This content piece will be dedicated to providing you with an easy to follow breakdown on the elite cash plays, safe gpp plays, low owned gpp plays, and fades of today’s NBA main slate.
By utilizing this content you will be able to build +EV lineups and start increasing your DFS ROI in minutes. Our own staff uses these along with the player pool below to help create cores which you can find here, in our Premium Core Plays, where experts such as myself, Ben, Bales, AC and more post our cores daily.
| Guards | Forwards |
Centers | Game Stacks |
| T. Jones | K. Johnson | N. Jokic | PHI/BKN |
| K. Irving | B. Clarke | J. Valanciunas | DAL/DEN |
| B. Simmons | K. Kuzma | J. Nurkic | MIN/POR |
| C. LeVert | K. Anderson | J. Embiid | CLE/MEM |
| D. Russell | J. Hernangomez | SA/LAL |
*If you don’t already play 3 lineups and 3 max entry contests daily, try using the teams provided in the stacks above to maximize upside and correlation in your NBA lineups.
Thoughts:
Updates to come to this section as we approach lock so continue to check back for more insight.
- Hello all and welcome back for another DFS Karma Game Theory! Today there isn’t a lot of injury news, but you can get updates and analysis on reports by following the link attached. There are only 5 games today which means there will be less variance. The less games there are, the less spread out the ownership percentages are for each player, which means you cannot afford to miss a high scoring player.. Let’s dive right in.
- This is a smaller 5 game slate, which seems very plausible. Currently, we are looking for updates on the following players: Lebron James, Anthony Davis, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Rodney Hood, and Seth Curry. The implications for the first two guys can be huge. My prediction is that one of the two Laker stars sits tonight, while the other plays. If so, the entire Lakers team gets a bump but more specifically — Kyle Kuzma and Dennis Schroder. You can even punt Talen Horten-Tucker because of how much Vogel likes him and how he is trying to get him more into the regular rotation. Check back for an update later. Let’s get right into which games I’m looking into to start my lineup construction.
- First off, this Brooklyn Nets vs Philadelphia 76ers game is interesting because for one, Brooklyn is still without Kevin Durant and the 76ers are playing their second b2b of the season. Joel Embiid sat out the 2nd end of a b2b and I definitely wouldn’t be surprised to see that happen here. If he is in, I love him in this match-up against Jarrett Allen. He has historically dominated Allen inside and has huge upside in this match-up if he plays. I also like Ben Simmons from this game, as I believe this game environment will be made for him and if somehow Embiid gets ruled out, he will be one of the players soaking up the usage. On the other side, I love Caris LeVert. On DK, he has multi-position eligibility which bodes well for the flexibility of your lineup if you start with LeVert. He is absorbing most of the usage from the injuries of Kevin Durant and Spencer Dinwiddie, and literally put up 36 FP in 21 minutes of playing time. This game is projected to be closer than the last game, which thus further boosts his minute projection and score projection. You can’t talk about the Brooklyn Nets and not mention Kyrie Irving, especially in Durant’s absence. He sports a 3.8% usage rate boost without Durant and it particularly showed in his last game where he started the first quarter with 18 points on 6/6 shooting. This match-up doesn’t seem as great for him but he is always in play without Durant.
- I am probably going to limit my exposure to the CLE/MEM game just because it is the lowest implied total on the slate. Referring to our article regarding injury news, Collin Sexton and Andre Drummond are candidates to rest. With the whole Cavalier team beat up with injuries, it wouldn’t be surprising to see them give their main guys a rest. If that does happen, Lamar Stevens is 3k on DK and worth a punt forsure. If I am going to have more exposure to this game, it would be on the Memphis side. They are still without Ja Morant and both Tyus Jones and Dillon Brooks are decent on both sites. They look like decent cash plays forsure.
- My core for cash games will be Kyrie Irving, Tyus Jones, and Nikola Jokic
- For tournaments, I like the core of Caris LeVert, Juan Hernangomez, and Joel Embiid (if he plays)
- Notes:
- Lowkey liking Luka Doncic today
- Is fading Kyrie Irving plausible today?
- Dejounte Murray is cheap on DK
- Kyle Kuzma is really cheap on FD if one of Davis or James sits..
- D’Angelo Russell might go low owned today — POR allows most PPG to PGs and Russell starts at that position now, hopefully he understands that he needs to facilitate and score for the Timberwolves to have a chance to win
- Also from the MIN/POR game, it seems like Jarred Vanderbilt might be getting the minutes Naz Reid got before, I would monitor who starts today.
- Now, I will go over my full player pool for today, below.
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Guys who I will have exposure to today in no particular order [other than those in table above] (PLAYER POOL)
- Damian Lillard
- Jamal Murray
- Dejounte Murray
- Dillon Brooks
- Malik Beasley
- Tobias Harris (if Embiid out)
- Will Barton
- Cedi Osman (more FD than DK)
- Danny Green (if Seth Curry is out)
- Larry Nance
- Robert Covington
- Gorgui Dieng
- Willie Cauley-Stein
