Nikola Jokic- Anyone that reads my content or watches the streams has been riding Joker at low ownership for the last two weeks. The bias against Jokic this season has been incredible. He struggled early on this season, sure, but he has since rebounded and nobody seems to be paying attention. Over his last six games, he has DraftKings point totals of: 70, 50, 51, 58, 37 (only 27 minutes) and 59. He owns a solid 1.38 DK point per minute mark this season, which is higher than someone like Russell Westbrook, though he is projected for anywhere from 10-20% less ownership on this slate. That’s not to say Westy is a bad play, I think he’s certainly in play on DraftKings, but I love Joker’s ceiling in this matchup with the Pelicans. For starters, this is a massive pace-up spot for the Nuggets, who are dead-last in pace this season while the Pelicans come in seventh overall. They aren’t a good defensive team at all, they rank just 24th in defensive efficiency, but one of the best places to attack them has been with big men. They allow the fourth-most points in the paint per game, while Jokic leads the Nuggets in paint points and touches per game. He’s still under-priced at $9,400 on DraftKings, and I think he will come in under-owned on Christmas Day. He will be a staple in my lineups.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo- I always like to go with a stars and scrubs build if at all possible, especially since we will need a big ceiling for our lineups if we are chasing the big prize pools posted for the holiday. The next decision comes down to Giannis Antetokounmpo vs James Harden for me, and I’m slightly leaning towards ABC. Harden definitely draws the better matchup, he gets the Warriors who rank 25th in defensive efficiency while the Rockets have the highest-implied team total on the slate at over 118 points. But, Giannis’ ceiling gets a raise for me in close games, and I like the 76ers chances of keeping that game somewhat close into the second half. Harden slightly edges out Antetokounmpo in usage rate — 40% to 39% — while trailing in DK point per minute production 1.66 to 1.92. We also can expect ABC’s rates to tick up a tad with Eric Bledsoe off the floor.
Overall, you really can’t go wrong with either of these guys. We know that Harden will still see heavy minutes in a blowout so we don’t even really have to worry about the score in that game. I think it could be potentially possible to cram in all three on FanDuel, while on DK I give a small edge to Antetokounmpo.
PJ Tucker- Since I went with Giannis above, I would like a piece of the highest-implied game in my core. Tucker is never a sexy DFS play — he sports just a 10% usage rate and 0.69 DraftKings points per minute mark this season. That being said, he’s second on the team in minutes per game behind Harden, so we know he will be on the floor a ton on Wednesday. He also has quietly double-doubled in three of his last four, and put up a monster 22-11-4 line against this team in a meeting in November. Ultimately, he’s cheap, I like the matchup, and you can not go wrong with getting as much exposure to this game as possible.
Those are three players I’m certain to roster in my main builds on Christmas Day. Below I will list some other plays I’m targeting in all formats to fill out my roster.
PG: Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, George Hill
SG: D’Angelo Russell, Alec Burks, Damion Lee, Lou Williams
SF: Danuel House, Will Barton, Brandon Ingram
PF: Montrezl Harrell, Paul Millsap Daniel Theis, Chris Boucher
C: Willie Cauley-Stein [/restrict]
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
