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:
- Russell Westbrook should be one of, if not the most, highest owned players on the slate tonight. Lebron and AD have already been ruled out so in theory all the usage is there for the taking. Additionally, the Lakers get a matchup against a lackluster Brooklyn team still without Kevin Durant and Ben Simmons just ruled out. However, there are still a few pivots to the Westbrook chalk. The most intriguing being Dejounte Murray with a questionable Trae in the late game.
- Aaron Wiggins should draw another start with Dort out again. Wiggins played 30 minutes in his last game and easily paid off his salary. While he has seen a slight price increase, he is still too cheap on both DFS sites. His median projection is 8x his Draftkings salary and 6x his Fanduel salary. He’ll be popular, but he is once again a strong source of value.
- Dorian Finney-Smith chalk never sounds good. However, Luka likely remains out tonight which opens up a ton of usage. Regardless of Luka’s status DFS should still play over 30 minutes with Christian Wood still out as well. The main knock against Finney-Smith is that he remains a low FPPM producer thus you need the sheer volume for him to pay off in GPPs. Given the amount of available pivots and his ownership this is a prime fade candidate.
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
Russell Westbrook
Aaron Wiggins
Dorian Finney-Smith
Rui Hachimura
Thomas Bryant
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: Fred Van Vleet, Chris Paul, Dejounte Murray
SG: Kevin Huerter, Seth Curry, Alec Burks
SF: Harrison Barnes, De’Andre Hunter, Royce O’Neal
PF: Keegan Murray, Deni Avdija, Jaden McDaniels
C: Joel Embiid (if he plays), Jalen Duren, Nic Claxton
Popular DFS Player: Russell Westbrook
Price: $7,500/$7,800
Own%: 53.55%/54.47%
Value DFS Player: Aaron Wiggins
Price: $3,400/$4,200
5x%: 71.20%/41.50%
Player to Avoid in DFS: Dorian Finney-Smith
Price: $4,600/$5,300
LevX: -11.25/-20.94
NBA DFS final thoughts
Lineups tonight are going to be built on a core of value Lakers and Mavs. Simply limiting your exposure to these two teams is enough to make you different in tournaments. Conversely, you can also elect to play the lower owned spots from these teams such as Dennis Schroder or Reggie Bullock. Despite the amount of value plays on the slate, many of the high-priced players are getting modest ownership so that may be a spot to attack as well. Good luck tonight!
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