I like to be fully transparent with my results in this article and this week has been a rough one . After a terrible DFS night last night I’m officially in a downswing. This is inevitable if you play DFS all year. It’s important to stick to your process and sometimes a downswing motivates me to dive a little deeper in research. The great thing about DFS is we have a new slate each day to turn it all around with one good lineup. Tonight we have a 9 game slate, which in my mind is the perfect amount of games so let’s dig in.
Injuries:
This slate (and it seems like all NBA DFS slates) has tons of injury news. Here are the players that would have a big impact on the slate currently listed as questionable:
- Anthony Davis
- Karl Anthony Towns
- Porzingis
- Kevin Porter
- Tobias Harris
In addition we already have the following players ruled out:
- Jimmy Butler
- Bam Adebayo
- Devin Booker
- Jaylen Brown
- Jalen Green
- Suggs
That’s a lot of impactful news so please keep in mind that most likely some of my initial thoughts will change before lock as news breaks.
+EV Strategy:
- It’s starting to become more and more difficult to build lineups before 6:30 as there is so much news that breaks regarding injuries and lineups right before lock. Just last night we had major news with Giannis being ruled out 15 minutes before lock that changed the entire slate. What I do is start getting my player pool set-up early in the day and build some rules to make the 30 minutes before lock less hectic. Be prepared to make changes and try to force in plays that open up at lock in a larger percentage of your lineups in order to take advantage of the low ownership. Just last night, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton became great plays and we got a slight ownership discount on them because news broke so late in the day.
Game Stacks:
- Orlando vs. Houston – This is an ugly real life game but a great game for fantasy purposes. On Orlando we have Jalen Suggs ruled out which opens up usage for the entire team. I love Cole Anthony tonight, although it does look like he’s getting a little more ownership than anticipated. I’m also fine with Wendell Carter and Mo Bamba on Orlando, although I’ll be setting a rule to only have max of 1 in my lineups. The Houston side is a little harder to dissect since we are waiting on Kevin Porter news. Either way I think Christian Wood is a great GPP play. He isn’t projected for any ownership based on the last game and his price tag being over $9K. Wood has had 2 games in his last 3 over 60 fantasy points so there is still upside at a $9300 price tag. We will need to wait on the Kevin Porter news but if he’s out we’ll get a lot of value on Houston with Armoni brooks probably becoming chalky.
GPP Plays:
- Donovan Mitchell (GPP Play)- Donovan Mitchell is starting to have his price increase but he’s still at a reasonable $8800 on DK. I’ve played DMitch a lot in the past week and he has yet to disappoint. In the last 2 games he’s had over 45 fantasy points in each and those are with his minutes cut short due to blowouts. He also is still not getting much ownership, as of this writing he’s projected for 7% ownership. It is a tough match-up with Boston but I’m less concerned about a blowout in this spot so we could see him get up to 35 minutes here. I’ll be getting overweight on Mitchell in my tournament exposures
- Cole Anthony (GPP Play) – I love Cole Anthony tonight without Jalen Suggs. I was anticipating single digit ownership but he’s up at 15% for this match-up with Houston. I guess everyone has caught on to how good a match-up Houston is. Anthony is at 1.25 FPM and 29% usage with Suggs off the floor. He is the Orlando offense so I love Anthony as the integral part to my GPP stacks of this game and hopefully the ownership comes down as we get more news throughout the day.
- James Harden (GPP and Cash Play) – James is my favorite spend-up today. Harden is trending towards the form he displayed while playing for Houston. In the last 2 weeks Harden is at 1.43 FPM and 29% usage. The best part is he’s been close to 40 minutes in competitive games of late. I’ve also noticed an uptick in his peripheral stats and I like the chances for a triple double tonight vs. Minnesota. His ownership is at a reasonable 11% with Luca soaking up the most ownership of the spend-ups today. On the Minnesota side, I don’t mind D’Angelo Russell as a nice low owned bring back to have some mini correlation in some of your Harden lineups.
FADES:
- Tyler Herro – I love Tyler Herro’s game and he will take on a bigger role offensively but at the time of this writing he’s projected to be the 2nd highest owned play of the slate (33% ownership). At a $7500 price tag and on the road vs. a healthy Indiana team I’ll be underweight in my GPP builds. We are no longer getting a bargain here and if Indiana wins this game handily I don’t see Herro paying off this price tag. Also, a direct pivot on the same team would be Kyle Lowry at a similar salary but garnering 1/4th the ownership.
It’s been a long week so hopefully we can end it with some profits. It should be a fun Friday night slate before I take a little break from DFS tomorrow to spend time with the Fam. I hope everyone has a great weekend and feel free to tag me in discord should you have any questions on the slate.
Max
