Happy Monday everyone. Hopefully everyone has recovered from their Thanksgiving hangovers by now. I took a break from NBA DFS over the long holiday weekend but am feeling refreshed and ready to get after it this week. I peeked ahead a little and it looks like we have all 5 to 9 game slates this week, which is music to my ears as those 10+ game slates can be a bit overwhelming from a research perspective. Tonight we have a fun 9 game slate so let’s see what stands out from a GPP perspective.
+EV Strategy:
- It looks like most of the news we are waiting on (Jokic, Butler, Herro, Bamba) are all in the early games so there may not be any major news pending for the late games, although in the NBA we can always get an unforeseen late scratch (right as I finished writing I see Zach Lavine popped up as Questionable). The Miami vs. Denver injury news could provide us some much needed value. I expect to get that news early but there’s a chance we get it right around lock which could make for quite a scramble to adjust lineups. Keep in mind that typically the closer to lock that news drops, the lower owned the plays will be. If we get late injury news that makes someone a great play 5 minutes before lock I’ll sometimes come close to locking that player in GPPs since we will get nice ownership discount across contests.
Game Stacks:
- Oklahoma City vs. Houston – This game does look like it will get some ownership but there are a lot of ways to go here. We have 2 bad teams with a somewhat high total (215 total). If this game stays close a lot of pieces should get there. On the OKC side we have Shai back healthy which does take some usage away from others in the starting lineup. Shai, Giddey, Dort and Bazley all seem like solid GPP plays as part of a game stack. I really like the Houston side of this one should they manage to keep the game close. Based on the previous games, if Houston keeps the game competitive they tend to run their starters out there for heavy minutes. Christian Wood has major upside and is projected at around 5% ownership. In his last 2 games he’s had 43 and 63 fantasy points to showcase his ceiling. Also, a sneaky injury that may be going overlooked is Jalen Green being out. Surprisingly the data shows major usage and fantasy point per minute spikes for Christian Wood, Kevin Porter, Eric Gordon and Tate with Green off the floor. Wood is at 1.34 FPM and Porter is at 1.1 FPM without Jalen Green. I really like the Houston side of this game and I’m fine with having 1 or 2 bring backs from OKC as part of our game stacks but monitor ownership to make sure this game isn’t getting too chalky (early indications show Kevin Porter being extremely chalky so try to differentiate with your game stacks).
GPP Plays:
- Dejounte Murray – although there aren’t many plays I like in the Wiz vs. Spurs match-up, Dejounte Murray continues to be overlooked at a very reasonable price tag. He’s projected at 15% ownership which still seems slightly low. In Murray’s last 6 games he’s gone over 54 fantasy points in 5 of them. He’s also shooting a bit more with over 20 field goal attempts in each of his last 3 games. I mentioned this in an article last week but he really does have a game very similar to Russell Westbrook in that he can fill up the stat sheet and is always a threat for a triple double. At a fair $9600 price tag I’ll be overweight the field in my GPP exposures.
- Donovan Mitchell – This is another play I ‘m going to keep clicking at this price tag. He’s now down to $8100 on DK, which is probably the lowest price he’s been all year. Mitchell is up over 30% usage in his last 2 games and has no problems shooting the basketball. He’s at 1.22 fantasy points per minute on the season. The biggest issue with Utah is they seem to play in a lot of blowouts. If this game stays competitive I love the upside for Mitchell in GPPs. He’s not going to be extremely low owned but at projected 18% ownership we should be able to get over the field on him and I may be playing him in cash games as well.
- Christian Wood (large field GPP only play) – I already touched on him a bit in the Game Stacks portion of the article so I won’t dive too much deeper here. I just love the upside and plan on including him in my OKC vs. Houston game stacks at low ownership (projected around 5%). The $8200 price tag is slightly high but that helps keep ownership down in this spot and the ceiling is immense. At 1.34 fantasy points per minute without Jalen Green and a good match-up we just need this game to stay close and I think he’ll pay off this price tag.
Fades:
- Paul George – At the time of writing Paul George is projected at 23% ownership on DK. This is mainly due to his position eligibility being SF/PF. There are not many good spend-ups at SF tonight on DK which is driving up the Paul George ownership. On the year he’s at 1.3 fantasy points per minute and 34% usage, however in his last 6 games he’s been held under 50 fantasy points in all of them. The $10,200 price tag feels like an overprice, add in that he’s getting some ownership and he’s an easy fade in my eyes. There are a number of other spend-ups I’d rather allocate my funds to this evening (Jokic, Dejounte, Luca).
This should be a fun 9 game slate. I’m pretty pumped about tonight not just for DFS purposes but the Wiz and the Washington Football Team are in action so hopefully both my DC teams come through with dubs tonight. I will be updating my cores before lock so follow those for my favorite GPP plays should more news drop. Feel free to direct message me on Discord as I’m happy to help with your roster building.
Good luck tonight.
Max
