Good morning everyone!
I know it is early, and a lot can change before it is time to really start locking in your lineups, but with it being a beautiful Saturday here in the bluegrass state, I wanted to go ahead and get some thoughts down in print before heading out to get some things done around the house.
Today I am going to give you three building blocks to focus a roster around for your NBA DFS teams.
Pricing and focus will be on the Draft Kings model:
High End Player
There are loads of options at the top tier tonight as we see 4 players $10,000 and higher, including a rested James Harden playing without CP3 who could miss up to a month with his knee injury.
My focus, however, will be on the Center position and the Nuggets Nikola Jokic for $9300.
Jokic is coming off of a pretty poor match up in a pace down game vs Rudy Gobert and the Utah Jazz.
Shooting a pretty pedestrian 3-10 from the field, playing in a poor match up, Jokic still managed to give owners 32.5 DK pts as he just missed a triple double scoring 7 points, grabbing 12 rebounds, and handing out 8 assists.
Tonight the Nuggets take on the Sacramento Kings who will be playing their 3rd game in 4 nights, all of which have been on the road.
Kings' starting center, Zach Randolph, played 30 minutes in last nights bruising match up with the Dallas Mavericks so I would expect him to get some rest tonight, leaving Cauley-Stein and Labissiere to try and handle the versatile Jokic.
In the Kings' opening night match up, playing without Randolph, Houston big man Clint Capella put up 22 pts and grabbed 17 rebounds and he isn't any where near the same level a player as Jokic can be.
I will be locking Jokic into almost all of my lineups tonight as my high dollar building block.
Upper-Mid Price
I'm going a little above what I originally planned for the 'mid-tier' player here but there is almost no way I am having a team tonight without Spurs' PF/C LaMarcus Aldridge ($7,700 DK).
Aldridge's usage over the last two seasons when Kawhi Leonard is out goes up approximately 31% as he becomes the #1 option on offense.
If you like to play the narrative game, like so many DFS players do, LaMarcus was drafted #2 overall by the Bulls back in 2006 before a lop-sided trade sent him to the Portland Trailblazers.
Since then, in 21 games vs the Bulls, LMA has averaged nearly 21 points to go with 8.6 rebounds per game.
Chicago, coming off of a 117-100 loss to the Raptors, are currently running out one of the worst units in the league, so there is always the scare of a blowout. The good news about a potential lopsided game is that we can expect Aldridge to have quite a strong stat line if the Spurs go up big.
There will be plenty of value plays available tonight so you should be able to play a couple fairly expensive players my teams will start with Jokic and LMA.
Under $6k player
I debated and debated about who I wanted here, as I will be sprinkling a number of under $6k guys in my lineup tonight but, without going into all of them, I want to focus on just one in particular:
JJ Barea, Dallas, $4,200
With Dennis Smith, Seth Curry, and Devin Harris all missing tonight, JJ will look to build off of last night's 29.25 FP effort.
The Mavericks are playing their 3rd game in 4 nights, but JJ saw the court for only 18 minutes on opening night, scoring 25.75 DK pts and then managed 29.25 DK pts last night while shooting just 4-14.
In a major pace-up game for Dallas, taking on Houston, JJ will look to pick up right where he left off. With Patrick Beverley no longer in HOU, and CP3 sidelined, Houston really struggles to guard the PG position and Barea should have no trouble hoisting up shots during his time on the court.
His minutes increased from 18 in game 1 to 27 in game 2 and I expect him to level off around the 27-28 minute mark again tonight.
At just $4,200 I find it hard to believe that Barea gets less than 5x salary and could easily reach 7 or 8x with just a few things going his way.
There may be more value opening up late, as PHX Devin Booker is now Questionable for tonight's game but, as we saw last night with Eric Bledsoe, you can't always trust what you read about the Suns' players...
Good luck all!
