Welcome to the NBA DFS Triple Threat here at Paydirt! This is going to be a daily article aimed at giving thoughts and notes on three important aspects of the NBA DFS slate. We will talk through the most popular player on the slate, a great value play, and a situation you need to monitor to find success. This article is best used with the projections models here at Paydirt (Found here), but it will still be valuable even as a one off piece of content. While the focus is on Draftkings, the content is applicable to Fanduel as well. Costs, Projections, and finishing percentiles format will be Draftkings/Fanduel.
Main Points:
- Dejounte Murray is going to be a very popular play in DFS tonight with Trae Young ruled out. Murray has already shown that he has a high ceiling in previous games with no Trae as well as last year with the Spurs. Murray is simply underpriced for his ceiling. While people might be worried about potential blowout risk it’s worth noting that even without Trae, Vegas only has the Hawks as 4.5 point underdogs.
- Duane Washington Jr. has a usage rate over 30% in the Suns past 3 games as he’s had to fill the void in the backcourt. CP3, Booker, Payne, and Shamet are all out tonight leaving the Suns with no depth. Consequently, Washington will be extremely popular but is still underpriced for his current role. His median projection is still roughly 8x his salary on both sites.
- Rudy Gobert is going to be one of the most popular center options on the slate and that will only increase if Anthony Edwards gets ruled out. Despite a fairly strong median projection, Gobert is certainly fadeable in GPPs. The Gobert fade comes down primarily to his price. Not only are there multiple pivots in his price range, about half of them are also C eligible.
Depending on the size of the slate, there may be multiple situations, value plays, and popular options that you need to consider. Join the Paydirt discord with this link for more updates and game theory on all the slates details: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF
NBA Cash Game Core:
This core of players will help you build a strong foundation in cash games. While it is best to use all these players, it's not a requirement
Dejounte Murray
Duane Washington Jr.
Zach Lavine
Nerlens Noel
Giannis Antetokounmpo OR Nikola Jokic
NBA GPP Core:
This core of players will help you build in differentiation in your lineups. These players are meant to be mixed in with some of the stronger chalk options. How many of these players you put in is dependent on the size of the field and personal risk tolerance.
PG: Kevin Porter Jr., CJ McCollum, Jalen Brunson
SG: Pat Connaughton, Hamidou Diallo, Andrew Nembhard
SF: Jaylen Brown, Joe Ingles, Kyle Anderson
PF: John Collins, Jaren Jackson Jr., Dario Saric
C: Jonas Valanciunas, Myles Turner, Nikola Vucevic
Popular DFS Play: Dejounte Murray
Price: $8,200/$8,200
Own%: 47.17%/70.00%
DFS Value Play: Duane Washington Jr.
Price: $4,600/$5,700
5x%: 85.00%/66.50%
Player to avoid in DFS: Rudy Gobert
Price: $7,100/$7,500
LevX: -14.71/-12.77
NBA DFS final thoughts
Noel plus the combo of Lavine/Murray. Additionally, Giannis and Jokic will be popular spend ups. While normally we can look for some low-owned high-upside leverage at the top, no one really compares to Giannis and Jokic tonight. However, the Suns value chalk is more volatile than people want to admit and there are other value options on the slate. Likewise, both Lavine and Murray have other players in their price range with similar ceilings. Swapping Suns value for Bulls and/or Hawks value, for example, could be a way to gain leverage while still taking advantage of those team situations. Good luck tonight!
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