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:
- Clint Capela is coming off a 44 Draftkings point performance against the Sixers in just 26 minutes. Drawing the same exact matchup tonight, but with a likely increase in minutes due to Okongwu’s absence, Capela will be a very popular play on tonight's slate.
- Despite a lackluster performance in his first NBA game without backcourt partner Cade Cunnningham, Ivey is mispriced for the increase in usage he should receive when Cunningham misses time. I would view last night’s performance as an outlier, and hope that if anything it suppresses Ivey’s ownership, as he projects to be a great value play again tonight.
- Despite showing a lack of GPP winning upside, Marcus smart projects to be owned by roughly a third of the field tonight. Assuming that Jaylen Brown suits up, I advise avoiding Smart at this ownership.
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
DEM Overview
Tonight’s slate sees 3 of the teams with the highest FPPM boosts to their opponents. Houston, Indiana, and Detroit have been great teams to target for fantasy production all season. However, only one of those teams sees their opponent grabbing a ton of ownership. No doubt that the absences of Malcolm Brodgdon and Al Horford, as well as the uncertainty of the status of Jaylen Brown are playing a part. Even with the injuries shortening the Celtics rotation, the matchup against DET, who gives the 3rd biggest FPPM boost to opposing teams, will also contribute to inflating the Celtics ownership.
Popular DFS Play: Clint Capela
Price: $6,000/$6,100
Own%: 41.25%/46.08%
Capela is coming off an 18-20 performance that resulted in 44 Draftkings points and has received just a $100 price bump. Furthermore, that 44 point performance came against the Sixers, who the Hawks play again tonight. In addition, Onyeka Okongwu, the Hawks backup center, has been ruled out of tonight's contest, which should only further increase the minutes Capela receives in a matchup against Joel Embiid. Expect Capela to be very popular tonight.
DFS Value Play: Jaden Ivey
Price: $5,700/$7,000
5x%: 46.10%/22.20%
Cade Cunningham has been ruled out for the 2nd straight game, and Jaden Ivey remains underpriced for the role he should be stepping into (more-so on Draftkings than Fanduel). Ivey is coming off an absolute dud last night despite Cade’s absence, and this may suppress his ownership from getting completely out of hand in a similar situation today. Prior to last night, Ivey was crushing his salary even with Cade playing alongside him, dropping 45+ DK point performances in back to back games at sub $6,000. Without the luxury of a large sample size, we need to have short memories in regard to Ivey’s performance last night, as he projects to be a great value play today.
Player to avoid in DFS: Marcus Smart
Price: $5,600/$5,900
LevX: -23.27/-31.87
I will update this if Jaylen Brown doesn’t play, as he is questionable at the time of writing this. With that being said, assuming Brown plays, Smart appears to be overvalued by the field on tonight’s slate. Despite the atrocity of a defense the Detroit Pistons are, specifically against opposing PGs, Smart has limited upside. Smart has exceed 6x his salary just once this year, and despite racking up 11 assists when these 2 teams played just 3 days ago, Smart still only finished with 25.8 Draftkings points.
NBA DFS final thoughts
A major decision point on this slate will be how many Celtics is too many Celtics. Assuming that Jaylen Brown plays and ownership holds, 5 Celtics project to be roughly 30+% owned, and Derrick White is close behind at 19%. When situations like this occur, I recommend working through how each of these players can reach their ceilings, and which ones take away from the others. Even with Malcolm Brogdon and Al Horford ruled out, avoiding rostering Marcus Smart and Derrick White together, Grant Williams and Sam Houser together, and even rostering only 1 of Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum per lineup will eliminate negative correlation within your lineup while also getting different from the rest of the field that isn’t creating these rules.
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