NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today: Wagner, Banchero, Tatum and Pritchard! (March 6)

Thursday’s NBA action takes the form of a six-game featured slate, locking at 7:00 p.m. ET on FanDuel and DraftKings. Let’s get into the top NBA DFS picks and building blocks, including Jayson Tatum, Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, Payton Pritchard and more!

These picks are based on the latest available information. For the most current lineup updates, be sure to check out our NBA DFS Starting Lineups Page!

NBA DFS Picks Today – Building Blocks: Thursday, March 6

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NBA DFS Picks Today: Building Blocks

Al Horford is unlikely to play on the back-to-back, so that could push Luke Kornet into another 22 to 25 minutes marking rookie Donovan Clingan. Brown has a good chance of being a spectator tonight after logging 40 minutes on Wednesday, and White, Hauser, and Jrue Holiday are also questionable.

Holiday missed the last trio of tilts with a finger injury on his dominant hand. The soon-to-be 35-year-old played in only three of the last 11 games, and with Boston likely ending up as the No. 2 or No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference Playoffs behind the Cleveland Cavaliers and potentially the New York Knicks, there is no reason to push Holiday.

This all bodes well for Pritchard, who gets ample run in games where the key starters are out. We should not expect another personal-best outing, but he is definitely a desirable foundational play if a couple of the regulars are out. In a fun tidbit from ESPN game notes, Pritchard and White were the first Boston duo to score at least 40 points in the same game and the first two teammates in NBA history to make nine or more 3-pointers.

If Holiday remains out, expect White to play tonight, though he could get a quick hook if this game is easily in hand. The Celtics are 14.5-point home favorites, and it is hard to see many paths for the putrid Philadelphia offense to keep the 76ers in this game for long.

Tyrese Maxey (back) is likely going to be out through the weekend, and Paul George (groin) has turned into “Postal P” as he is pretty much mailing it in at this point in the season. If he plays, it at least will help boost the Sixers offense, though he is not worthy of DFS attention. Andre Drummond is a tournament wild card if Boston is going with backups across the frontcourt. Guerschon Yabusele is a placeholder value on DraftKings, but he is likely to be supplanted as other player injury and availability scenarios play out across the dozen teams in action tonight.

Quentin Grimes averaged 37.8 minutes and 19.0 field goal attempts with a 63.2% success rate over the last three games. This resulted in 29.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.3 combined blocks and steals, which is tremendous. We should not expect this type of conversion rate against Boston, but the volume and minutes should be there for the well-traveled 24-year-oold.

This pair missed 54 combined games with oblique injuries, including 14 where both were sidelined. Now Jalen Suggs is done for the season with left knee surgery, having missed 25 of the last 26 games. This resulted in some heavy minutes for Banchero (38.3 in the last three games) and Wagner (37.3 in the same period). Orlando lost these games by a combined 9 points, which has the team scrambling with one lonely victory in the last six opportunities.

Both players can fill the box score, though it was Banchero who flashed the higher upside more recently, with 59.5, 36 and 73.5 fantasy points in the last three games. Wagner has that ceiling as well, but he does not access it with the same frequency, having not surpassed the 50-fantasty point threshold in the last eight games.

Over the last 10 games, Chicago had the fourth-worst defensive efficiency rating, allowing 118.6 points per 100 possessions while playing at the fifth-fastest pace with 102.3 possessions per 48 minutes during this period. That is a bonus as Orlando is one of the slowest-paced teams in the league.

Nikola Vucevic (calf) is likely to miss his sixth straight game, while plus defenders Lonzo Ball and Patrick Williams are questionable. Ball is on track to play with the team more worried about managing the minutes on his chronically injured knees, and Williams is really a question mark, having missed the last six games with a quad issue.

Cole Anthony (toe) missed the last game, but he is a potential discount dandy if he rejoins the first five. Ball is a placeholder value who looks like a fixture on both DraftKings ($4,700, 29.5%) and FanDuel ($5,200, 32.8%). He is coming off a season-high 34.5 minutes, so the expectation is right around 30 minutes of run tonight. This is not quite accounted for in his salary cap hit on the main DFS sites, though it would be a surprise to see him on more than a quarter of all lineups once the dust settles at lock.

Today’s Top Sports Betting Pick

Tonight we can look to the under for Josh Giddey’s 6.5 assists prop on BetRivers, SugarHouse and Unibet, where this wager is available at +112, which is dramatically better than any other sportsbook by at least 6% or more and a whopping 12% better than on Pinnacle (-112).

The screenshot of Portfolio EV shows that this wager has a historical 8.7% ROI. The combination of today’s matchup variables, along with the +112 odds, results in a spectacular 6.7% expected value when factoring in the -101 “True Odds.”

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Stokastic’s Advanced NBA Statistical Projections have Giddey projected for 33.8 minutes and 6.24 assists. This is a tough matchup against an Orlando team that is happy to limit possessions and focus on defense, with their own excellent halfcourt offense. Giddey is questionable with a sore quad that cost him the last game, but indications are that he is likely to suit up tonight.

This wager is not for the faint of heart, with Giddey averaging 35.4 minutes and 9.4 assists across the last five games, though considering the opposition (Phoenix, Philadelphia, Toronto and Indiana), none outside of the Los Angeles Clippers are even remotely comparable to the defense and pace of Orlando. For full disclosure, Giddey did have a dozen assists against L.A., but he also averaged just 5.4 assists in the 10 games preceding his current hot streak.

Final Thoughts on NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today

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