Daily Fantasy NBA Picks for FanDuel, DraftKings and DraftPot - 10/31/15

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Quick note on these picks: There is a lot to guess at to start the season. Tons of players have switched uniforms. Teams have slightly changed their approach. Rookies are in the mix. New starting lineups abound. It's somewhat tough sledding until we see some games and get a sense of how teams are going to use players. We also write these picks the night before, but getting you to them as soon as possible means that we're going to miss a little bit of data in that the late games are often still going on when we finish. That being said, we've gone over the data and made a number of adjustments to our system in order to get things as close as humanly (and algorithmic-ally) possible. Our projection system handles the little bits of pricing and projecting differences. That being said, for this opening slate I think you are very much going to be taking a stars and punts approach.

POINT GUARD

Damian Lillard - FD 9100 DK 9100
Opponent - PHX FD Proj. Pts - 39.44 DK Proj. Pts - 42.67
Lillard's price is starting to climb, but this new version of him might wind up being worth it. Lillard took 21 shots in a blow out of New Orleans in the season opener, which is more than 4 shots per game more than he took last year. It's too early to draw too much from that, but it's worth noting that Lillard has always taken a dramatic usage bump without another large volume scorer (Aldridge, for example) on the floor. What I really liked about Lillard's opener, though? The assists. Some of that was a run-hot shooting night for early season revelation CJ McCollum, but some of it might just be a reflection of the Trail Blazers having to work a little harder for their shots with Batum, Aldridge, and Matthews gone. You can't trust it completely just yet, but the price is still low enough where you don't have to. As for Phoenix, they allowed 4% more scoring to opposing point guards last season, making this a fine match-up for Lillard to do his thing.

George Hill - FD 6500 DK 6000
Opponent - UTA FD Proj. Pts - 32.25 DK Proj. Pts - 34.07
If George Hill is going to play 38-39 minutes a game, he's going to be a stalwart 50/50 and double up play across all of the sites at these prices. Be a little careful just using last year's points per minute stats to project Hill going forward. His usage has dropped dramatically with both him and Paul George on the floor - from 24.7% without him, down to 17.7% with him. That decrease in shots will lead to a lot fewer huge games from Hill, though the increase in minutes will make up some of the floor. It's still too early to tell what this Utah team will do against point guards, but Reggie Jackson looked pretty good against them in the opener. Last season they depressed opposing PG's scoring by about 4%, but Hill is still priced to a point where he should feel like a pretty safe play, here.

Brandon Knight - FD 6400 DK 6500
Opponent - POR FD Proj. Pts - 32.7 DK Proj. Pts - 34.91
With Lillard so focused on scoring, his already weak defense could get even weaker. Portland allowed 8% more scoring than league average (good for 2nd in the league) to opposing point guards last season, and scoring is without a doubt where Knight pays his value. It was a pretty dismal night for the Suns all around in their opener against the Mavs, but Knight played 35 minutes (up from his 31 minutes/game average with the Suns last season), and wound up leading the team in scoring. Knight is capable of some huge games when things break right, and in what might be a shoot-out with Lillard and the Blazers, tonight's as good a night as any.

A pretty good FanDuel play: Chris Paul. Our system prefers the above guys on DraftKings, but on FanDuel - he's priced nicely in a rematch with the Kings. He played 37 minutes against them in the last go around, and a 40% shooting night (as opposed to last season's 48%) kept him from hitting the value he would have otherwise. A good play once again.

SHOOTING GUARD

Bradley Beal - FD 7200 DK 6200
Opponent - NYK FD Proj. Pts - 29.68 DK Proj. Pts - 32.05
When you're trying to find safety at the shooting guard position, it's good to look for one of two things. First, grabbing a guy with an off-ball point guard (think Harden last season) can lead to lots of extra chances that most SGs don't get. The next thing is a little more straightforward - minutes and shots. And Beal? He gets those. With 37 minutes in their opener and a staggering 19 shots, Beal should meet both of those criterion handily. There's precedent for Beal playing huge minutes in the past, but there's also precedent for him getting injured. While he's healthy, and barring any news from the Wizards' camp, I'll just assume he'll be getting the playing time we've seen so far. On these prices? That makes him an excellent play. With 24 points and 6 boards in his first game, Beal didn't exactly return maximum value - but whatever weirdness that led to him having 0 assists (he's been very steady at 3 per game for like ever) and 0 steals (he's a steal per game guy as well) shaved off about 6.5 fantasy points worth of production that you can probably count on. If you add that back onto his total, you're looking at an incredible value play. Meanwhile, there are the hapless Knicks, who are literally playing Sasha Vujacic at shooting guard (not a typo). If this were 2007 I might expect Vujacic to be at least running around and complaining about bad ref calls, but at this stage in his career it's hard to imagine him even being close enough to the other players to even see what's going on. Fantastic match-up for Beal, here.

Eric Bledsoe - FD 7100 DK 7300
Opponent - POR FD Proj. Pts - 34.57 DK Proj. Pts - 36.02
Bledsoe is a pretty interesting guy, because his usage drops from 23.9% with Brandon Knight off the floor, to 20.9% with Knight on the floor. While that might not seem like a huge difference, that means his usage with Knight out there is only about 86% of what it is without him. Even in light of this, Bledsoe still represents a great buy-low opportunity. He will be anything but a chalk play by casual fans after a lack-luster season opener (unless he goes off against the Trail Blazers tonight as I'm writing this), but that will be due to one of those early blip in variance things. Bledsoe was pulled with 7 minutes remaining the opener, meaning he was likely on pace for 38 minutes before that happened. I imagine he'll settle in more in the 36 minute range, but that extra 20% of playing time over the first game of the season would have made his opening line a lot more palatable. By the time you read this you can likely see what he did against Portland in Friday's game, but the back-court of McCollum and Lillard should allow a lot of big games this season, and tonight could absolutely be one of them.

C.J. McCollum - FD 6000 DK 6600
Opponent - PHX FD Proj. Pts - 30.28 DK Proj. Pts - 32.41
McCollum is still a must-play on FanDuel at his price there, but he takes a serious hit with this DraftKings pricing. Here's a pro-tip for you: instead of hedging and lowering your variance by playing sub-optimal guys on the same site, just play the best guys on relative to their pricing on a couple of different sites. McCollum is a perfect example of that here. He has a great match-up with Phoenix, who allowed 7% more scoring and 7% more rebounding (largely a function of their 3rd fastest pace in the NBA) to opposing shooting guards last season. He obviously saw huge volume (22 shots) in his first game, and was very efficient in all phases of the game. But there is a point at which he'll be priced out of consideration. For our system, he's simply OK on DraftKings while being a great play on FanDuel. Another quick note - don't get too excited about the overall point total for McCollum. He clearly won't shoot 64% on the season, and maintaining 22 shots a game would really be something. Only 3 players in the NBA shot 20 or more shots a game last season, to provide a little frame of reference, and one of those was a Durant-less Russell Westbrook. Is McCollum still an exciting prospect? By all means.

If you aren't worried about a blowout, our system likes Klay Thompson against the Pelicans. But with the Warriors? You're always worried about a blow-out. Probably a big tournament play only.

OVERLAY ALERT AND FREE ACCESS TO OUR PROJECTIONS!

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SMALL FORWARD

Gordon Hayward - FD 7200 DK 6900
Opponent - IND FD Proj. Pts - 31.76 DK Proj. Pts - 33.56
A weird game for Hayward in all respects against the Sixers. As of this writing he's shot just 25% from the floor, has only attempted 3 three pointers since the Jazz have been up by so much, and will likely miss a bunch of his minutes for the same reason. In a tougher match-up with Indiana, this shouldn't be the case. The Pacers played a slightly below league average pace last season, and were essentially league average against small forwards last season, meaning Hayward should be able to proceed here business-as-usual against the slightly shorter CJ Miles.

Paul George - FD 8600 DK 8100
Opponent - UTA FD Proj. Pts - 35.06 DK Proj. Pts - 37.42
Our system likes him more at his DraftKings price than his FanDuel price, but you can make a place for playing him on either on a short slate like this. Here are some Paul George facts. His 16 shots per game so far this season would be the second highest of his career. He's getting to the line more than any time in his career (8 FTA/G vs. 5.8 FTA/G in his MVP-level season). He's been crashing the boards for 10 per game - better than his best ever 7.6 rebounds per game. I get it, it's early, and this all can't tell us too much. But it tells me one very important thing: Paul George is healthy. And healthy Paul George might just be worth more than these prices suggest. The Jazz are back to being the very slowest team in the NBA, which is what makes George less than a must-play tonight. In spite of this, though, our system thinks he's a nice high-floor play with room for a little more if his shot starts falling the way it can.

P.J. Tucker - FD 4700 DK 4500
Opponent - POR FD Proj. Pts - 21.94 DK Proj. Pts - 23.35
Now THIS one requires a steady hand. P.J. played just 9 minutes in the Suns' opener, and by the time you read this, you'll likely have more information than I do now. I'm following my gut here and saying that, given his super-steady 30+ minutes a game for the last two seasons and the Suns' generally similar squad, he'll probably get back to that soon enough. If he does, he'll get to play against Al-Farouq Aminu, who was hobbled by a hamstring injury throughout the pre-season. When Tucker is right, he's good for 22-25 fantasy points a contest, giving him a fine points per dollar outlay on either FanDuel or DraftKings. Still, check Friday night's game log and make sure that the first game lack of minutes was actually an aberration and not the harbinger of something more. Editor's note: Tucker has been bad to start the season. We could be looking at a buy low, but last night's performance didn't make him feel safe by any means.

A DraftKings-only play: CJ Miles. He's priced out of consideration on FanDuel due simply to the fact that Paul George's return chews up about 20% of his team's shots, but his ridiculously low price and likely 30+ minutes out there make him a fairly high floor play.

POWER FORWARD

Anthony Davis - FD 11100 DK 10400
Opponent - GSW FD Proj. Pts - 50.32 DK Proj. Pts - 51.11
What? Sure, Davis was really awful against Golden State in their first meeting. He also shot 30% from the field (as opposed to the 52% he's shot for his career). I refuse to believe that even the super-stingy Golden State defense will be able to contain Davis again, here, and if he's going to take 20 shots in 34 minutes in a blow-out, that number could even rise if he plays his standard minutes (38ish, per the end of last season) and the game stays a little closer. Golden State allowed 3% more scoring and 11% more rebounding to opposing power forwards last season, and while some of that is because they wound up in blow-ups with Festus Ezeli or whoever covering opposing 4s, a lot of that is because they played the fastest pace in the league. If that fast pace doesn't run New Orleans out the gym again (GSW is only a 5 point favorite on the road in NO), Davis should be in line to pile up the stats.

Draymond Green - FD 7800 DK 6900
Opponent - NOP FD Proj. Pts - 30.6 DK Proj. Pts - 32.51
Much more of a DraftKings play, but Green should be able to take advantage of Ryan Anderson or Dante Cunningham, depending on who covers him here. He didn't put up huge numbers in their last meetup due to some bad shooting and Steph catching #hotfire, but Green was a pretty steady source of OK points, good boards, and great blocks and steals last year when he got his full run. Again, it's important not to have too much of a recency bias here. If Vegas says this is a 5 point game, Green should get 32-35 minutes in a game that is tied for having the highest total of the night.

Markieff Morris - FD 5800 DK 6200
Opponent - POR FD Proj. Pts - 27.89 DK Proj. Pts - 28.9
Morris was simply awful in the opener, and again, you're going to know a lot more about Morris after the late night games conclude. But his price here is unfairly low for what the guy is capable of in any given game. Morris scored ~28 fantasy points per game when averaging 31 minutes per game last season, and I don't see why he couldn't put up similar numbers in this game against Portland's raw front court. He could also absolutely blow up in your face due to the combination of his foul trouble and the Suns' lineup volatility. Still, this is a very interesting and likely off-beat play for your big tournaments.

A guy to keep an eye on is Zach Randolph. At just a 13% usage rate this season, Randolph really hasn't been doing anything out there. One of those was a weird game against Cleveland, but there's really no excuse for why he only had 11 shots in 30 minutes against the Pacers in his 2nd game. Still, his price is dropping, and there might be upside here in the first game the Grizz decide to funnel the ball down to him.

If Asik is out again, grabbing Ryan Anderson and the 34-38 minutes he could play in this one looks awfully intriguing. Yes, he could simply suck for you once again, but you're not going to find guys who have the upside of shooting 20 shots in a game at these prices elsewhere.
 

CENTER

Meyers Leonard - FD 5000 DK 4500
Opponent - PHX FD Proj. Pts - 27.62 DK Proj. Pts - 29.99
A simple case of minutes and opportunity. Leonard was terrific in his first game this season, posting a 12/8/3/1/1 (good for 28 fantasy points) in 34 minutes, which is production that's awfully tough to get on these punt-level prices. Tyson Chandler isn't exactly an appealing match-up, but just let that dissuade people who don't understand math - Chandler doesn't shut opposing C's down altogether, he merely slows them down. And even slowing down Leonard on these prices could yield a great game, given the Suns frenetic pace. Editor's note: Leonard was rough last night. This early in the season it's easy to make snap judgments based on previous game's performance (good or bad). We think the truth for him lies somewhere in between and still like him as a value play.

DeMarcus Cousins - FD 10900 DK 10000
Opponent - LAC FD Proj. Pts - 49.57 DK Proj. Pts - 50.23
Boogie blasted the Clips for 32/13 in their first match-up, and the 46.1 points he scored were just a hair under what we have him projected for here. What's there to say, really? Cousins is an emotional player who absolutely rises to narrative-based match-ups, and facing 2 nationally beloved big men in Griffin and Jordan should bring the best out in him once again. His first game could have been even bigger, by the way. He went to the line a fantastic 11 times, and dropping his turnovers to his established career rate (from 8 in this game down to 4) would have made this a 50 point performance. I love Cousins as your big money play of the day, especially on this super small slate.

Willie Cauley-Stein - FD 5000 DK 3000
Opponent - LAC FD Proj. Pts - 18.22 DK Proj. Pts - 18.56
A true punt in the purest sense of the word, but he started for the Kings against the Lakers, and if he gets the start again, opportunity might make him a pretty huge upside guy on DraftKings. Through 6 minutes of this Kings/Lakers game he's got 3 points and 3 boards, and prorating those numbers would make him a huge value play in any format. On FanDuel you probably just have to play Leonard based on role security, but for 33% less on DK, you can really fill your lineup with some nice pieces around him.

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