It’s another Wednesday which means a full slate of NBA games. Last night went well in cash games but nothing close to a sweat in GPPs. GPPs require patience, I have to remind myself that sometimes it can be over a month between large-field GPP sweats. Let’s move onto tonight, we have a 13 game slate with so much news that I don’t even know where to start. I’ve dug into each game and will give my GPP thoughts below on players/games.
Injury News – Below is a list of key players currently questionable that will impact the slate:
- D’Angelo Russell
- Karl Anthony Towns
- Tyrese Maxey – plans to play
- Harrison Barnes
- Josh Hart
- Anfernee Simons
Here’s a list of the big injuries for tonight (not a full list but just the big injuries to be aware of):
- Demar Derozan
- Lamelo Ball
- Jimmy Butler
- Bam Adebayo
- JaMorant
- CJ Mccollum
- Dame Lillard
- Terry Rozier
- Jaylen Brown – Doubtful
- Kevin Porter
- OG Anunoby
- Jalen Green
- Jalen Suggs
With 13 games the news is going to be hard to manage. What’s crazy is it’s only December and we already have this much NBA injury news. I can’t even imagine what March/April NBA DFS is going to be like.
+EV Strategy:
- With a 13 game slate it will test all aspects of your process. One key on a slate this large is to get your player pool narrowed down for GPPs. My first cut of the player pool for GPPs still has 60 players in it. I make 50 lineups a night so I try to get closer to 40 players in my pool. I will continue to make cuts to my pool throughout the day and also add players as we get injury news. Pick out 5 or so core plays and build around those plays in GPPs. I’ve also noticed that cash games are getting tougher and tougher. The good plays for cash are becoming so high owned that you’ll need your 2 or 3 lowest owned plays to have good games in order to cash in double ups. Last night Tatum was close to 85% in cash contests on DK. He was a good play but I wasn’t expecting that high of an ownership number and it just goes to show how sharp other players are getting when it comes to cash games. With cash games getting tougher, it makes sense to allocate more of your funds on a nightly basis to GPPs in order to recognize higher profits long term.
Game Stacks:
With a slate this large I won’t be going crazy with game stacking but I will have a few games that I’m targeting players from more than others:
- Portland vs. Golden State – For GPPs I like this game for a few reasons. First, the ownership seems low in general (other than a chalky Norman Powell). With Lillard and Mccollum out there are a lot of minutes and usage to go around. There are some injuries to monitor here in A. Simons and Ben Mclemore. If they both get ruled out the Portland back-court is very thin and we’d get big minutes from Norm Powell and Dennis Smith. I love Smith in GPPs and don’t mind Nurkic as well at low ownership. Even Robert Covington can be part of your GPP pool as he’s priced all the way down at $3300 and if this game stays close I’d expect him to flirt with 30 minutes in a game that could go small. On the Warriors side we can always play a low owned Steph Curry who is currently projected under 5% ownership. I also like the upside on Jordan Poole at single digit ownership. If stacking I’d set a limit to one of Steph or Poole as they seem to be negatively correlated. The other part about this game I like is it’s a 10:00 tip-off which will give you maximum flexibility for late swap to account for injury news. If we don’t have a clear picture at lock regarding the Portland injuries I’d guess that most of these plays stay low owned (other than Norm Powell).
GPP Plays:
- Dennis Smith – I mentioned him above and I just love this play tonight. He’s priced at $5800 on DK but I love his upside against a fast paced Warriors team. The only concern is a potential blowout but that will help keep the ownership down. With Dame and CJ off the floor he’s at 1.02 fantasy points per minute and 23% usage on the season. If the injury news to Simons and Mclemore breaks right we could see close to 40 minutes from Dennis Smith tonight (he may even have to play in a blowout). He can stuff the stat sheet and has triple double upside. He’s currently projected for single digit ownership, if that’s the case at lock I’ll be well overweight in my GPP exposures.
- Cole Anthony – I’ve got to go right back to Cole Anthony (cover boy again!) even after that let down the other night. He’s now priced down at $7600 on DK. The best part is he’s not garnering that much ownership as of now (10% projected). On the year with J. Suggs off the floor he’s at 1.17 fantasy point per minute and 29% usage. If this game stays close I’m expecting mid 30’s minutes and based on his rates that puts him over 40 fantasy points, which is more than 5x his salary. The match-up with Sacramento doesn’t scare me and Orlando should be able to keep this game competitive as they’re a decent basketball team with Cole Anthony on the floor.
- Dennis Schroder – Schroder is another play I’ll be going right back to. I played a lot of Schroder last night and he disappointed mainly due to missing his last rotation because of a blowout. Tonight his price has come down a bit to $6200. I’m expecting Jaylen Brown to be out again tonight. With Brown off the floor he’s at .93 fantasy points per minute and 26% usage and becomes the 2nd scorer on the team behind Tatum. I’m expecting a much better game from Schroder tonight and if this one stays close I’d expect his minutes to be in the 32-34 minute range.
YOLO PLAY:
Going forward this will be an extremely low owned play that can be sprinkled into line-ups for large field GPPs only.
- Robert Covington – Covington is projected at 1% ownership and for good reason (he’s been terrible this season). However, this price tag may be the lowest we’ve ever seen on Robert Covington at $3300 on DK. He’s a three and D guy but in past seasons he’s been able to fill up the stat sheet with rebounds, steals and blocks. This year, with Mccollum and Lillard off the floor he’s at .82 fantasy points per minute, which isn’t that bad for someone priced at $3300 and potentially playing 30 minutes. The other thing I like about Covington tonight is Golden State plays small ball. I’d expect this to mean more minutes for Mr. Covington as he thrives in small ball games. We just have to hope this game stays competitive but at a $3300 price tag and no ownership I’ll have some shares as part of my Portland vs. Golden State game stacks.
Fades:
- Cade Cunningham – Cade is currently projected around 20% ownership, which feels too high for a 13 game slate. He’s priced at $7600 on DK, so we aren’t getting any sort of discount on the price tag. In the past month Cade is at 1.1 fantasy points per minute with 26% usage, which is fine but doesn’t stand out at this price tag. I also don’t love the spot vs. a Wiz team that is playing better defensively this season. I’ll be underweight here and would much rather play Cole Anthony at the same price tag and half the ownership.
There are a lot of great plays tonight so if ownership is condensing on a few plays don’t be afraid to come in underweight on some of the chalk. On a 13 game slate there are tons of solid pivots to get different than the field in GPPs. I’ll be posting my GPP core plays around 6:30 PM EST tonight to account for any news we get this afternoon. This slate is going to be a lot of work but also should be a fun sweat as we have a lot of games throughout the evening.
Max
