Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant drives against Los Angeles Lakers guard Josh Hart during the first half of an NBA preseason basketball game Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Here we go with the Halloween edition of your NBA picks. While some poor sap parents are off trudging their kids all over creation looking for candy handouts, we'll be grinding NBA plays. There's a lot of value on this slate with the Warriors, Pelicans, Mavericks and more. Don't get scared (get it?), we've got you covered.
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Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 51.7 DK - 54.06
The Warriors are actively trying to demoralize the entirety of the NBA. It’s really something behold. They are taking on a nightly teeth-kicking of other teams and it’s tough to imagine anyone really slowing them down in any meaningful way. Even with the potential blowout risk (in their favor of course) it’s reasonable to think their main players get there from a fantasy perspective. Hell, last game Steph went for 23 points, eight rebounds, five assists, three steals and a block in just 25 (25!) minutes against the Bulls. These, simply put, are video game stats. With no early line on the game because of the lack of Anthony Davis news we are trying to figure if the Warriors win by 10 or 25. I’m tongue-in-cheek here to some degree, but there’s certainly a glaring lopsidedness to their games. But I still think you can play Steph in cash on this slate and if you don’t see a 4th quarter it’s probably because he went HAM in the first three.
Opponent - SA
Proj Pts FD - 15.6 DK - 16.87
Opponent - SA
Proj Pts FD - 21.28 DK - 22.05
I’m putting these guys together in the hopes we have something like real news leading into lineup lock about the Suns’ plans for their starting point guard position. Last game, Canaan left early with an ankle tweak and Okobo picked up the minutes ending with an 18 point, seven assist, five rebound game against the Thunder. Look, when you are a bad team you can afford to just randomly play a guy no one had ever heard of five minutes ago for major minutes. That could be the case with Okobo on Wednesday. But if Canaan came back with a full bill of healthy, he’s interesting as a punt play as well. See what happens with these bad teams early on? It’s nuts. This is all to say, the fantasy viability of either rests on whether or not Devin Booker plays. There are a lot of moving parts here, but I do think the Suns’ backcourt will offer value one way or another.
Opponent - NY
Proj Pts FD - 27.29 DK - 27.05
Oh, I would love to know what the ultimate Pacer plan is will Collison. They’ve played in an inordinate amount of blowouts this season, but in two of the three close games, Collison has played 30 minutes or more. That’s the big difference with this guy at these prices. They’ve never been overly willing to run him major minutes, but in the last two he’s averaged 33 per game with nearly identical games lines (17 points - 15 points, six assists, two rebounds). Those stats more than get it done at these prices when you add in the steals and the Knicks are a great matchup because they stink.
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 33.26 DK - 34.81
We wrote Klay up prior to his historic shooting night on Monday mostly because we saw some positive regression coming from the three-pointers. Uh, yeah. Dude went completely off and managed to set a new NBA record with 14 threes. It only took him three quarters to do it. I’m not writing him up on that performance alone, though it is easy to point to it. We had him as a play prior to just going lights out. These prices are still too low for a volume three-point shooter in this offense. Of course, he’s heavily reliant on the three ball in order to hit value and that will always lead to some variable performances. But the Pelicans’ D is weak around the perimeter and the Warriors are, once again, in a spot to put up a lot of points. I’m fine buying again on Klay with the understanding that others might overreact to his recent performance.
Opponent - GS
Proj Pts FD - 44 DK - 44.02
His projection is sitting a little high as of this writing because we are working on the assumption that Anthony Davis will sit again on Wednesday. It’s too early to know that for sure, but I’ll outline the case for Jrue nonetheless. The usage hasn’t been there for him without AD over the last two games, but he's clearly in line for major minutes if AD is out of the lineup and Pelicans need everything they can get on the offensive end. He ended up starting at point guard against the Nuggets, shifting Solomon Hill and E'Twaun Moore to the 2-3. I'm mostly in to Holiday's potential minutes here if Davis is out again. I do think the 13 shots per game over the last two are on the low end if he's the catalyst for the offense.
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 25.45 DK - 26.21
After four-straight 20 point games, Matthews took a step back against the Spurs in his last game putting up *only* an eight-point, four assist game despite playing a season-high 39 minutes. This is to say, there’s plenty of upside on the Mavs’ small forward if he’s locked into this kind of run on a night-to-night basis. And that sure seems like the case. He’s averaging 35 minutes per game and an 18 point, three rebound, three assist line so far. That’s plenty to get it done at these prices and the Lakers are coming in with a bottom-third defense and top-third pace. That’s coming close to a dream matchup. You can also strongly consider Luka Doncic here as a DraftKings’ play.
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 30.35 DK - 31.41
This is going to follow much of the same line of thinking from the Matthews’ writeup. This game has a 235 over/under, easily the highest of this slate with the Lakers 6.5 home favorites. That leaves a lot of points for the Mavs coming the other way. Barnes is still working his way back from injury but did manage 18 points and seven rebounds in 34 minutes against the Spurs on Monday. His usage does take a hit with Doncic around, Smith playing more minutes and addition of DeAndre Jordan. So we can’t translate last season’s stats directly on to this year. But the price is down across the board because of the early season injury stuff and the lack of solid production in his first three games. I’m still on board for playing him here.
Opponent - MIN
Proj Pts FD - 23.91 DK - 24.6
Derrick Favors sat out on Sunday with a sore knee and I’m hard-pressed to see how he plays here on Wednesday. Famous last words and all, but I think we see Crowder get the start again for the Jazz at the four and he’s in a prime spot to produce on the fantasy end. Last game he went for 15 points and six rebounds in 35 minutes against the Mavericks and will draw a weak Minnesota interior defense in this matchup. Crowder is more a 3 and D guy than Favors who plays in the blocks, but still would present matchup issues for Minnesota. The price came up some on Crowder but he’s a cash game play again if Favors is out.
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 50.73 DK - 51.36
Man, it’s hard to pass up Durant at $9,600 on DraftKings. The Warriors seem to be playing this “whose night is it to go completely off?” game and Durant hasn’t really had his to-the-moon game yet. Not to say that’s a good metric for determining DFS success, but this is Kevin-freaking-Durant and he has a matchup against the Pelicans. It wouldn’t shock me to see a concentrated effort to get the guy going in the form of short term usage bumps. This, after all, is the Warriors we are talking about. They are playing with house money and Durant is (at the very worst) a top 4 player in the NBA. He’s coming at easy buy prices on DK for sure.
Opponent - BKN
Proj Pts FD - 45.5 DK - 47.65
Look, maybe we got spoiled by Blake’s 50-point game against the Sixers in overtime last week. He hasn’t shown anywhere close to the upside over the last few games. But no one can sustain that kind of scoring and Griffin is coming at a FanDuel bargain at less than $9K in this matchup. The Nets have next-to-nothing in the way of interior defense and in his first game of the season he lit them up for 26 points, eight rebounds and six assists. This is a pace-up matchup for the Pistons compared to what they got in the last two against the Celtics and Detroit should once again be able to put up points. I do like stacking he and Drummond (we’ll get to the latter in a second) in cash games because there’s such a high floor considering how Detroit is using these two but if I had to choose I’d much rather play Griffin on FD and Drummond on DK.
Opponent - PHO
Proj Pts FD - 46.6 DK - 47.73
DeMar Derozan has been other-worldly for the Spurs in the early going leaving LMA to play something like a second fiddle in the San Antonio fantasy scoring scheme. But that’s merely led to to a slight price drop in the short term for the big man. He’s still averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds per game and hasn’t really put it all together over the last three games. Now he’ll get a Suns’ team with next-to-no interior defense outside of Ayton (who is still learning the ropes). Aldridge could put a hurting on Phoenix here with the midrange game and the pace of play should see him push towards a double-double on the volume rebounding.
On FanDuel, having to start two power forwards is always an issue. There are other cheaper options to consider. If you think Noah Vonleh still sees solid starter minutes for the Knicks then he is a buy-low option against the Pacers who don’t have many defensive-driven bigs. Conversely, Thaddeus Young is in a similar spot against the Knicks who are clearly trying to tank.
Opponent - BKN
Proj Pts FD - 50.75 DK - 51.73
It’s been somewhat easy to overlook Drummond in the short term. He played back-to-back games against a very tough Boston team, averaging 17.5 points and 10 rebounds in those games. That shouldn’t be your baseline for the dude’s performance going forward. He’s set to crush the Nets here. In the first game of the season he went for 24 points and 20 rebounds against a team with almost nothing in the way of interior defense. Don’t be surprised to see a similar line on Wednesday and we have the great advantage of seeing the price drop right before he takes the court. It’s something like an easy cash play on a night without many ways to spend up for salary.
Opponent - DAL
Proj Pts FD - 38.87 DK - 36.36
Java sees a big price decrease on DraftKings even though he just played his second-most minutes of the season against the Timberwolves on Monday. He started off like gangbusters in the first half, but from a fantasy perspective definitely trailed off in the second. I do think he’ll see plenty of minutes in Wednesday’s game considering the presence of DeAndre Jordan and McGee would be a candidate to hit value on the defensive stats and rebounding by just being on the court upwards of 30 minutes. The FanDuel price is a little tougher to swallow considering Drummond is such an insane value there. But man, going double center on DK is in order if you think McGee sees anywhere close to 30 minutes in this matchup.
Consider Myles Turner against the Knicks.
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