FanDuel NBA Picks and DraftKings NBA Picks - Saturday 10/26/19

 


It's our first Saturday slate of the NBA season, and with a few games under our belt, things are starting to look a little more clear. Of course, we did win the first three main slates of the season on both FanDuel and DraftKings, so maybe more sanity isn't necessarily a good thing. Let's take a look!

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Point Guard

Malcolm Brogdon FD - $6900 DK - $6500
Opponent - CLE
Proj Pts FD - 36.6 DK - 37.25

Brogdon was Indiana's big off-season get, and there is a lot of pressure on his shoulders until Victor Oladipo returns. The concerns prior to the season seemed legitimate. Could he thrive without the benefit of Giannis' gravity drawing the defense elsewhere? It's all well and good to go 50/40/90 as mostly a bench guy, but what about when the spotlight shone brightest? Well, things looked pretty good for Brogdon in his first outing. He scored an efficient 22 points on 13 shots, and chipped in a somewhat surprising 11 assists as well. We don't want to get carried away about one game, but that's honestly not even what we're doing here. We're just seeing Brogdon translate last season's skills to a full time role in Indiana. I'm a buyer, and think the price has room to climb another 15%-20% here. Going up against a porous Cleveland defense doesn't hurt, either. The Cavs were dead last in defensive efficiency last season, and given that they did nothing to address their defensive difficulties, Brogdon should have his way once again.

Kyle Lowry FD - $7600 DK - $7300
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 40.02 DK - 41.6

I'm still just buying as much Raptors stock as I can. Lowry didn't light the world on fire in the Raptors' opener, but it's painfully obvious that Nurse and company plan to address their relative lack of depth by leaning on the starting cast. Lowry played an astonishing (irresponsible)? 40 minutes in regulation in the opener, and while there may have been some emotion involved in that decision given that the Raptors were playing their first game since becoming world champions, I still think the plan is to run these guys pretty hard. Going up against a hapless Chicago defense doesn't hurt, either, as they clocked in with the 4th worse defensive efficiency in the league. It's the second half of a back to back, and you want to be especially wary of any potential news, but I'm ready to roll if they are.

Kemba Walker FD - $8200 DK - $8200
Opponent - NY
Proj Pts FD - 41.54 DK - 42.74

Consider: Patrick Beverley, who has been rock solid on good minutes for the whirlwind Clips. You have to be a little concerned about the blowout potential against a Phoenix team that's on the second half of a back to back, but there should be a lot of production to go around in that one.

Our system also doesn't mind Kemba Walker and Russell Westbrook, but I'm not sure that's where I want to allocate salary today.

Shooting Guard

Fred Vanvleet FD - $6600 DK - $6200
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 34.19 DK - 35.11

VanVleet was a bit of an embarrassment in the Boston game, but I actually think the opener against New Orleans is more of what we can expect from FVV Sr. this year. Reports out of Toronto's camp was that Siakam and VanVleet were ready to step in and assume Kawhi's vacated shots, and in game 1, Fred did exactly that. He played 39 regulation minutes, and wound up with a well rounded 34/5/7 with 2 steals once overtime had concluded. VanVleet is sort of a poor man's Malcolm Brogdon, and he could have similar opportunity this season. I'm still a buyer at sub $7,000 prices even after a tough second game of the season, particularly in this great Chicago match-up.

James Harden FD - $11500 DK - $10200
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 57.82 DK - 59.82

Life looked tough for Westbrook as he squared off against the man who took the regular season MVP from him last season, but I was actually encouraged by his 47.4 FanDuel points. Who else in the league can almost touch 50 on 1-11 shooting? I loved seeing how fired up he was to play with (and argue with) Westbrook, and I think some huge games are on their way. As 10.5 point favorites in a game with by far the highest total, Vegas certainly thinks that the Rockets will dropping a buck and a quarter against this young and excitable Pelicans team. If you can afford him, he looks like the premier pay-up option tonight.

Also considered: Lou Williams, who should eviscerate the incredibly shallow Phoenix second unit.

Small Forward

Pascal Siakam FD - $8800 DK - $8500
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 51.5 DK - 53.71

OG Anunoby FD - $4700 DK - $4400
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 25.15 DK - 25.27

The price has come up on the Raptors, but in case you can't tell, I'm still a big time buyer here. Siakam ran into some terrible trouble in the first half against Boston, and as of this write-up he's still scored 25 points from the field through three quarters. I don't need to belabor the match-up details any longer, but suffice to say I'm still not seeing the price increases on the Raptors that I'll need to start fading them.

Kelly Oubre Jr. FD - $6400 DK - $6000
Opponent - LAC
Proj Pts FD - 34.8 DK - 33.91

Oubre has always been sort of an enigma - an explosive scoring and rebounding threat who's never really had a time to shine. Going to Phoenix seemed like it could be a mixed blessing. On one hand, the Suns really don't have the infrastructure to grow young talent. On other hand, a starting gig could mean big things for a guy who's never been shy about getting shots in the air when given a starting role. He did exactly that against Sacramento, putting up a 21/9 in just 30 minutes en route to the Suns shocking the world by blowing out the Kings. It sure looked like even more minutes and shots were in the cards, and given his success in his first game, it sure looks like the Suns will try to see what they have here. It's obviously a much sterner test against the Clippers, but given that the Suns are only 9 point dogs here I still think we get to see a healthy serving of Oubre.

There are a lot of strong options at small forward tonight. Our system likes Kawhi, Hayward, either Morris brother, and even TJ Warren. It's definitely looking like a night where we'll let our lineup optimizer decide where we are paying up and where we are taking our savings.

Power Forward

Jayson Tatum FD - $7500 DK - $6500
Opponent - NY
Proj Pts FD - 40.81 DK - 41.04

I hate having to do these write-ups as a guy is absolutely popping off, because it looks like I'm just watching basketball and naming the guys who have run hot for a given night. Well here's the thing - when these projections were made our system didn't even know that Tatum had poured in 43 fantasy points against the Raptors in three quarters. Tatum is well documented as "not taking the leap" last year, but after a summer of Team USA basketball he sure looks like he isn't going to let the season pass him by without trying to establish this as "his team." With 20/10 or better in each of his first two games, one has to think that big things are coming against the abominable Knicks in this one. I'd be happy to have Tatum everywhere.

P.J. Tucker FD - $4600 DK - $4200
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 23.17 DK - 22.66

We were robbed of watching Tucker try to track down Zion Williamson, but we certainly saw in game one that the Rockets view him as their most important defensive piece once again. He needed all 38 minutes against the Bucks to chip in his 25 FanDuel points, but it's clear that the chaos created by Westbrook and Harden is going to leave even more room for 3 and D guys like Tucker to thrive. Tucker did just that, shooting 5 of 8 from three while providing his usual stellar defense and solid rebounding. Against a less seasoned defense like New Orleans I expected him to do his thing once again.

Punts for days: Theis, Patterson, Bjelica, Lyles. Have your pick. Of this group, if they get the start against, I like Theis and Bjelica best.

Center

Nikola Vucevic FD - $8900 DK - $8300
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 48.04 DK - 49.09

Vuc underwhelmed in his first game of the season, but I won't shy away from playing him against an Atlanta team that is perennially in the bottom 5 in terms of allowing fantasy points to opposing centers. They were a bottom 3 team in defensive efficiency last season, and their big for stopping opposing centers this year is playing Alex Len 15-20 minutes? Uh, okay. I think this is a bounceback game for Vuc, and he absolutely abuses the Hawks interior defense until it gets embarrassing for everyone involved.

Aron Baynes FD - $4500 DK - $4800
Opponent - LAC
Proj Pts FD - 26.76 DK - 26.46

We grabbed Baynes when he got declared the starter against the Nuggets, and much our surprise very few people joined us. To be fair, they had Karl-Anthony Towns, who has 48 fantasy points at half time. Seems solid. Still, you'll know more about how good of a play Baynes turned out to be by the time you read this than I do when I'm writing this, and the Friday night game will go a long way to determining his ownership tonight. If he goes to town the way he has in starting roles in the past, this price will look like a steal. If he plays 20 minutes and can't stay on the floor, this will look a bit embarrassing. We'll see, I suppose!

Montrezl Harrell FD - $7000 DK - $6200
Opponent - PHO
Proj Pts FD - 45 DK - 43.1

Harrell exemplified the risk of relying on bench guys in the Golden State game, as he played well enough before losing his minutes to a game that had gotten out of hand. If they blew out the Dubs, you can imagine that a blowout is in play here as well. But if they don't? You're getting a guy who played 38 minutes and contributed in every stat for $7k against one of the league's fastest teams and worst defenses. It's not without risk, but the upside here is through the roof.

 

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