Sriracha’s NBA DFS Game Theory- 12/23/20

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.

*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.

• There are 13 games today (hoping the Rocket game plays with all of the COVID restrictions and testing going on) so make sure not to focus on one to two games but have exposure to most of the high scoring and fast paced games. The highest scoring games today seem to be the DAL v PHO game, the MEM v SA game, and the ATL v CHI game. From these 3 games, there are a lot of good plays that are well priced, but can smash in this game setting. I think you can easily start the slate by locking in Luka Doncic, who will be without his right hand man Kristaps Porzingis in tonight’s opener.
• Because of the amount of games on today’s slate, you do not want to be too overweight or underweight on one game unless you are certain that the game will work out for both sides. One game that I will be a little overweight on will be the CHA v CLE game. This game is nice because it features two defensively bad teams that either have players that will absorb usage from the absence of teammates, or have underpriced players. A few players from this game that I love are Larry Nance Jr, Andre Drummond, and Terry Rozier (FD ONLY). Charlotte has been historically bad at facing big men, while Terry Rozier is very underpriced for a starting role that people seem to write him off for because of the emergence of LaMelo Ball.
• I think this slate will be very reliant on finding the best value. Because of the large player pool in today’s slate, there will be a lot of low owned players that can absolutely smash at a way lower ownership. These plays, if you nail them, can help you with the accomplishment of taking a contest down. Finding the lower owned plays that will outscore the chalkier value plays (either at a lower price or a different position) can help with a different style of roster construction compared to most of your competition.
• WARNING!! – One thing to watch for is the Rockets situation concerning COVID and their inability to have enough players to play the game tonight. If John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins end up missing tonight’s game, watch to see if James Harden gets ruled in. At any price on either site, without Wall and Cousins, Harden is the only offensive juggernaut on the team that will absorb all the usage possible. Another beneficiary is Eric Gordon and Christian Wood, both great plays if more Rockets are ruled out and the game plays. For these very reasons, I chose to leave the Rockets out of the chart above due to the uncertainties that lie ahead. However, Harden, Wood and Gordon would all be cash viable if the game plays, and it plays without Wall and Cousins.
• Ownership looks to be pretty spread, it’s the first night of the 2021 NBA Season, and there are 13 games like mentioned previously. There is no “bad play” but there are definitely some guys in smash spots that will go overlooked.Some of my favorites include:
  – Jonas Valanciunas
  – Cam Reddish/DeAndre Hunter/Danilo Gallinari
  – Paul Millsap
  – Devonte Graham
  – D’Angelo Russell
  – Darius Bazley
  – DeAndre Ayton

  Guys who I will also have exposure to today, other than the ones listed above in no particular order (PLAYER POOL)

• Bradley Beal
• Trae Young
• Coby White
• Malcolm Brogdon
• Devonte Graham
• Devin Booker
• Fred VanVleet
• John Collins
• Bojan Bogdanovic
• Tobias Harris
• Kyle Anderson
• Rudy Gobert
• Karl Anthony Towns