I’m writing today’s article from the airplane 30,000 feet up, as I have a wedding this weekend in Louisville (technology is pretty amazing). This will be my last article of the week as I’ll most likely be drinking some bourbon on the whiskey trail tomorrow and in no shape to play DFS. The first 2 nights of DFS have not been kind as I find I typically struggle at the start of new seasons getting back into the feel of that particular sport. But, I’ve learned to keep grinding and putting in the work and things always turn around, it’s a marathon not a sprint as they say.
Tonight we have a small 3 game slate, which is a welcome sight after a monstrous 11 gamer. I’m going to focus this article more on GPP plays and strategy than cash going forward since we have others handling cash and core plays. This way we don’t have overlap between articles.
+EV Thoughts
Late Swap – tonight we have 2 early games and 1 late game. Late swap can be tough when you only have 1 late game since there just aren’t many options. We aren’t waiting on much news so will mainly use late swap if I’m down big after the early games.
Recency Bias – A couple teams are playing their second game of the season and there may be some recency bias impacting ownership. A sample size of 1 game is extremely small so don’t base all decisions on that one game (cough Bjelica cough).
Contest Selection – I noticed yesterday on DK the major tourneys filled super early so reserve your entries early. Also, some of the payout structures for the larger GPPs are ridiculous. I saw one that was 10K to first and 2.5K to second…don’t play that unless you wanna drain your bankroll. I personally like to enter all the low dollar 20 max’s I can since these usually have flatter payout structures and the field isn’t quite as sharp. Many times I’ll have the same lineups in the 20 max as I do in the biggest GPP on the day and I’ll be profitable in my 20 max GPPs and get crushed in the 150 max large tourneys…keep this in mind when entering.
UPDATE: BROLO and Jrue are out:
This changes this slate quite a bit as now the bucks are going to have tons of value and tons of ownership. I don’t think we want to fade this situation as a whole since the original chalk value I was not high on. I’d suggest having a few bucks on every roster…just know that most bucks will be high owned so you are going to have to differentiate in other places.
GPP Plays:
- Jordan Poole $5500 – I’m going right back to the well here as I think ownership may come down some. He just has so much upside when he’s hitting 3’s. I’m expecting Grayson Allen to be pretty chalky now that Jrue is out so Poole is a good mid range pivot with much higher upside than Grayson.
- Marcus Morris $5100 – I’m expecting Zubac to gain steam and be pretty chalky today so a nice direct pivot is Marcus Morris. Without kawhi he becomes the 2nd/3rd scoring option and has some decent fppm rates without kawhi (around .9 fppm) based on last year. If Marcus is coming in low owned (I think he will) you can fade zubac and swerve to marcus in that same salary range.
Pay Up Options:
- The star power in the NBA is wild…On a 3 game slate alone we have Luka, Steph, Giannis, Trae and PG13. It does look like Luca is going to come in substantially less owned than Giannis and Curry. If that’s the case I will be jamming in a lot of Luca…toss in the fact that this should be a fast paced game and Trae on the other side looks like he is generating low ownership as well. So you have 2 studs with unlimited upside at low ownership that are correlated, sign me up! I will definitely have a bunch of lineups with these 2 in them and then you can sprinkle in some higher owned bucks cheapies by being different with your spend-ups.
FADES:
- Bjelica – I’m hoping that the field jumps on that bjelica game as I will gladly fade him if he’s high owned. I know he’s a historically good fppm guy but he is super streaky and I don’t think the minutes are solidified. If he starts slow I can see him more in the 15-20 min range.
From a real basketball standpoint the NBA gave us a fun 3 gamer tonight. I’ll be playing light tonight since I’m traveling and won’t be around at lock… but best of luck to everyone and enjoy the games!
Max
