Paydirt NBA DFS Triple Threat

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, 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:

Update: 4:59pm EST – Due to a slight increase in ownership and a slight decrease in projection Devin Vassell is now a player to avoid tonight in DFS.

• Devin Vassell will once again be a popular play in DFS tonight. Draftkings and Fanduel pricing still hasn’t caught up to his new role and usage with the departure of Dejounte Murray. Due to this continued mispricing you should feel comfortable plugging him into your lineups this evening.
• Kelly Olynyk has taken full advantage of the opportunity in Utah. Surprisingly both sites have him clearly mispriced for both his role and ceiling. Whereas a case can be made for fading Vassell, this is a spot you just don’t need to overthink.
• Jalen Green is yet another player who has been underpriced to start the season relative to his role and upside. However, unlike the players mentioned above, Green has seen his price steadily increase to the current point of $6.3k on both sites. His price increase in combination with his ownership is leading to a negative LevX score on both sites tonight.

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

Popular Play: Devin Vassell

Price: $5,400/$5,800
Own%: 31.99%/31.7%

Devin Vassell is averaging 22.5/4.5/3.5 points, rebounds, and assists with 1.5 steals over his past two games Additionally he’s seeing a usage rate above 20%. Despite all this both sites have him priced under $6k. While he will be popular, Vassell still projects to be a fine play in DFS tonight.

Value Play: Kelly Olynyk

Price: $5,200/$4,800
5x%: 57.2%/69.2%

Kelly O. has dropped 21 and 20 real life points in the past two games leading to 39.75 and 33.75 Draftkings points respectively. Somehow both sites continue to have him inexplicably underpriced at $5.2k on Draftkings and $4.8k on Fanduel. Furthermore, on Draftkings he’s PF/C eligible providing roster flexibility. No need to galaxy brain this one, play him and move on.

Player to avoid in DFS: Jalen Green

Price: $6,300/$6,300
LevX: -17.63/-20.23

Jalen Green is off to a strong start early in the season for the Rockets. However, while he should continue to see high usage and solid minutes we haven’t quite seen the upside needed to make him a priority play at his current price point. The lack of elite ceiling (relative to his price) combined with his projected ownership is resulting in a double digit negative LevX score tonight. He can be avoided in DFS contests tonight.

NBA DFS final thoughts

We seem to be getting back to the normal DFS schedule of slates with roughly 8-10 games on the main slate. This should mean we start seeing slightly more condensed ownership then we’ve seen on these 10+ game slates. Consequently, we need to be more mindful of not only the chalk players, but also the chalk roster construction on a nightly basis. A good example tonight is the plethora of value in the front court. This will likely result in the higher priced PF/C being low-owned. Simply paying up there could be enough leverage as it would force your DFS lineup to be inherently different from the rest of the field.Good luck tonight!