is in the second season of a four-year deal. His health for next season is important when Toronto should hopefully be fighting for Play-In contention.

Scottie Barnes continues to be the face of the franchise, though the team has held him under 30 minutes in three of the last four games, including Saturday when he played only 27.2 minutes in a 1-point loss to Washington, ending a three-game winning streak for Toronto in front of their faithful fans. The elevated salary for Barnes means that he really needs to get by on efficiency to post a meaningful fantasy score. In his last three games, he collected nine steals and blocked four shots while averaging 16 field goal attempts. The “stocks” are likely to slide back a bit, though there is room for improvement in his 37.8% field goal conversion rate in this timeframe, which should help maintain a median fantasy projection in the low-40s. He did have 49-plus fantasy points in two of these three games, though he will be hard pressed to post the 55-plus needed for him to return tournament-winning value.

RJ Barrett continues to be a strong performer across the box score, averaging 21.7 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.6 assists and 1.1 stocks per game this year in 33.2 minutes of action. Barrett gets the nod tonight with the more reasonable salary when compared to Barnes.

His salary has ticked up a touch since Saturday, though his representation in tournaments remains about the same, despite the larger player pool. That makes Barrett a key foundational play for all formats.

Per the F-R-E-E Stokastic Starting Lineups page, it looks like rookie AJ Lawson is going to be filling in for Walter, with Immanuel Quickley back at the helm after receiving a game off on Saturday.

Lawson can be considered placeholder value, with a chance that rookie Jamal Shead will supplant him with the first five or other discount dandies will become available with 10 teams on the second leg of back-to-backs tonight. Whichever player starts would be the more desirable target.

Quickley has been solid in his 62 games with Toronto over the last season and change. He is averaging just over 18 points per game, four rebounds and 6.3 assists. Washington was a middle-of-the-pack team on defense over the last 15 games, with a 114.0 rating. The team is still playing at a top-10 pace, and that makes it a fantasy-friendly target.

It does not really matter for tonight with so many options available, but it is worth noting that the Raptors have been content to run out a rotation of 8 to 9 players, with most capping out at 28 or so minutes for the last couple of games. This is also transpiring while half a dozen regulars have been out/resting, muting the upside, as covered earlier in this analysis, but also elevating the back of the rotation. With the Raptors at home until Friday, they are not on any sub-slates. However, Friday they will be part of a three-game nightcap in Utah, where the understudies may end up being intriguing options on the sub-slate. These are the little edges that savvy gamers remember then employ when there is not much industry content looking at alternate slates.

Washington will be without Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart, who are going to see limited run down the final stretch of the season. Richaun Holmes (knee) is also out, and, of course, oft-injured Malcolm Brogdon may not set foot on the court for the rest of the year.

The Wizards are thin on the frontcourt, with rookie Alexandre Sarr not being pushed for more than upper-20s minutes, leaving young Tristan Vukcevic as the main backup with any size. Vukcevic is a potential placeholder value, coming off nearly 25 fantasy points in just 17 minutes against Toronto on Saturday. Considering Poeltl is out, the Wizards may be able to get by with Sarr mostly marking the minutes of Orlando Robinson, with Bilal Coulibaly and Kyshawn George serving as the nominal five the rest of the time.

Jordan Poole hosted a party, serving up a 50-burger after missing three games with an elbow issue. He should see 20 field goal attempts most games when he suits up, so he remains a tournament target. Justin Champagnie just signed a four-year deal with the Wizards for just shy of $10 million. The team likes him as a rotational piece, and he could see additional run to gain valuable experience for when Washington escapes the dregs of the league in a couple years.

Looking at the Stokastic NBA Boom/Bust Tool, we can see that Reaves has a 35% probability of reaching his Boom score of 5x salary + 10 fantasy points on DraftKings against a 24% Bust probability. FanDuel has a similar 36% and 27% likelihood for the two outcomes in the fantasy scoring system under the blue site rules, which combined with the palatable salary puts Reaves in borderline “must play” territory.

If Doncic is in, he is a strong tournament target, with the rest of the Lakers being mostly neutral. If he is out, the rest of the starters will have some appeal, though it is hard to see anyone really breaking out from the scrum in a 20-team player pool, even with Dorian Finney-Smith, Jaxson Hayes and Rui Hachimura also out with injuries. Jarred Vanderbilt has the most appeal, but defense and rebounding is his calling card, not offensive production. Keep an ear out on the news, with Alex Len being a potential wild card. He has not played in seven of the last nine games, getting just 3:20 and 4:33 of run in the other two, which means we should not be risking any part of our portfolio with him unless there is a good possibility that he is going to push for 20 minutes.

Currently, the expectation is that Vanderbilt (29.1 minutes) and Trey Jemison (17.7) are going to man the post, with Len working in for around a dozen minutes. Check out the Stokastic NBA Live Before Lock Show at 5:00 p.m. ET for up to the minute analysis of this developing dilemma.

For Brooklyn, D’Angelo “Remember Me?!” Russell, Nicolas Claxton and Cameron Johnson are neutral tournament options. Cam Thomas and Trendon Watford are out for rest, but the Nets have a cast of thousands, so they are not particularly shorthanded.

Today’s Top Sports Betting Pick

Tonight the under for Walker Kessler’s 13.5 rebound prop on BetRivers, SugarHouse and Unibet at -115 looks intriguing.

The screenshot of Portfolio EV shows that this wager has a historical 3.8% ROI. The combination of today’s matchup variables, along with the -115 odds, results in a strong 5.1% expected value when factoring in the -128 “True Odds.”

Most of the other books lowered the threshold to under 12.5 rebounds, with even-money odds. This would equate to a negative-4% expected ROI, which is what has the trio at the top so tantalizing tonight.

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Stokastic’s Advanced NBA Statistical Projections have Kessler projected for 28.9 minutes and 10.47 rebounds. That is well below the 13.5 target and even the prevailing 12.5 alternate option. This is because Utah has not yet released an injury report, and the team has been resting players in bunches. Currently, Kessler, John Collins, Lauri Markkanen and Oscar Tshiebwe are all questionable. It is unlikely that the Jazz will go with rookie Kyle Filipowski and youngster Micah Potter as the only centers, but not impossible. Walker sat for three of the last five games, playing 27.6 minutes with nine rebounds against Detroit and then a whopping 25 rebounds in 33.2 minutes in Toronto.

The more frontcourt players available, the more appealing this wager is, with Kessler then having to compete with his teammates as well as the Boston bigs. Expect the Celtics to use this opportunity to rest a player or two, but that has been accounted for by the math.

Clearly, there is uncertainty at this time, but the math indicates that this is still a strong wager for those using the “top down” philosophy espoused by Portfolio EV, which relies on a market-based approach, pitting the sharper books against the more casual operators.

Final Thoughts on NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today

Tune into the Stokastic NBA Live Before Lock Show at 5:00 p.m. ET on YouTube for expert analysis, key insights and winning strategies to dominate tonight’s NBA DFS slate!