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:
- Talen Horton Tucker is in line for another start here with Collin Sexton still sidelined and still has not seen a significant enough price increase. Despite very poor shooting, THT has ecplised over 31 Draftkings points in back to back games without Sexton. He has 7 rebounds in each of the last 2 games as well has 6+ assists in both. This is all while shooting a combined 7-26 between the 2 games. Now he finds himself in a matchup against the league's worst defense in San Antonio and should see 30+ minutes yet again. Expect Horton Tucker to be one of the most popular plays on tonight's slate
- Josh Richardson joined the Pelicans starting lineup for the first time last game and put up 25 Draftkings points in 29 minutes. Richardson remains cheap at just $4,200 on Draftkings tonight and should draw another start. Dyson Daniels is questionable, so keep an eye on his status. If he remains out more minutes could come Richardson's way, but if he is ruled in it is possible he could steal a few minutes. Regardless of Daniel's status however, Richardson projects as a great value play tonight given that he finds himself in the starting lineup again.
- Kevin Love saw a rather surprising start in his first game for the Miami Heat and posted 20 Draftkings points in 22 minutes of play. Love's minutes were likely skewed by the game being a blowout by the 3rd quarter, however, Love is an older player and is dealing with a little bit of a knee injury on a back to back. Moreover, Love only shot the ball 4 times in his brief debut. Despite Love's intriguing price tag in another assumed start, his ceiling is likely very limited on a healthy Miami Heat team.
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
Talen Horton Tucker
Jordan Clarkson
Josh Richardson
Kevin Love
Walker Kessler
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: James Harden, Jalen Suggs, Marcus Smart
SG: Chris Duarte, Gary Harris, KCP
SF: Tatum, Vlatko Cancar, Jonathon Isaac
PF: Herb Jones, JT Thor, Brandon Clarke
C: Jokic, Embiid, Charles Bassey
DFS Popular Player: Talen Horton Tucker
Price: $5,500/5,900
Own%: 48.72%/55.77%
DFS Value Player: Josh Richardson
Price: $4,200/5,900
5x%: 65.00%/23.8%
Player to Avoid in DFS: Kevin Love
Price: $3,800/4,000
LevX: -22.94/-40.17
NBA DFS final thoughts
This is a very tight slate with the only injury news being questionable tags for Keldon Johnson and Kelly Olynyk. Things could open up if one or both of them is ruled out (specifically Keldon), but if not we are going to see some condensed ownership on shaky chalk. Balanced builds are likely to be popular with the weak value that is available, which will likely cause the high end studs to go vastly overlooked. All of Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, and Jayson Tatum should see sub 20% ownership and have by far the highest ceilings on the slate. I would prioritize getting at least one of them in all of my lineups.
Furthermore, there really is not too much separating the popular value plays (Love, THT, Josh Richardson), from other shaky value at a fraction of the ownership (Charles Bassey, Chris Duarte, Gary Harris). A stars and scrubs build that includes the highest ceiling players on the slate at more than reasonable ownership combined with not eating all of the shaky chalk that projects as value seem like a great way to go tonight. Good luck!
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