Thanksgiving week is upon us and I’m looking forward to a nice break from work and spending some time with the family (and grinding DFS). I didn’t play any NBA DFS this weekend but I did take the little one to her first basketball game (Heat vs. Wiz). The game Saturday night was amazing and I have to thank Draftkings for hooking us up with incredible seats. Let’s get back into the swing of things and start the week off on a good note with a fun 10 game slate on tap.
+EV Strategy:
- On bigger slates I’ve been running out of time with so much late news and so many lineups to manage. A trick I’ve been using for cash games is locking in a couple of the no-brainer cash plays and keeping the rest of my roster open to swap/build with the late games. This helps in a couple ways:
- Gives me more time at lock to focus on GPP allocations and to adjust for news/starting lineups.
- Gives my cash lineup flexibility for the late games should late news break.
- Let’s me clear my head and really focus post lock on cash and filling out the rest of my roster.
- For tonight, I see D. Bembry as the only potential cash option from the 7:00 games (with all this news he may not be needed for cash). My current plan is to keep my roster open with players in the later games and build my cash line post-lock as we get more news.
Game Stacks:
The injury news just keeps breaking so I’m going to base this article on news prior to 3:30 PM EST:
- PHI v SAC – With the updated news that Tobias Harris is unlikely to play ,this opens up a lot of Philly value. I already loved the pricing on Sacramento and now with this Philly news we have a late night hammer game stack. On Philly there should be a ton of value and pay up options. Basically their whole starting 5 and possibly 1 or 2 bench players are all in play for GPPs. Keep an eye out for starters but if Korkmaz starts he’s just too cheap for that role. Drummond and Maxey are somewhat priced up but love both for GPP’s (Drummond can even be considered for cash IMO). On the Sacramento side the DK algorithm has priced down everybody, I’m guessing because of a perceived tough match-up. Fox, Hield and Barnes all seem too cheap. The one big question mark here is Luke Walton was fired over the weekend so rotations are not certain but I doubt they change much. Fox, Hield and Barnes are all elite GPP options. I’ll be stacking this game in a lot of ways and it also gives you maximum flexibility for potential late swaps throughout the evening.
- Minnesota vs. New Orleans – This game I’m hoping goes a little overlooked with no major injury news. I’m expecting a close game here and there are some great GPP mid-range plays on both teams. These teams have already played twice this year and both KAT and JVAL smashed. KAT is at 1.6 fpm vs. New Orleans and JVAL is at 1.5 fpm vs. Minnesota on the year. I like both of these plays in GPPs. We also have a slight discount on Anthony Edwards. Edwards has also played well in this match-up (1.17 fpm vs. NO). You can also play Brandon Ingram and De’Angelo Russell as part of your game stacks, so lots of ways to go here to correlate for a close, high scoring affair.
GPP Plays:
At this point it’s really hard to tell where the ownership is going to go with so much news breaking and some news we are still waiting on. I’ll list a few of my favorite plays below and see where the ownership lies come lock.
- Donovan Mitchell – with so much news breaking I think DMitch goes overlooked. This game also has a high spread which may keep ownership in check. What I like here is the price tag of $8600 on DK. Donovan Mitchell is a $9000+ player so we’re getting a nice price discount here at moderate to low ownership. Also, the Memphis side of this game should have some cheaper bring back options to correlate with DMitch with Melton being ruled out.
- Anthony Edwards – Edwards is my favorite piece on Minnesota as part of game stacks. In close games he’s going to play close to 38 minutes. Also, this is a good match-up for him, we have a 2 game sample of Edwards being at 1.17 fpm with 27% usage vs. New Orleans. On the season he’s at 1.08 fpm with 28% usage and he already has a 67 fantasy point game this year, so the ceiling is there. This is my favorite type of play…high floor, high ceiling, nice price tag and moderate ownership (I’m expecting 10% ownership).
Fades:
- Deandre’ Bembry – For cash Bembry is fine (although with all this news that stance may change). In GPPs, if Bembry is getting high ownership I think he’s an easy fade. With Durant and Harden expected to play tonight this caps the upside on Bembry. On the year Bembry is at .47 fpm with both Durant and Harden on the court. Even at 30+ minutes I think there are paths to Bembry disappointing and getting you 10 to 15 fantasy points which won’t cut it if you want to win a tourney. Also, with all the value opening up there are tons of pivots in the later games so we may not want to lock players from the early games to give us maximum flexibility for late swaps.
This slate is getting a little nutty with lots of value options opening up. Keep in mind the more value that opens, the higher the ownership goes on Giannis. Ownership projections have Giannis at 10% as of this writing but I’m guessing that is going to get steamed up to 20% or more since it’s looking like stars and scrubs builds will be popular. The Milwaukee vs. Orlando game can blow out so a fade of Giannis is viable. I’ll have some builds with Giannis but will make a few specific rosters that assume the Milwaukee vs. Orlando game blows out. Keep a look out for my core plays as this slate seems to be changing by the hour.
Max
