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:
- Jrue Holiday is going to be the highest owned player on the slate. Granted ownership in general will be inflated due to there only being 4 games, however, we could easily see two-thirds of the field rostering Holiday. On one hand he is a strong play since he is underpriced for his role with no Giannis or Middleton, but on the other hand fading him is the single easiest leverage point of the night. There’s no right answer here, just be very cognizant of the collective ownership of your lineups with or without him.
- Brook Lopez is likely going to be the highest owned C in DFS tonight but with good reason. Giannis is out which not only opens up a ton of usage, but should also have a positive boost to Lopez’s rebounding rate as well. Additionally, Lopez has been averaging over a fantasy point per minute over the past month. Due to all of these converging factors Brook Lopez grades out as a fantastic value tonight on both sites.
- Bobby Portis is in the same boat as Holiday and Lopez in that he’ll see massive ownership tonight. However, whereas Jrue and Brook are both underpriced, Portis is actually overpriced (or at least fairly priced) even in light of the situation. Due to his price point on both sites there are more viable pivots to make with similar projections at drastically lower ownership.
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
Jrue Holida
Bobby Portis
Brook Lopez
Ben Simmons
Damian Lillard
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: Jamal Murray, Bones Hyland, Tyrese Maxey
SG: James Harden, Norman Powell, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope
SF: Keldon Johnson, Michael Porter Jr., Pat Connaughton
PF: Kawhi Leonard, Aaron Gordon, Jeremy Sochan
C: Pascal Siakam, Nic Claxton, Jakob Poeltl
Popular DFS Player: Jrue Holiday
Price: $8,000/$7,900
Own%: 67.73%/70.00%
Value DFS Player: Brook Lopez
Price: $5,800/$6,400
5x%: 59.90%/43.90%
Player to avoid in DFS: Bobby Portis
Price: $7,000/$6,800
LevX: -26.90/-45.13
NBA DFS final thoughts
The single biggest piece of leverage on the slate is Jrue Holiday. If you fade him you can potentially leap past well over half the field, however, if he goes off you’re dead. This decision may come down to contest size where he makes more sense as a fade in top-heavy, large field GPPs. Additionally, the combination of Jrue/Portis/Brook should largely be avoided outside of cash games and small GPPs (less than 500 entries). The spend up option appears to be a good place to gain leverage as currently Lillard is projected to be the popular play leaving high upside options like Harden and Jokic much lower owned relative to their ceilings. Good luck!
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