First day back to work IRL but more focused than I have been with the NFL regular season concluded. This is a great 8-game slate tonight to start off the week. Let’s get into my top GPP plays for this slate. You can access my CORE GPP Plays by signing up for an NBA package at dfskarma.com!
AS NBA is a game where last-minute real-life changes are made before tipoff, always monitor breaking news up to last second!
The plays below in this daily article are low owned pivots and GPP plays. This means that these players will be RELATIVELY low owned, and ‘contrarian’ relative to the more highly owned, chalky plays of the night.
BALL IN!
Point Guard
Top GPP Plays:
- Ricky Rubio: I love what Vegas is telling us in this Jazz/Bucks game and it is really turning me on to a lot of players in this matchup. People are going to be nervous of the Jazz, notoriously good defensive – slower-paced team, which has not been the case this season where they are closer to the middle of the pack in defense and actually rank 6th in the NBA in pace over the past 10 games played. This total speaks for these numbers as the total of 222 between these two teams is essentially tied for the highest total on the slate. Rubio is the catalyst of this offense and should be heavily involved throughout the entire game as he is now back to playing his normal allotment of minutes after being injured for a few games. I love this spot for Rubio at 5.6k.
- Shabazz Napier (Punt): I had created my “core” for this NBA GPP play before all the news came out about the Nets players. I know the Nets about better than anyone else in the DFS community and Napier is a LOCK now in ALL formats tonight. I just want to make that clear as we’re still going to see 40%+ of the community not play him. That is a major edge. Napier has provided instant offense the last 4-5 games for the Nets and has inserted himself into the rotation. With Joe Harris, DeMarre Carroll, and RHJ out (in addition to Crabbe/LeVert obviously) Napier should be locked into 30+ minutes tonight with a 25% usage rate at 3.4k on Draftkings. The Nets have been rolling out a Russell/Dinwiddie/Napier lineup that has been doing very well in terms of offensive rating. He is the lock of the century tonight. Don’t miss this one.
Shooting Guard
Top GPP Plays:
- Joe Ingles: I provided a monkeyknifefight.online play where Ingles is my most confident play of a 5/5 17x card where I have him slated OVER 2.5 three-point field goals. As I said with Rubio, this is a different type of Jazz team and Vegas is showing us this is predicted to be the case again tonight against the Bucks. People don’t like to play Joe Ingles as he’s known as a ‘boring’ type play in DFS. This is not the case as he should be locked in for heavy minutes tonight in a game that the three-ball will be essential. Ingles should be poised for 6-9 attempts tonight as a 37% 3-PT shooter this season (40.8% on his career). This is one of the best matchups on the board for an SG/SF and Ingles should thrive.
- Reggie Bullock: I did a double take on this price for Bullock tonight. 3.7k for a player involved with boards/assists shooting 8+ three’s a night recently? His lack of steals+blocks has limited any major scores which is likely leading to his crazy cheap price, but it’s tough not to see a situation where he doesn’t provide major upside (price considered) where he will likely play 35+ minutes.
Small Forward
Top GPP Plays:
- DeMar DeRozan: The price has come down for DeMar to the point where his ‘ceiling’ is back and I love it. DeRozan is a different type of player this season where he has been contributing so much more than just scoring, 22.6/6.2/6.4 line on the season. DeRozan is just playing out of his mind and having a career year (16.8% higher PER over his career average). All the totals on this slate are pretty close so I don’t mind looking towards the ‘bottom spectrum’ to find an elite GPP play. Obviously, we won’t get DeRozan at 2% owned, but on an 8-game slate we should be able to get some nice leverage/differentiation in our lineups by being over-exposed to DeRozan.
- Nemanja Bjelica: At small forward, Bogdan Bogdanovic is the chalk and for good reasons. He’s way too cheap with his upside considered. Bjelica will, in turn, see lower ownership as people won’t be keen on playing the player with the ‘same position’ from the same team. While I won’t be fading Bogdanovic, I believe it’s sharp to pair these two up in GPPs (very easy to do on DK where both are multi-position eligible). Bjelica is averaging more FP/min and while he will likely see a couple less minutes tonight, this rotation is volatile which we can use to our advantage in GPPs. I believe something like 3/10 times Bjelica outscores Bogdanovic in this spot which in theory would provide major leverage when comparing ownerships.
Power Forward
Top GPP Plays:
- Paul Millsap/Dirk Nowitzki: Power Forward is not a position I’ll likely be getting to crazy with my GPP plays as there are some truly elite spots at the position (Gordon/Griffin/Davis), but if you are looking to get #weird, Paul Millsap and Dirk Nowitzki do that for you. Millsap is seeing his minutes creep up in this Nuggets rotation as he continues to play much more efficiently, especially from a fantasy perspective where he’s averaging 1.1 FP/min over the last month (top 7 among PF eligible players on this slate). If he tops 30 minutes he has elite upside for a modest 5.4k price tag. If you really want to take a punt tonight, 3.1k for Dirk is a very intriguing spot where we really don’t know when he’ll see big minutes. It’d likely be correlated with how well he is playing but last game he attempted 10 shots (eight 3’s) in just 16 minutes on the court, albeit he missed every shot. Obviously, his shot’s going to fall and if he is this aggressive from the 3-point line he could easily crush his price tag.
Center
Top GPP Plays:
- Enes Kanter: KanterSZN. People think that the Knicks are limiting Kanter’s minutes as a way of limiting the Knicks chance at winning. While this is a fair take, I don’t exactly buy it and I believe Fizdale is just terrible and indecisive with his rotations (as we constantly see among his point guards). This is literally the best spot you can ask for in terms of matchup for Kanter against the Blazers frontcourt that has just gotten torched lately with a 26.2 defensive rating against centers which is worst in the NBA by a considerable margin. Kanter is now just 5.3k and could end up being owned in the single digits tonight. He’s going to be in 100% of my lineups. Legitimate 10x upside in this spot.
- Marc Gasol: As I mentioned last week, Gasol is not a sexy play that usually doesn’t get any ownership in DFS. At 7k, in a matchup against a big NOP frontcourt where he’ll be needed for major minutes I don’t see a world where Gasol scores less than 30DK points. If that’s his floor his ceiling is going to range from 50-55 DK points. He’s grading out as one of the best options on the board (price considered) and I’m on board with it.
Written By: Robert Viafora
Twitter: @DF_Advantage
