Today’s a weak Monday slate with only 5 games. As always, be on the right chalk today while mixing in a few of the plays I include in this article. 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:
- Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: There seems to be an influx of PG value on this slate and I really like the idea of pivoting off a volatile option like Trey Burke (will still have plenty of exposure), and plugging in SGA who is projected to play between 28 and 32 minutes today for the Clippers. At 3.8k with ownership levels projected to be sub-15% there is a lot of leverage to be had by making this pivot today. The Hawks are one of the worst defensive teams against the PG in the NBA and this will be a pace up game for the Clips at home. I really love Shai’s odds of having an extremely efficient game.
- Lou Williams: Lou Williams will also be able to benefit from the weak defense of the Hawks frontcourt. It is notable Lou Will is a much better play on Fanduel where he is a lot cheaper relatively, but he still makes for a fantastic GPP option on Draftkings at 7.4k with a ceiling over 50 DK points. Whether matched up with Trae Young (111.2 defensive rating) or Jeremy Lin (106.9 defensive rating), Lou Williams will be able to do his thing tonight.
Shooting Guard
Top GPP Plays:
- Jaylen Brown: Brown is just too cheap for how he’s been playing of late where his usage % is around 6% higher than his average over the course of this season in addition to the fact he’s averaging .1 additional FP/min over the last couple weeks compared to his season. Brooklyn has been tougher on guards this year but Napier/Pinson/Harris are much better matchups for Brown than Dinwiddie would have been. I expect a great Pt/$ return on Brown tonight where he’s only priced 4.4k on Draftkings.
- Bojan Bogdanovic: Bojan is going to continue to be leaned on more with Oladpio out to keep this Pacers team afloat in the eastern conference. He’ll have to score a lot more than he was and his usage rate is going to see major spikes at times. Surprisingly the line on this game is only -7 which tells us that Vegas thinks this one stays fairly close. A close third on his team projected in usage rate while he’s projected to lead the team in minutes against the Warriors with a 111 projected team total gives Bojan an extremely high ceiling tonight.
Small Forward
Top GPP Plays:
- Kevin Durant: KD is priced at only 9.4k and should be expected for a slight usage/minutes boost with Draymond off the floor. Ironically, KD has seen a decrease in expected fantasy points by 2.3 in 902 minutes with Green off the floor which is a substantial sample size. This fact might steer some sharps off of Durant but we really don’t know how things will evolve with Boogie now a main contributor in the offense. A 2.4% usage bump for Durant with projected ownership under 20% on just a 5-game slate with limited “studs” makes for a fantastic GPP play.
- Tim Hardaway Jr.: I don’t mind the Tim Hardaway Jr. if you’re looking into this mid-tier around Bojan’s price. If you’re not comfortable with Bojan I think THJ offers an extremely similair ceiling with slightly more risk given the major fluctuations of the Knicks rotation and Fizdale essentially doing anything possible to make this team worse. With that being said, THJ is on the trade block and should be looking to attract some interest from other teams as he attempts to leave the sunk ship of the Knicks.
Power Forward
Top GPP Plays:
- Kevin Looney: Looney is not projected for a ton of minutes tonight (22ish), but plays a completely different role with Draymond off the court and has been playing fantastic fantasy basketball of late (1.06 FP/min over the past month). There is a lot of speculation to this play as we haven’t seen Curry-Klay-KD-Looney-Cousins on the court once so far this season, and that is the projected starting lineup tonight. I imagine with Cousins limited minutes we’re going to see Looney play a lot of the 5 with the Curry-Klay-KD lineup. So after analyzing those players on the court (with Draymond out) we uncover that Looney sees a 4.3% usage bump, 1.3% rebound rate bump, and a 6.5 FP bump over his expected output. On a 5-game slate, I think Looney is one of the more elite GPP value plays at just 3.9k.
Center
Top GPP Plays:
- Al Horford: The Nets have still been bad against centers this year ranking in the bottom half of the NBA in defensive efficiency. Horford busted last time these two teams faced each other and we could see the script flip tonight. Horford has been stuffing the stat sheet of late producing at a 1.16 FP/min rate while seeing routinely 32-35 minutes for the Celtics who need to start winning. At just 6.4k tonight he is one of the better plays on the slate that likely would get higher ownership had he not failed in this matchup the other week.
Written By: Robert Viafora
Twitter: @DF_Advantage
