Milwaukee Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo drives against Charlotte Hornets' Jeremy Lamb during an NBA basketball game Saturday, March 26, 2016, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)
Welcome back for another Sunday of NBA basketball! We lose a high value Detroit/Charlotte game off the main slate, but there should still be enough value to sneak by on the main. It should be a much more sane day than the crazy trade-deadline Saturday we're still recovering from, but sanity does not always equal value. Let's see where we can find some action, shall we?
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Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 33.48 DK - 33.22
Opponent - MIL
Proj Pts FD - 33.26 DK - 34.53
First things first - point guard (and maybe this entire slate) is kind of a beating tonight. You've got some too-expensive options (Paul, Kyrie, Lillard), and a lot of teams that run a point-guard-by-committee (too many to name). That leaves us with two solid point guards in not-so-great match-ups with one another. Both Milwaukee and Denver are dramatically worse match-ups than they were last season, ranking 3rd and 4th respectively in defensive efficiency. These two point guards have also suffered from minutes that seem to fluctuate greatly based on the game script. But that's actually why I kind of like them. Murray can play high 30s-low 40s minutes in close games, and Bledsoe can get up into the 30s. This should be one of the more competitive games on the slate, and I think this gives both players a much higher floor than a lot of their counterparts on the slate.
Opponent - HOU
Proj Pts FD - 25.8 DK - 25.56
I don't think I've ever felt excited to play Darren Collison, but this slate might just call for it. With some excellent expensive options at small forward, we may just have the incentive to go as cheap as possible in order to enable playing both. Collison's production can come and go, but coming off of one of his best games of the season one has to think the default will be to give him high 20s-low 30s minutes for tonight's game. Don't get too carried away projecting Collison for too much minutes growth, though - a lot of the increase we saw last game came about because Thad was ejected and Joseph took a lot of his minutes (leaving Collison without a back-up). Nonetheless, with so few attractive options Collison looks like a solid way t ogo cheap at the position today.
Opponent - HOU
Proj Pts FD - 43.79 DK - 43.52
Our system has been on Oladipo a lot more than most this season, and it's been paying off handsomely. So why the Oladipo love? Quite simply, he's just as expensive as he's been in the past, but he's shooting two extra times per game on average. Yes, it really is that simple. Oladipo's more active role in the offense this season has also led to an additional 1.7 rebounds per game and an extra half an assist as well. All of these seem like little additions, but in a game like NBA DFS the little edges really add up to make a difference. Houston should also be a solid match-up for him. The Rockets have a bottom 10 defensive efficiency this season, and Dipo should draw one of their worst defenders in James Harden. All in all it looks like a high floor and potentially high ceiling play.
Opponent - MIL
Proj Pts FD - 31.65 DK - 31.99
I'm feeling more and more like I just want to avoid this slate. Like a lot of the Nuggets, Harris' minutes are totally dependent on the game script. Like a lot of the Nuggets, he can play a lot of minutes in close games. And, like a lot of the Nuggets, he can completely disappear on you. He played 36 minutes against the Nets in a great match-up and only cobbled together 14.4 fantasy points. So why play Harris? His field goal percentage. He shot 1/11 from the field against the Nets, which brought his season long total to 43.4% - fully 5% below last year's number. Unless you think Harris is now just absurdly worse than he was last year, this looks a lot more like a little bout of early season bad luck. Milwaukee isn't a great match-up, but if I can get Harris for his minutes I'll be hard pressed to not run him on these prices on DraftKings at the very least.
As always, we'll keep an eye on James Harden. But it IS the second half of a back to back, and the Rockets have already been somewhat tentative with his minutes this season. I think I'd rather spend up elsewhere.
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 60.95 DK - 62.23
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 59.12 DK - 61.67
And here is where I want to pay up. If you're just going to challenge me with close prices on FanDuel I'm just going to grab Giannis. He's younger, on a better team, a bigger part of his team's plan (somehow), and in a game that should be a lot closer than the Lakers, which has a 10 point spread. LeBron still trails Giannis by 2 fantasy points per game on the season, and his minutes seem to be a lot more erratic as well. So why consider LeBron? The match-up. Atlanta is playing the second fastest PACE in the league this season with the league's 8th worst defensive efficiency, making them essentially a dream match-up. LeBron is also cheaper than Giannis on DraftKings where the savings should matter. I'll take Giannis' minutes security in a potentially closer match-up, but you can't sleep on LeBron. And, ideally, I'd probably just play both.
Opponent - HOU
Proj Pts FD - 20.29 DK - 21.22
I'm not sure I've ever wrote this in a professional article before, but, LOL. The rest of this position is truly a wasteland. Bojan at least brings you consistency, paying 5x points per dollar on these prices in each of the last 4 games. The plan is to play him 30-36 minutes, and he'll likely be up against a semi-sick Carmelo or the Rockets potpourri of mostly bad back-ups. And before you laugh at the Bojan recommendation, please just go look at the position and get back to me.
Keep an eye on the Rockets situation. Melo sat on Saturday, and he may sit again on Sunday. If he does it will open up significant opportunity. As of this writing I don't have info on who got those minutes, but you do! So use it wisely.
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 24.31 DK - 23.94
On a small and generally bad slate, Spellman represents a lot of the value available today. It looks like the plan is to play 30 minutes or so a game until Collins returns, and if he does he should be worth more than these paltry price tags. He didn't embarrass himself against Blake, and now he's scored an average of 38 fantasy points in his last two games. The rebounds and blocks look legit, and this just looks like a price and opportunity mismatch. Yes, the Hawks are 10 point dogs here, but getting blown out barely hurt Spellman against Detroit. He looks like all upside to me.
Opponent - ORL
Proj Pts FD - 32.15 DK - 33.63
Vonleh was Omari Spellman before Omari Spellman was Omari Spellman. Wow, I just typed that name a lot of times. Still, Vonleh has been stepping into the power forward role admirably for the Knicks, and he seems like a very fair bet for 5x-6x points per dollar on these prices unless the Knicks get blown out or he loses his starting job. This game right now has a razor thin 1 point spread, and while the total isn't very high it doesn't need to be for a guy who looks generally underpriced right now. Orlando has been a bottom 5 team against opposing bigs ever since they started running Gordon and Vuc, and I like Vonleh for cash games especially.
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 31.32 DK - 32.65
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 31.7 DK - 31.82
Kuz and Ingram were close for us on Saturday night, and I highlight them here as two high upside plays in one of the best match-ups on the slate. The Lakers are finding each of these guys 30+ minutes a game right now with their version of small ball, and if Atlanta manages to keep this game somewhat close you could see a huge game out of either of these guys. If I had to pick one I'd probably go with Kuzma simply because he's flashed more electric upside in the past, but both are interesting parts of an off-beat ATL/LAL stack.
Opponent - IND
Proj Pts FD - 45.52 DK - 45.34
If there are a lot of tough positions tonight, center is downright impossible. Outside of Capela, that is. The three guys that are more expensive than Capela (Nurkic, Jokic, and Vucevic) have two things in common - their names end in -ic, and they are overpriced relative to how consistently they produce. The two guys right beneath him (Kanter and McGee) are a threat to play 25 minutes on any given night. That leaves us with some cheap and speculative options, and Capela. He hasn't been excellent on these prices recently, but he does seem like a lock for 35 minutes a game. His rebounding has been incredibly consistent (his last game was his first single digit rebound game since 10/21), and he's much more involved in the offense this season as well, shooting 2 more times per game with his same great efficiency. At a position riddled with uncertainty, I'll happily scoop up Capela's compelling floor.
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View Comments
How about K. Bazemore at SF. Or of you're really desperate you can go with Kevin Knox
The Bojan recommendation was hilarious! And he went off lol! The boring consistent tortoise won the race. Slow and steady pays off eh? It's all good, Bojan hit or not you were just being honest; you were still professional. I mean seriously it was bad 😂.