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 6:34pm EST: Josh Giddey has been ruled IN for OKC. This potentially kills the top value on the slate. However, you have a few options. First, you can hope that the recent strong performance from Jalen Williams rewards him with a secure rotation spot. Secondly, you can try to pivot to another player in the same range although it's pretty bare. Lastly, you can adjust your roster construction and come down from your spend up and go more balanced.
- Nikola Vucevic is going to be popular tonight as we continue to pick on the dumpster fire in Brooklyn. Vucevic has a tremendous matchup on paper and is understandably chalk. However, he has been shooting it poorly and is playing modest minutes so far this season.
- Jalen Williams is projected to be the chalk value play on both sites tonight. He played as season high in minutes last game and should easily hit value with a similar workload tonight. Despite all that, the Thunder are still a young and bad team, which can lead to some unpredictable rotations.
- Kyle Lowry is popular for some reason. Not sure why people feel the need to play thickums other than it’s only a four-game slate. Consequently, he has negative LevX score on both DFS 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 DFS Play: Nikola Vucevic
Price: $7,800/$8,300
Own%: 34.19%/22.79%
Nikola Vucevic has been something of a boom-or-bust player this season. While he does have 50+ fantasy point upside, he’s also capable of a complete dud. He’s also off to a poor shooting start and playing barely over 30 minutes a night. Conversely, he’s still averaging over a fantasy point per minute. Additionally, the Brooklyn Nets have a horrendous rebounding rate which should give a bump to Vuc regardless of how he’s shooting.
DFS Value Play: Jalen Williams
Price: $3,900/$4,200
5x%: 61.50%/69.60%
Jalen Williams may be someone you just learned played in the NBA today. Nevertheless, he grades out as a fantastic value on both sites and will be popular. The No. 12 pick in the draft played a season high in minutes last game and projects for between 25-27 minutes tonight. While we don’t have a true sense of his FPPM rate, he’s cheap enough he should be able to return value at his price. As long as Giddey remains out and Williams remains cheap we can target him for DFS.
Player to avoid in DFS: Kyle Lowry
Price: $6,100/$6,500
LevX: -30.33/-21.04
Friends don’t let friends play Kyle Lowry. He has a median projection under 5X on both sites and the Heat have a multitude of options that are involved. Furthermore, the short slate is inflating his ownership despite the lack of rationale. There are plenty of other options.
NBA DFS final thoughts
Tonight is pretty straightforward. If you fade Vucevic you can play all the rest of the chalk. If you place Vucevic you find somewhere else to get different. The value forward spot has a number of low owned pivots as does the mid-range. Additionally, Curry continues to go underowned on the high end. It’s four games so don’t be afraid to get weird in order to maximize your win equity. Good luck tonight!
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