This article is part of our Yahoo DFS Basketball series.
The NBA gears up for its annual Thanksgiving sabbatical with a massive 14-game slate that gives us one of the most prolific player pools of the season to work with. There are loads of intriguing plays across the salary scale, setting us up for a terrific night of DFS lineup construction and sweats!
As customary, we'll highlight multiple advantageous positional matchups to exploit at each position for your Yahoo Fantasy lineups, as well as a good trio of candidates that may be best to steer clear of due to a combination of circumstances/salary.
Guards
LaMelo Ball, CHA vs. MIA ($45): Ball's ceiling of late has been extraordinary, with the talented guard scoring 56.7 to 70 Yahoo points in his last three games. Ball has scored between 35 and 50 actual points in that stretch while taking an astounding 31.7 shots per game, and he'll now face a Heat team that had to travel after a wire-to-wire matchup against the Bucks on Tuesday night. Miami has been fairly effective against PGs but still has allowed 50.3 Yahoo points per contest to the position in the last seven games.
Russell Westbrook, DEN at UTA ($21): Westbrook is a second-unit player these days, but that doesn't block him from the occasional turn-back-the-clock performance that enables him to offer a handsome return on investment. Wednesday's matchup against the defensively inept Jazz could very well coax one of those efforts out of him, as Utah is surrendering a co-NBA-high 28.7 offensive efficiency rating to point guards, as well as the eighth highest (44.6) to second-unit players. For his part, Westbrook has scored 38.9 to 49 Yahoo points in three of his last four games, and he has three other tallies north of 30 Yahoo points this season while averaging a solid 25 minutes per game.
ALSO CONSIDER: Donovan Mitchell, CLE vs. ATL ($45); Scotty Pippen, MEM vs. DET ($22)
Guard to Avoid
Dejounte Murray, NOP vs. TOR ($42): Murray is reportedly set to make his season debut Wednesday night after completing his recovering from a hand injury, but he's expected to have some sort of minutes restriction, as would be expected. As such, this salary essentially makes him non-playable, considering he'd have a very difficult time justifying it irrespective of his talent. Murray could well warrant this type of investment soon, but rolling the dice on him in his first game is unnecessarily risky on a slate with so many options.
Forwards
Franz Wagner, ORL vs. CHI ($39): Wagner has been very effective while taking on extra usage in the prolonged absence of Paolo Banchero (oblique), sporting a 31.2% usage rate and averaging 49.2 Yahoo points per 36 minutes with his teammate off the floor. Wagner has scored 49.7 to 69.7 Yahoo points in his last three games alone, and he also has four games of 46.6 to 62.2 Yahoo points within his last eight contests. In other words, his salary is probably still too low for his current ceiling, and a matchup against a Bulls team that's on the second night of a back-to-back and giving up the second-most points per game (123.1) could help Wagner deliver another excellent return.
P.J. Washington, DAL vs. NYK ($25): Washington is another player benefitting from a marquee absence on his team, as the versatile big man has been highly productive during Luka Doncic's absence. Washington has scored 40 to 44.1 Yahoo points in his last three games with Doncic out due to his wrist injury, and five games ago when Luka also sat due to knee injury management, Washington went off for 52.4 Yahoo points versus the Thunder. Therefore, he could deliver up to a 2x return on salary Wednesday with Doncic still out, and the Knicks check in surrendering 48.4% shooting to power forwards, along with 43.6 Yahoo points per game to the position on the season.
ALSO CONSIDER: Scottie Barnes, TOR vs. NOP ($42)
Forward to Avoid
Tobias Harris, DET at MEM ($30): Harris has both injury and performance concerns attached to him Wednesday. Despite the fact Cade Cunningham's absence is expected to extend to a third game Wednesday, Harris doesn't gain extra appeal considering he's scored just 17.5 and 21.6 Yahoo points in the first two games the talented point guard has missed. Additionally, a left hip impingement that may have helped lead to Harris shooting just 31.6% in those contests has him listed as questionable for Wednesday, further encouraging the Avoid tag.
Centers
Jarrett Allen, CLE vs. ATL ($33): Allen makes for an intriguing fantasy-point-per-dollar consideration at his salary in this matchup. For further evidence, considering the big man has scored 38.2 to 53.5 Yahoo points in four of his last five games alone, hitting 43 Yahoo points or more in three of those contests overall. That's the type of upside Allen brings at his salary, and the Hawks could facilitate similar results considering they've allowed 55.3 Yahoo points per game to centers in the last seven games and the fourth-most points in the paint per contest in the last three (56.3), an area of the floor where just under 80% of Allen's scoring originates from.
Ivica Zubac, LAC at WAS ($28): Zubac has been a bedrock of the Clippers' attack on both ends of the floor all season in the ongoing absence of Kawhi Leonard (knee) and the current one for Norman Powell (hamstring). Powell could remain out Wednesday, and Zubac checks in having scored between 33 and 42.4 Yahoo points in the last six games. The big man is averaging career highs in points (15.6), rebounds (12.4) and even assists (2.5), and he's averaging over a block per contest (1.1) once again. The Wizards have allowed the second-highest offensive efficiency rating to centers (37.9), the third-most Yahoo points per game to the position in the last seven (62.1), and an NBA-high 58.8 rebounds per home game, brightening Zubac's outlook even further.
ALSO CONSIDER: Isaiah Hartenstein, OKC at GSW ($24); Moritz Wagner, ORL vs. CHI ($20)
Center to Avoid
Onyeka Okongwu, ATL at CLE ($21): Okongwu has certainly proven capable of delivering excellent returns with modest salaries, but he enters Wednesday's tough matchup already stuck in a funk. The backup center has scored just 12.4 to 20.9 Yahoo points in his last four games, shooting only 38.7% in that stretch while mustering single-digit scoring totals in each. The Cavs are far from an opponent that could help break out of that skid, surrendering the fourth-lowest offensive efficiency rating to centers (27.4), along with the fewest Yahoo points per game and fourth-fewest rebounds per contest (13.3) to the position as well.
