Welcome to the NBA DFS Triple Threat here at Paydirt! This is going to be a daily article aimed at giving thoughts and notes on three important aspects of the NBA DFS slate. We will talk through the most popular player on the slate, a great value play, and a situation you need to monitor to find success. This article is best used with the projections models here at Paydirt (Found here), but it will still be valuable even as a one off piece of content. While the focus is on Draftkings, the content is applicable to Fanduel as well. Costs, Projections, and finishing percentiles format will be Draftkings/Fanduel.
Main Points:
- Luka Doncic has the highest DFS ceiling of any player on the slate. Additionally, he gets a great matchup against the Warriors. No surprise here that he is projected to be the highest owned spend up on both sites.
- Klay Thompson may be the “least value” value play written up this season but someone has to get mentioned. On the one hand he does grade out as a top 5x play on both sites, on the other hand the bar is on the floor as it’s less than 40%. Main takeaway is don’t force a bad cheapie tonight.
- Norman Powell chalk is never fun. The Clippers are without Kawhi, Paul George, John Wall, and Luke Kennard tonight which has historically led to a 30% usage rate for Powell. However, he’s still less than a fantasy point per minute producer and isn’t particularly cheap tonight.
Depending on the size of the slate, there may be multiple situations, value plays, and popular options that you need to consider. Join the Paydirt discord with this link for more updates and game theory on all the slates details: https://discord.gg/mQ6u5dfawF
DEM Overview
As far as FPPM boosts Detroit has actually gotten better and is actually a slight negative matchup now. Despite that change, quite a few Knick players are projected to be popular. However, on the flipside the Knicks are still a great matchup and nobody seems to be playing Detroit players.
Popular DFS Play: Luka Doncic
Price: $12,600/$12,000
Own%: 70.00%/70.00%
You shouldn’t really need much explanation as to why Luka is an elite DFS play. He’s leading the Mavericks in every meaningful stat resulting in a FPPM rate over 1.5 and he’s playing all the minutes he can handle. Golden State is also a pace up matchup and positive FPPM boost. With just 3 games tonight it’s probably best to just take the raw points from Luka and move on.
DFS Value Play: Klay Thompson
Price: $6,100/$6,400
5x%: 31.80%/34.00%
It is slim pickings tonight for value. A lot of the popular “value” plays are all pretty appropriately priced relative to their median projections. Additionally, they all have fairly capped ceilings. That leaves us with Klay Thompson. We at least know that the talent is there, he does in fact have a ceiling, and he rates near the top of the 5x column for both sites in the models.
Player to avoid in DFS: Norman Powell
Price: $5,400/$6,000
LevX: -45.97/-43.89
Norman Powell is massive chalk and there are fair reasons for it. However, all of those same reasons apply to the rest of the Clippers as well. Additionally, you can get most of them for less salary AND less ownership. You don’t have to fade the situation, but you can certainly fade the individual player.
NBA DFS final thoughts
Pretty straightforward slate tonight. Most lineups are going to be Luka plus 3 Clippers. Knowing this you can either play Curry instead of Luka, or just not play Powell as one of your Clippers. If you really want to get spicy you can just not play 3 Clippers and play 3 Pistons. You could also full game stack and just hope that game goes off. Good luck tonight!
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