The race for the BetMGM NBA Yahoo Cup is fast approaching the midway point! The multi-round, single-entry contest that runs nearly every Friday throughout the NBA DFS season tips off Round 10 of 23 tonight. Scoring is cumulative for the year-long points race, with your five lowest scores dropped. At the end of the season, a $50,000 prize pool is shared among the top 7,950 competitors, with a whopping $10,000 going to first. But even if you’re late to the game, the top 15 in tonight’s freeroll earn entry to the Final Round, where multiple Las Vegas trips will be up for grabs. Click here to get in on the action!
Let’s home in on three plays to slot into your NBA DFS lineups for tonight’s NBA Yahoo Cup contest.
NBA DFS Pick No. 1: Cedi Osman — $12
The first thing that sticks out to me on Yahoo today is how efficient the salaries are up and down the board. There isn’t a lot of value to be found at the moment, which could certainly change as news rolls in throughout the day. But even if some other plays emerge near the $10 minimum, I still find it unlikely they will project better than Cedi Osman.
With Taurean Prince ruled out with an ankle injury, Osman should see his minutes soar into the 30s for a second-consecutive game. You could do worse than a player with a 20.2% usage rating with a guaranteed role, especially on a slate where I’d love to pay up for likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo or Nikola Jokic if I can. And right now, Osman feels like the only clear-cut value option available that can help me do that. I know he’ll be heavily rostered, but I’m fine eating that chalk when a play projects out this well.
NBA DFS Pick No. 2: Nikola Vucevic — $47
Perhaps my favorite tournament play across the industry today is Nikola Vucevic, the 6-foot-11 center who draws a juicy matchup with the undersized Warriors. And “undersized” might still be putting it lightly; with no James Wiseman or Kevon Looney yet again tonight, matching up with Vucevic will fall on the shoulders of either 6-foot-6 Draymond Green (questionable) or 6-foor-6 Eric Paschall.
On the season Vucevic is averaging 1.36 Yahoo fantasy points per minute with a massive 28.6% usage rate. He’s also coming off a poor shooting night against the Knicks Wednesday where he went 8-for-24 from the field and 0-for-7 from deep, yet still reached 43.7 fantasy points. Had he had shot the ball remotely close to his season averages, I can assure you he’d be rostered significantly more than the 7.8% Awesemo currently projects him for. So on any site such as Yahoo where you can roster two centers, Vucevic is a priority spend-up target for my NBA DFS lineups.
NBA DFS Pick No. 3: Khris Middleton — $32
Middleton has been downright atrocious by his standards over the past four games. In that span, his turnovers are way up (4.4 per game), his scoring is way down (16.25 per game as opposed to his 20.1 season average), and he has failed to surpass 33 fantasy points even once. Friday is also the second end of a back-to-back for the Bucks, who are now losers of five straight, an unthinkably bad run for one of the preseason NBA title favorites.
But a date with a weak Thunder team should be just what the doctor ordered for the Bucks, and in particular Middleton. He is still averaging 1.1 fantasy points per minute on the season, with just a hair shy of 40 fantasy points per 36 minutes. That is good rate to know because 36 minutes is still he’s been averaging over the course of this abysmal four-game stretch. Expect to see some positive regression at a discount with Middleton at just $32 tonight, making him another core piece I’d rely on in your Yahoo Cup lineup.
