Last night’s massive NBA DFS slate had action all over the place. The Milwaukee Bucks blew the doors off the Miami Heat, setting a record for three pointers made in the process, the New York Knicks got a triple-double from Julius Randle, whose nine turnovers hampered a truly special potential score for NBA daily fantasy basketball at his price. Wednesday’s main slate has a more manageable six games, but we’re still waiting on a few major pieces of news on key players. There are some terrific looking values on both sites, particularly with the absence of the injured Ja Morant, Jimmy Butler missing yet another start and the potential of Kawhi Leonard missing another game. There are GPP plays up and down the salary spectrum, to discuss today so be sure to follow along with all the late-breaking news with our NewsGod’s Live Blog and, of course, all the shows leading into lock to help with all your NBA DFS picks for DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo and SuperDraft.
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Utilizing Awesemo’s latest additions to the already stellar Boom/Bust Tool, namely the optimal lineup probability and leverage scores, I’m going to search for some underappreciated options on both DraftKings and FanDuel each day. If you’ve been with me for content in other sports, you know this will probably get a bit deep and the format may swing wildly from day to day. For today, I’m choosing two players to focus on and then addressing a specific key team situation with a few approaches.
The metrics I mention throughout can be found on the Boom/Bust every day. The optimal lineup percentage is calculated using Awesemo’s projections and standard deviations, capturing a snapshot of how frequently we can expect that player to appear in the highest scoring lineup on each site. The leverage score is calculated based on a player’s optimal lineup probability and their projected ownership, with a goal of creating a metric that makes it easy to spot undervalued NBA DFS picks on any given slate.
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NBA DFS Picks: Optimal Lineup + Leverage Leaders | DraftKings & FanDuel – 12/30
Jayson Tatum – F – Boston Celtics – DraftKings: $8,600 SF/PF / FanDuel – $9,200 PF
Jayson Tatum is a budding star for the Boston Celtics and one of the focal points of their offense. Producing 1.23 fantasy points per minute on FanDuel and 1.27 on DraftKings, the versatile forward gets it done in all aspects of the game, averaging 25.5 points, 9.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.3 stocks. On DraftKings, Tatum is currently appearing in the optimal lineup with the night’s second-highest overall frequency, and is tops among forwards at 26.5%. With a boom percentage over 30% and a whopping 9.4 leverage score, Tatum is an extremely strong NBA DraftKings play at a mispriced $8,600. On FanDuel, Tatum is coming up third overall in optimal lineup appearances at 31.9% and has another strong leverage score of 7.5. His price is higher on the blue site, at $9,200, but the abundance of value options across positions makes him easy enough to get into your lineups.
Giannis Antetokounmpo – F – Milwaukee Bucks – DraftKings – $10,800 PF/C / FanDuel – $11,000 SF
It’s fun when the sites have players at multiple different positions like Giannis. A pricey play on both sites, the league’s highest producing fantasy point per minute player still looks like a strong option when we account for his appearances in the optimal lineup in our simulations. There is some narrative buzz about another potential blowout after the Bucks set the Heat on fire with threes last night, and with Jimmy Butler out once again, but we are not in the business of projecting or worrying about blowouts, and if the Bucks do get there Giannis is likely to have a big hand in it. The boom/bust tool agrees, Giannis is pulling down a 38.4% boom number on FanDuel, where he ranks as the top overall player by leverage score with a big 11.0. Appearing in nearly half of simulated optimal lineups (45.9%), Giannis seems like someone we want to pay up for on the blue site tonight. With his positional flexibility on DraftKings, Giannis makes for an interesting play. He ranks sixth overall on the site by leverage score at 5.4 and is carrying a 31.3% boom rating. The public is not heavy on him as the leverage score tells us and his ability to slot in at the center spot puts him as my top playable option at the position (technically Kelly Olynyk is higher with his $3,500 salary and 20.1 DraftKings point projection) by both optimal lineup percentage and leverage score.
Tyler Herro – G – DraftKings – $5,400 PG/SG / FanDuel – $4,500 SF
The hostage interns that are creating price and positioning for FanDuel need to be introduced to Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro. His broken $4,500 price and his positional eligibility at the small forward spot have Herro as an explosively projected option on the blue site tonight. Coming in with a 30.3 FanDuel point projection and a 50.4% boom rating, Herro is very difficult to ignore, even with a -6.1 leverage score. He will be extremely popular, but appears in the optimal FanDuel lineup 43.6% of the time, while the second highest option at the position (Jaylen Brown) is in it 16% of the time. This discrepancy makes Herro quality chalk and a foundational building block in FanDuel lineups again tonight. His leverage score improves slightly on DraftKings at -3.1, where he is more expensive and plays different positions. Pulling just a 26.8% boom rating and appearing in the optimal just 24.6% of the time makes me think Herro is less critical on DraftKings tonight. His optimal lineup score does rank third among eligible shooting guards and point guards, but there are players with close enough ratings and significantly better leverage scores, that it makes sense to look in other directions.
Memphis Grizzlies
The Grizzlies are one of the key inflection points of the NBA DFS main slate tonight. The absence of star point guard Ja Morant creates a minutes and usage vacuum for players like Tyus Jones, Dillon Brooks and Grayson Allen to potentially occupy. The question for NBA DFS purposes, of course, is which is going to connect for us in NBA DraftKings and FanDuel lineups, and which are likely to be the most valuable plays based on ownership, leverage and probability of success.
Two players who are not question marks and should be distributed in some of your GPP lineups are Kyle Anderson and Jonas Valanciunas. These are two known commodities for DFS purposes. Anderson is “fine” if you want to play him you aren’t taking on too much weight and he is going to produce around 0.9 DraftKings points per minute on about 32 minutes of action. Valanciunas is more interesting. The center appears in the optimal DraftKings lineup 20% of the time and is pulling down a 3.8 leverage score, which indicates that the public is behind the curve on him. On FanDuel Valanciunas has a higher boom percentage, partly due to his lower salary, but a lower leverage score due to somewhat increased popularity and reduced appearances (18.4%) in the projected optimal lineup in simulations.
The true question with the Grizzlies, of course, is the guard spot. The first option off the top of the board on both sites is Tyus Jones. Awesemo is projecting Jones for 34 minutes and we saw the guard produce at a .95 fantasy points per minute rate on DraftKings and FanDuel last year. At $5,800 on FanDuel, Jones is carrying a 42.3% boom percentage, appears in the projected optimal lineup 31.8% of the time in simulations and yet is still projecting to be under-owned. Tyus Jones’ FanDuel leverage score of 6.9 is good for seventh overall on FanDuel, first at the point guard spot. On DraftKings, things look pretty similar. Jones has a $5,200 price and is pulling a 42.6% boom rating with a 6.6 leverage score appearing in 33.5% of the optimal lineups in simulations.
At the shooting guard spot, Dillon Brooks typically receives significant usage upticks in this situation, which should hold true again tonight. Brooks has an excellent projection on both sites, but is priced up for the opportunity. On DraftKings, his $6,200 price has him at a 21.2% boom rating and a positive leverage score of 3.6, while appearing in 21% of the optimal lineup. On FanDuel, where he’s more expensive, the leverage score comes down closer to even, which makes Brooks more of a question mark, as he appears in 14% of the optimal lineups. A strong alternative at the position for GPP play on both sites is Grayson Allen. The artist of tripping his opponent, the loathed former Duke Blue Devil is just $3,700 on FanDuel and $3,600 on DraftKings. He pulls down a reasonable boom percentage on both sites, should benefit from the absence of Ja Morant, and appears in the optimal lineup 21.3% of the time on FanDuel and 24.6% on DraftKings. Allen is not a comfortable play and has yet to truly produce or get significant run this season, last year he was around .75 fantasy points per minute on both sites, this is a true tournament dart throw as a rock-bottom pivot option in the same offense and at the same position as his more popular teammates.
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