NBA DFS Picks Today - Thursday's Best Plays & Strategy

The core last night didn’t necessarily come through. Landry Shamet got badly outplayed by a vengeful Jordan Clarkson. Killian Hayes and Daeqwan Plowden were solid, while Jakob Poeltl was a no-show against the Pels. It happens! Sound plays don’t always work out, that’s the game.

Tonight is a different beast. Eight games, multiple high totals, and enough value at every price point that you can actually get to the studs you want. The hard part is narrowing it down. I’ll walk you through the core plays I’m anchoring to, the game environments I’m attacking, my favorite GPP pivots, and the studs worth paying up for tonight. Let’s build!

🏀 New to DFS? Slate Overview

Top injury news to monitor: Wembanyama, Herro, and Nembhard are questionable. Tatum is out.

Best value plays: Memphis has 9 guys if Spencer (Q) plays. They signed Tyler Burton, who is not in the player pool. He would be the 8th if Spencer is out.

Top game to attack: Mavs at Grizzlies (DAL -4.5, 239.5 total) — highest total on the board, both teams are terrible and undermanned.

Top stud: Nikola Jokic ($12,500) — Tough matchup on a B2B, but easily enough cheap value to jam him in.

Blowout risks: WAS-ORL, PHI-DET, and BKN-ATL all have 15-point spreads.

NBA DFS Core Plays for Tuesday

Javon Small ($5,500)
Danny Wolf ($4,800)
Trendon Watford ($4,000)
Nikola Jokic ($12,500)

🏀 New to DFS? Core plays are the guys you put in most or all of your lineups. They have strong matchups, clear paths to big minutes, and prices that make it easy to fit premium players elsewhere.

So! Memphis has 9 if Cam Spencer plays, and I’m getting the vibe he’s more likely to sit than not. So, if they’re down to 8, there really isn’t any way around playing multiple Grizzlies in every lineup. I’d start with Javon Small, who’s averaging a very strong 1.11 DK FP/minute since the beginning of February. 30 minutes should be his floor if Spencer is out. Plus, they’re playing a fellow tanker in Dallas, so the matchup is swell.

There are plenty of other viable values for Memphis – O-Max Prosper, GG Jackson, Jaylen Wells, etc. – but I like Rayan Rupert for only $4,300. He’s topped 30 minutes in 3 of his last 5 games. Not as productive per-minute as Small (0.84), but his ability to generate blocks/steals gives him some sneaky upside.

Brooklyn is another shorthanded squad as they take on the Hawks. MPJ, Sharpe, Traore, Demin, and Ziaire are all out. Porter and Demin are the bigger ones, but Sharpe’s absence means Danny Wolf could see some time as a smallball backup 5 behind Nic Claxton. Wolf has been awesome – 1.22 DK FP/minute – in a 135-minute sample on the season with Sharpe, Porter Jr., and Demin on the bench.

Nikola Jokic isn’t in a perfect spot with the Nuggets hitting the road for the latter half of a tough B2B in San Antonio. He still offers the highest floor/ceiling combination in all of DFS, and there’s more than enough cheap value to make it easy to pay for him. I do think Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama (if active, obviously) are good alternatives. Jokic’s ownership tends to be insanely high on these value-rich slates.

🟢 SAFE Smart, Rupert — high floor, clear paths to value, lots of minutes available in MEM.

🟡 BOOM/BUST Jokic, Wolf — big upside, but the context is tough for Denver here. Wolf has also had a wider range of outcomes.

Best NBA DFS Game Environments for 3/17

🏀 New to DFS? We look for games with high point totals because more points scored = more fantasy points available. The “total” is the sportsbook’s projected combined score for both teams. Higher is generally better for DFS.

Mavs at Grizzlies (239.5 total)
Nuggets at Spurs (238.5)
Bucks at Heat (234.5)
Wizards at Magic (233.5)

Sneaky GPP Pivots

🏀 New to DFS? GPP stands for Guaranteed Prize Pool — the big tournaments. To win tournaments, your lineup has to be different from everyone else’s. A “GPP pivot” is a player who will be lower-owned than his upside deserves, giving you a tournament edge if he performs well.

Victor Wembanyama ($11,000)
Cade Cunningham ($10,900)
Nic Claxton ($5,800)

Wemby and Cade offer similar ceilings to Jokic, yet neither will be as popular. Wembanyama’s Q tag could keep his ownership particularly low, and the draw against a Denver team on a B2B is pretty appealing. Cade’s game has blowout risk with the Pistons favored by over two touchdowns over a ragged version of the Sixers, so he’s fairly unlikely to see a full allotment of minutes. The field will see the spread and shy away, so it won’t take a ton of exposure to Cunningham for you to get over the field.

Claxton looks like the smart pivot off of the likely Wolf chalk. He’s been excellent (1.28 FP/minute) without Demin/MPJ/Sharpe, and Atlanta has been an exploitable matchup for opposing Cs all season. I doubt anyone wants to go too deep with Brooklyn on this slate. If the Wolf chalk fails and Brooklyn doesn’t systemically fail overall, Claxton could be in for a big night. $5,800 is pretty reasonable with Sharpe out of the mix.

🏀 Not Sure Where to Start?

If you’re newer to DFS and feeling overwhelmed by an 8-game slate, here’s how to approach it:

Know what contest you’re entering before you pick a single player. Cash games (50/50s, head-to-head) pay out the top half of the field. Your goal is a safe, reliable lineup. GPP tournaments pay out the top 15-20%, with most of the prize pool at the very top. Your goal there is ceiling. These two goals require completely different lineups.
Shorthanded teams are your best friend. When a team is missing rotation players, the guys who are left get more minutes, more shots, and more fantasy opportunities than their salary reflects. Memphis is the prime example tonight — down to 8 or 9 guys against a bad Dallas team on a 239.5 total. Javon Small and Rayan Rupert aren’t household names, but they’re going to play 30+ minutes in a high-scoring game. That’s the formula. Check every team’s injury report before building — not as an afterthought, but as step one.
Avoid blowout games unless you’re on the right side. Three games tonight — Washington/Orlando, Philadelphia/Detroit, Brooklyn/Atlanta — have 15-point spreads. That means one team is expected to win by a lot. In blowout games, the losing team’s stars get pulled in the fourth quarter, costing you 6-8 minutes of usage when it matters most. The winner’s stars get pulled, too, once it’s over. Unless you have a clear read on which team blows the other out and you’re stacking that side, these games are traps. Cade Cunningham is a GPP play tonight specifically because most people will see that spread and avoid him — if you’re right that he plays full minutes, you’re getting elite production with minimal competition.
Minutes are the currency of DFS. Always ask: how many minutes is this guy going to play? A player can’t score if he’s on the bench. Before you add anyone to your lineup, ask yourself: is his role clearly defined tonight? Does he have a path to 28+ minutes? Danny Wolf is interesting tonight not because he’s a star but because with Sharpe, Porter, and Demin all out, his path to meaningful minutes is real. That’s all it takes at his price.
Understand floor vs. ceiling before you decide who to play. Floor is the minimum you can reasonably expect from a player. Ceiling is the maximum upside if everything goes right. In cash games, you want floor — guys who almost certainly hit their value. In tournaments, you want ceiling — guys who can go nuclear. Javon Small (1.11 fantasy points per minute) has a strong floor. Jokic has both. Cade Cunningham has a massive ceiling with blowout risk dragging his floor down. Knowing which one you need tells you which players belong in your lineup.
High game totals tell you where the points are. The total is the sportsbook’s projected combined score. Higher total = more points on the floor = more fantasy points available. Tonight the Mavs/Grizzlies game (239.5) and Nuggets/Spurs (238.5) are the two richest environments. Washington/Orlando has a 233.5 total, but with a 15-point spread, those points aren’t distributed evenly — they’re mostly going to Orlando’s starters in the first three quarters.
Don’t pay for a big name if the context is bad. Jokic is the best DFS player alive, but he’s on a back-to-back on the road tonight. Does that mean you can’t play him? No — his ceiling is still elite. But it’s a real consideration, and his ownership will be sky-high on a value-heavy slate. Paying for studs in bad spots means you need them to overcome that context. Sometimes the better play is the $10,900 option (Cade) that the field is fading, rather than the $12,500 chalk everyone else has.
Tonight’s starting point: Start with at least one or two Memphis plays — Small and Rupert are the cleanest. Add Wolf if you want Brooklyn exposure. Then make the call on your stud: Jokic for the safest ceiling, Wemby, SGA, or Cade if you want a tournament edge. You don’t need 20 lineups to compete. One lineup with a clear logic — shorthanded team value, a high-total game stack, and one differentiated stud call — beats a dozen thrown-together ones every time.