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It's Friday, which means we have a big NBA slate on tap. There are nine games on the board, with no shortage of studs in great spots and there is sure to be no shortage of value plays to help us get to them.
Let's dust off the projection models and talk about the best spots we can find. Here we go!
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NBA DFS: Best Team Matchups
#1 Sacramento Kings vs. Charlotte Hornets
Through nine games, the Hornets have given up the third-most DraftKings points per game at 238.5. They have been especially exploited by opposing centers. Some notable big man scores against thus far: Jarrett Allen (56), Domantas Sabonis (56), Bam Adebayo (48), Robert Williams (45), Jusuf Nurkic (38), Mo Bamba (37). That's great news for Richaun Holmes, who has been the Kings' most efficient scorer of fantasy points. He has scored 1.26 DraftKings points per minute while averaging 26.9 minutes per game. He's coming off a disappointing game where he played just 16.4 minutes due to game environment and some foul trouble, so if he can get back up towards 30 minutes he could have a really huge game for the Kings here.
#2 Charlotte Hornets vs. Sacramento Kings
The Kings are near the middle of the pack in DraftKings points allowed per game, but they are fourth-worst in the league in rebounds allowed per game and fifth-worst in the league in scoring allowed. This game leads the slate with an over/under of 228, and nobody on either team is exorbitantly expensive, giving us a lot of room for huge ceiling games in terms of value on salary.
There's a downside here with the Hornets because their fantasy production has been pretty evenly split. Miles Bridges (19%), LaMelo Ball (17%), Gordon Hayward (13%), and Mason Plumlee (10%) have all scored more than 10% of their teams DraftKings points this year, which makes it a little bit tough to predict who will be the beneficiary if there are indeed more fantasy points to be had tonight. Plumlee projects best right now relative to salary (I have him for 30 DraftKings points at $5,700), but the ceiling plays is undeniably LaMelo Ball (I have his ceiling at 64 points tonight).
Those are the only two team spots that are really standing out, so we'll end this section here.
Now let's move over to the cold shooters report. For this, I compare every player with at least 20 shot attempts in their last three games and compare their field goal percentage in those three games with their season average. The angle here is to find guys shooting the ball a bunch but just on the wrong end of some variance from the floor. The DraftKings algorithm will often drop the price on these kinds of players as their poor shooting performance affects their fantasy outputs. This is a great way to get an edge on the field as we buy low on guys that have just been experiencing some bad luck lately. Here' the report:
Ricky Rubio is just four for his last 29 shot attempts, but he's not a guy who takes a lot of shots in normal situations so he doesn't prove to be a very reliable DFS play. Raptors center Precious Achiuwa has an insanely low field goal percentage for a big man over his last three, having made just five of his last 18 shot attempts. His price has been slowly dropping and has now bottomed out to a season-low $4,200 - creating quite a bit of opportunity there.
Another interesting name not in the above table is Cade Cunningham, who is coming off of a big game on DraftKings where he scored 39 points. Despite that, he remained cold from the field. He's had a late start to the year due to injury, but so far in three games, he's made just seven of his 39 shot attempts. His usage rate has been sky high, and while his price has come up since last night, it would surely be much higher had he been shooting a decent percentage from the field.
Jalen Suggs has also been cold from the field, shooting just 29% in his last three games in a sky-high 41 shot attempts. That has brought his price down a few hundred dollars to $5,100 - which is a very nice price point for a guy with his usage tonight.
Now let's take a look at projected minutes boosts for this slate.
NBA DFS: Minutes Gainers
Minutes equal money in the game of NBA DFS. Here's a look at today's biggest minutes gainers based on projections.
Cleveland is without Lauri Markkanen and Kevin Love once again tonight. Those two names were both out on Wednesday night as well which led to Dylan Windler playing 21 minutes (he had played in just one game prior to that and played 16 minutes), and Dean Wade drawing the start and playing 23 minutes). D'Angelo Russell is the other standout injury at this point in the day, which gives a boost to Patrick Beverley. There is likely much more injury news still to break, so check back on this table throughout the day (it will be updating as the day goes along).
NBA DFS: Salary Drops
Eric Bledsoe isn't playing a ton of minutes or taking a ton of shots, but he has been quite cold from the field and his price has continued to drop because of it. He's 0/7 from the three-point line over his last two games, and just has been really off in almost every single game so far this year. A strong price-considered game is coming, although the ceiling is probably too low to consider on a big slate like this one.
The name here that really stands out is Ivica Zubac, whose price is down to $4,000 here despite him coming off of a game where he played 34 minutes. He struggled in that game with just 24 DraftKings points, but for his career, he is a very high per-minute scorer, so the upside is outrageous in this spot. For the year, he's been more of a mid-twenties guy in terms of minutes, and he's come in as low as 13 (on November 1st), so he's far from a safe play but not many players can match his per-dollar upside tonight. If he can find 25 minutes tonight, that gives him a median projection of close to 30 points, which would be a huge smash at $4,000.
Caris LeVert has also strangely seen a price reduction tonight, coming down to $6,800. He had a late start to the year due to injury, but he cleared 30 minutes for the first time this year on November 3rd and took 18 shots in that time. He's a very high-usage player, so it's a good time to take advantage of the price drop on him and hope he clears 30 minutes once again (I don't see why he wouldn't, they seem confident about his health now).
Here are the top projected plays. This will be updated throughout the day as well as more news breaks.
- The top projection at the time of this writing is Patrick Beverley, who is coming in above 6x return in all data models. He played a season-high 31 minutes last time out with D'Angelo Russell sitting, scoring 36.5 DraftKings points. He distributed that production pretty evenly, scoring 10 points on six shots and then adding ten rebounds and 8 assists. He has not typically been a very high-usage guy in his career, so there's definitely the chance of him laying an egg here even with elevated minutes, but it's a good spot nonetheless.
- We've already talked about Zubac, who is risky but I think the upside really outweighs the risk here. For the year he has scored 0.89 DraftKings points per minute, which is quite low for him. The upside here is another 30 minutes with something like 1.25 points per minute, which has him pushing towards a 10x return from your $4,000.
- The minutes on Steven Adams have been bouncing up and down as well, which is pretty typical for centers who often find themselves in foul trouble, but he's played 30 minutes in back-to-back games, so you can see that the Grizzlies want him on the floor. He's averaged a strong 1.03 DraftKings points per minute, which gives him upside at just $4,700. But it's tough to rely on the 30-minute projection here given what we've seen from him this season.
Other names popping on multiple data models: Richaun Holmes, Normal Powell, Caris LeVert, Derrick White, Precious Achiuwa, Buddy Hield, Desmond Bane, and Davion Mitchell.
These models really favor cheap players, as the low salary gives a lot more opportunity for per-dollar upside, but we can't play a lineup full of cheap guys so let's check on the top projected studs.
In NBA DFS, the studs are super reliable. You can more or less bank big-time raw scores from these guys. It's much tougher to get a 6x or 7x return from these players given how expensive they are, so we're more or less just trying to find the studs that will play a full collection of minutes here and hoping for a good 5-6x return. The biggest thing that hurts a stud's production is blowout games where they sit out the fourth quarter and don't get to their usual minutes. The stud at the biggest risk of that tonight is Stephen Curry, whose price is above $11,000 and his Warriors are favored by 9.5 points right now over the Pelicans. The Nets studs are a bit cheaper but they find themselves as ten-point favorites as well against the Pistons. Giannis is the most expensive guy on the slate, and the price is so high that it becomes really, really tough to get a 6x return (he would have to score 71 points to get there), but it's a good spot for him to try against the Knicks as just a five point favorite.
Again, it's more important to get a good score from your studs rather than a great one, since it's typically pretty easy to make up per-dollar ground from the cheaper guys. The way I've been playing this year is this:
- Take roughly half of your salary and buy the cheap guys that pop in the models, if you can average a 7x return from $25,000 on cheap players (very doable on most slates), that gets you 175 points from half of your money.
- Spend a significant chunk on two studs and get a 5x return. Giannis & Curry tonight would cost you $23,200 tonight, and a 5x return would be 116 points. That plus the 175 gives you 291 points, a very strong score.
This is obviously just a specific scenario meant to explain the point, you shouldn't be trying to follow those rules exactly - but it's just a good framework for how to think about it. You don't need to get a 6x or 7x return from every single player you take, you have to consider the price points. Locking in a 5x return with $23,000 on studs is just fine provided you play the cheap guys that are in spots to go for 7x or more.
Keep checking back throughout the day as these data tables update, and check out the full data model Tableau dashboard here (best viewed on tablet or PC). Thanks for reading!
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