Happy Monday everyone. I feel somewhat rejuvenated from the weekend as NFL went well and I’m in the mood to go heavy in DFS tonight. Having a day off from the NBA grind seemed to help my motivation a bit. If you are feeling the grind of the long NBA season don’t be afraid to take a few nights off to get yourself back in the right frame of mind. We have an 11 game slate on tap tonight so let’s see what edges we can find.
+EV Strategy
- Contest Selection: I’ve noticed that the GPP structures are getting worse and worse. The Main Fadeaway GPP on Draftkings is $100K to first and $35K to second and only pays out a little over 20% of the field. With 31K+ entrants you can lose a lot of money quick if you are MME’ing that tourney. I’m going to try and avoid these top heavy payout GPPs and focus on tourneys with a flatter payout structure. The $4 dollar 20 max tourney is my favorite on DK, I just wish they’d release more 20 max tourneys with slightly higher entry fees.
- Late Swap – Late swap tonight will be huge if we don’t get Dame news before lock. If Dame is out some of the best plays on the slate will come from Portland. That game is at 10:00 PM EST so it’s likely we don’t have the news before lock. Plan accordingly, but if Dame is ruled out after lock I’ll be getting way overweight on Simons, CJ Mccollum and Powell at a minimum.
Game Stacks:
- Chicago v LA Lakers – I like this game for a few reasons. There are injuries on both sides of this game in Vucevic and Lebron and I don’t feel the salaries (mainly on Chicago) have fully accounted for this. Derozan and Lavine are nice mid-range options to pair with one of the Lakers spend-ups. The ceiling on the Lakers side of the ball feels unlimited as Westbrook or AD can pop off for 80 fantasy points at any time. We also have an extremely cheap and chalkie THT to include in our game stacks. The projected ownership on the Lakers spend-ups should be under 10% with Westbrook looking like he’ll be under 5% owned. In addition this gives your rosters flexibility to adjust for news since it’s the last game of the night. I’ll have a lot of this game in my MME builds.
GPP Plays:
- Norman Powell – I have a soft spot in my heart for this guy. Without Dame he’s at around .9 fpm on the year and 22% usage. I’d expect around mid 30’s in minutes here and at time of this writing the ownership projection looks to be under 10%. Powell also has scoring upside and a 40 fantasy point outing is a definite possibility in this spot. He’s still playable in GPPs if Dame plays but if Lillard gets ruled out after lock get yourself some more Norman Powell shares.
- Nikola Jokic – I’ve been playing a lot of Jokic this year and it’s looks like I’ll continue to play a lot of The Joker. Based on his rates without MPJ (currently at 2.07 fpm and 34% usage) he’s far and away the best spend-up on the slate. I was expecting high ownership in this spot but he’s still projected for around 15% ownership. I’m not sure why the field isn’t playing this guy but that’s to our advantage. An $11,700 price tag on DK is high but the high floor and high ceiling he brings is worth it. I also expect cheap value to open up on this slate to help us fit him into lineups.
- De’Aaron Fox – I had a lot of Fox on Friday night (to my demise) and it looks like I’m gonna have to go back to him in this spot. He’s priced at a reasonable $8200 on DK and is taking on a terrible Detroit team. The usage has been up and down game to game but it was trending up before that game on Friday. He’s at 1.03 fpm and 28% usage this season which is well below his rates from last year. He was at 1.25 fpm and 32% usage last year and I’m expecting his rates to trend towards last year’s rates going forward. The best part about Fox is his ownership is projected areound 1%-3%. Fox has major upside (had a 55 fantasy point game a few nights ago) and is playing 35 minutes a night. I’ll be trying to get well overweight on Fox as part of my GPP Portfolio this evening.
FADES:
- Alex Caruso – It looks like Caruso is going to be one of the chalkiest players on the slate. He’s currently showing over 30% projected ownership – I do think that number comes down some but still feel that’s a bit too high for a player like Caruso. For one I think he may go back to his bench role tonight, but we also have Coby White entering the rotation. I can see Coby White taking a few of Caruso’s minutes in this spot. Caruso is at .82 fpm and 14% usage on the season so he really needs the minutes to get there. I’m fine with a fade here and I don’t think his ceiling is all that high with such a low usage rate and Lavine/Derozan dominating on the offensive end.
Keep in mind these are strictly GPP plays listed in this article. There will most likely be some chalk I’m going to want to get overweight on even in GPPs as THT is just too cheap to pass up on tonight. Keep a close eye on Portland news as well, if Lillard is ruled out Simons becomes a great play and someone you will want to have in most lineups.
Hopefully we can start the week off right. Good luck tonight.
Max
