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:
- Josh Richardson will be a popular value play tonight for the Spurs. Tre Jones, Jeremy Sochan, and Devin Vassell are all out which should shorten up the rotation. Richardson has been averaging over a fantasy point per minute over the last month and his projected to play over 30 minutes. Needless to say, he rates out very well. Despite his high expected ownership, there are few comparable pivots.
- Davion Mitchell will be starting tonight in place of D’Aaron Fox for the Kings. He’s $3.8k on Fanduel and the bare minimum on Draftkings. Understandably, he rates as the strongest value player on both sites. He’s currently projected for 25 minutes and median projection 7x his salary. Additionally, he gets a great matchup versus the Pacers. Don’t overthink think this one, just plug him in and get different elsewhere.
- Dario Saric is projected to be very highly owned tonight (moreso on Draftkings). On one hand he is very cheap and Cam Johnson is out, on the other hand there are currently over 20 similarly priced pivots at lower ownership. This may be subject to change with late updates to projection models, but currently this a very easy fade in GPPs
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
Davion Mitchell
Josh Richardson
Harrison Barnes
Dario Saric
Malik Monk
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: Mike Conley, Fred Van Vleet, James Harden
SG: Gary Trent Jr., Terry Rozier, Jordan Clarkson
SF: Mikal Bridges, Anthony Edwards, Jaylen Brown
PF: Jayson Tatum, De’Andre Hunter, Jerami Grant
C: Clint Capela, Jalen Duren, Walker Kessler
Popular DFS Player: Josh Richardson
Price: $4,800/$5,500
Own%: 53.54%/53.49%
Value DFS Player: Davion Mitchell
Price: $3,000/$3,800
5x%: 71.30%/59.50%
Player to Avoid in DFS: Dario Saric
Price: $3,500/$5,100
LevX: -29.45/9.50
NBA DFS final thoughts
The main leverage points tonight are Davion Mitchell, Josh Richardson, and Joel Embiid. Embiid is probably the primary way to get different as there are multiple high-ceiling studs on the slate tonight. However, Mitchell and Josh Richardson are much harder to find true pivots with similar median/ceiling combos. That said, one way to approach this could be to target the other players on their respective teams who stand to benefit from the same situation. Good luck!
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