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:
- The Nets remain without Kevin Durant and are now even shorter on scoring options after Seth Curry got ruled out due to a knee injury. Kyrie has been sensational in his last 4 games, scoring 52+ Draftkings points in all 4, including 60+ twice, and a massive 84 point ceiling game. Tonight he gets a matchup against one of the worst defenses and the 2nd most friendly FPPM team in the NBA. Expect Kyrie to be very popular tonight.
- The Rockets are sneakily short on some bodies tonight, with KPJ, Eric Gordon, and Jae'Sean Tate all ruled out. Garrison Matthews stands to be the main beneficiary with a projected start in line. Matthews is heavily reliant on his shot falling in order to score both real life and fantasy points, however, he is the dead minimum on Draftkings tonight and therefore projects to be a solid value play with not much needed in order for him to crush his price tag.
- Operating under the assumption that Donovan Mitchell will miss some time, Evan Mobley is drawing quite a bit of projected ownership tonight. Mobley is likely underpriced for Mitchell being out, and therefore projects to be a solid play. However, if you disregard his outlier game against the Bucks, Mobley has not shown a tremendous ceiling this season even with Mitchell out. Mobley is a strong cash play tonight, but he may be a good spot to be underweight on in tournaments given his limited ceiling.
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
Kyrie Irving
Garrison Matthews
Ben Simmons
Evan Mobley
Jarrett Allen
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: Luka, Coby White, Malaki Branham
SG: Isaac Okoro, Joe Harris, Quentin Grimes
SF: Jayson Tatum, Reggie Bullock, Stanley Johnson
PF: Nicolas Batum, Jericho Sims, Derrick Jones
C: Isaiah Hartenstein, Jakob Poeltl, Al Horford
Popular DFS Player: Kyrie Irving
Price: $10,300/$10,100
Own%: 44.46%/42.11%
Value DFS Player: Garrison Matthews
Price: $3,000/$3,800
5x%: 75.10%/57.50%
Player to Avoid in DFS: Evan Mobley
Price: $7,200/$7,000
LevX: -16.44/-46.54
NBA DFS final thoughts
This is shaping up to be a pretty fun slate where ownership is condensing in a way that will make for some easy pivots. This is just a 6 game slate, so there aren't an overwhelming amount of options to choose from, but there are still places to go to be different from the field.
It looks like a more balanced build with one pay up (likely Kyrie) will be the go to construction by a majority of the field tonight. No surprise this makes the best leverage plays the pay up options not named Kyrie Irving and the cheap value that may be fragile but too much of the field will avoid. I would try to make more stars and scrubs lineups tonight as it will help you be unique in GPPs. Good luck!
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