I had not planned on playing any NBA DFS today as I thought my afternoon would be dedicated to watching the NFL playoffs and, unfortunately, I did not get in any of the big contests for that before lock as church ran over a bit this morning.
Well, as I sat there watching football I thought, "ah, I can keep an eye on the game and lock in some rosters for basketball tonight". I popped open Draft Kings and saw that the games did not start until 8pm ET this evening so I reserved spots in 10 50/50's, a couple H2H games and a few spots in the $4 $250k Four Point Play tournament.
With only four games on the slate it made things a little trickier when it came to finding value, as I (like everyone else probably) just wanted to load up on the Cavs big 3 or the Warriors big 4.
Here is the direction I ended up going on most of my teams:
PG: Eric Bledsoe - PHO - $6,900: His price was just way too cheap. Bledsoe was one of 3 players I locked into every lineup today. Facing the defense of Kyrie Irving, I felt Bledsoe's basement was a safe 25-30 and his ceiling was 55-60. For under $7k, he was clearly worth selecting to anchor my teams.
SG: Devin Booker - PHO - $6,200: This is the one of the two positions that I had the most difficulties figuring out. I wanted to potentially punt this one and take Brandon Knight at $3,900, which I did in a few lineups, but decided to go with Booker on my main tournament rosters. Another guy that flashes a high ceiling when his shot is falling and playing in what should be a pretty up and down game, I decided to roll the dice with Devin and see how the chips fell.
SF: Rudy Gay - Kings - $6,100: As I mentioned in a previous write-up, I will be locking Gay into my lineups until he's over $7,000 and then I will at least have to think about it. When healthy, he is going to put up solid numbers night after night and he appears to be in pretty good shape at this time. I have locked him into all of my lineups tonight and, hopefully, this won't backfire.
PF: Julius Randle - Lakers - $7,000: This is one I went back and forth on for quite a while. I really wanted Love in this spot, as I fully expected him to have a big game tonight, but I have to save some money every chance I get. Randle has been playing some very good basketball lately and is another guy that has a pretty safe basement of 20-25 but has flashed the ability to put up 50 on any given night. Playing an Orlando team that has seemingly picked up the pace lately, I liked Randle's spot again this evening.
C: Tyson Chandler - PHO - $4,900: Chandler has been quietly putting up some great numbers lately at a very reasonable cost. I had a hard time deciding between Tyson and the guy he was lined up against tonight, Tristan Thompson. Again, saving a little here in there became quite important, so I elected to go with Chandler tonight.
G: Kyrie Irving - Cavs - $8,200: This PG matchup was just too good to ignore. Two of the best scoring PGs in the game facing off against each other, neither of which overly caring much about defense, is a fantasy player's dream. Kyrie's price made this one a little hard to fit, but I had my mind made up that I wanted both sides of the ball on this one. The savings that I picked up in taking Randle instead of Love helped me fit Kyrie into this spot.
F: Evan Fournier - Magic - $6,300: This may just be some favoritism, but I always like playing Evan when he's going to be in an up tempo game as he tends to produce solid numbers across the board. He will find many different ways to pick up fantasy points and he fit the roster I was putting together tonight. I likely could have gone cheaper here and bolstered my UTL slot, but I wanted a piece of the Magic team in tonight's game and Evan was the person I ended up landing on.
UTL: Ty Lawson - Kings - $4,200: Since coming back from injury Lawson has been performing well. Now, that being said, had I seen he wasn't starting tonight I likely would have swayed away from this pick, but I found out that info after roster lock. Whoops. On the other hand, he has played some great ball backing up Collison at the PG slot and I needed a cheap player to fill out my team and I loved the way the rest of it came together, so he was certainly worth the gamble. I mean, you have to gamble in a few spots to take down a GPP, right?!
