The week-long heater turned came to a screeching halt with the ejection of Luka Doncic on Sunday night. He took a forearm swing to the midsection of Collin Sexton at the beginning of the third quarter, and instantly any lineup containing him turned to dust. But from the ashes comes another day of daily fantasy, so it’s right back to work for what is sadly the final week of the regular season. Let’s make it count by using the NBA DFS projections to find a few solid NBA DFS picks and strategies to utilize over on DraftKings and FanDuel tonight.
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Be sure to check out the Slate Starter podcast, featuring yours truly and Rynpak, to get the first look at the slate and make NBA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel!
NBA DFS Slate Starter: Picks & Strategy | May 10
Of Course, the One Unimportant Team is Super Important
There are six games on tap for this evening’s festivities, kicking off at 7:30 pm ET. The stakes are high for teams on both ends of the spectrum heading down the stretch, as playoff teams want to jockey for position and losing teams are trying to improve their odds at scoring Cade Cunningham — except for the Timberwolves and Kings, who apparently want to go out and beat other bottom-dwellers by 30 based on Sunday’s games.
So to help gauge who has something to play for and who doesn’t, let’s take a look at the standings:
The standings will be mentioned a bunch this week, as understanding motive this time of year is extremely valuable in accurately projecting who might get a few more minutes in an important game, and who might get babied in anticipation of summer vacation. Just look at Anthony Davis, who went from playing low-30s minutes for the past few weeks to having his minutes skyrocket to 39 and 41 the Lakers’ last two outings. That is the sort of increase starters can undertake when seeding is on the line, so identifying who could see similar boosts to minutes will be extremely useful every day.
By my count, 11 of the 12 teams in action tonight have playoff implications of some sort that should make their regular starters and rotation pieces a full-go with upside for more minutes in closely-contested games. But ironically enough, it could be the one team with nothing to play for — the 16-52 Rockets — that could very well be the key to this entire slate based on how their injury news shakes out. Due to just how short-handed they have been the past few slates, they have remained an extremely chalky team for NBA DFS purposes despite being double-digit underdogs in eight of their past 10 games. And if Kelly Olynyk and/or Christian Wood miss Monday’s matchup versus the Trail Blazers, they look to be the featured team to target once more.
In the event that both miss tonight, the Rockets would be left with only eight active players in a game that opened with the highest total on the slate (236.5). And sure, there have been some slight salary adjustments to the Rockets roster on both DraftKings and FanDuel. But considering the amount of minutes and opportunity that would be up for grabs in such an incredible game environment, you could make a case for playing absolutely anyone in uniform. Just look at the DraftKings prices alone:
Let it be known, this team would lose a lot of its luster should either of the questionable $8,000-plus studs give it a go. But even if they do, there’s such crazy minutes upside with every active player above that getting stuck with them in your lineups wouldn’t be the worst thing, especially considering these advantageous prices on DraftKings. Be sure to check out Awesemo’s projections as news comes in throughout the day, as the expected fantasy output of every player on this team could swing dramatically based on who ends up in or out.
There is another high-paced 10 p.m. ET game in Jazz – Warriors with a bunch of solid plays in it at a number of different price points. With Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley continuing to be out, there should be ample ways to transfer heavy Rockets ownership into heavy Jazz ownership should you want/need to. That mitigates the risk of being stuck with chalky Rockets in a significantly-worse spot than anticipated should Olynyk and/or Wood get ruled in after 8:30 p.m. ET, the second-to-last lock time on the night. But no matter what, this extremely irrelevant game for the Rockets will be extremely relevant for us to stay on top of.
Russell Westbrook Priced Up To $12,400? Well done, FanDuel!
This feels a little obvious, because you should know by now to have massive exposure to Russell Westbrook on every single slate he appears. And if you don’t, you’re likely not enjoying NBA DFS too much at the moment. The numbers he’s put up of late aren’t just good, but historically good, and the fantasy points he’s put up are reflective of that insanity.
In his past 25 games on FanDuel, he’s surpassed 40 fantasy points every time, 50 fantasy points 19 times, 60 fantasy points 12 times, 70 fantasy points five times and 80 fantasy points twice. And that’s on a site with a full point off per turnover, plus no triple-double bonus like DraftKings has. In other words, Westbrook is as consistent as we’ve seen a $10,000-plus stud since at least James Harden sans Westbrook circa 2019, and maybe ever. Plus, Bradley Beal has already been ruled out in a game the Wizards badly need to win against the Hawks, so it’s hard to quantify just how good of a spot this for Westbrook (as if we needed any of that to want to roster him right now).
So while DraftKings continues to price him at an egregious $11,000 salary, FanDuel is at least making us think about it with his hefty new $12,400 price tag. If you can’t figure out the opportunity cost of being over or under the field for him on the blue site at that salary, what an incredible opportunity to utilize the Boom/Bust tool, perhaps the best feature of being an Awesemo+ NBA subscriber. There is no way of knowing what his ownership will be as of writing this the night before, but understanding what the proper jump off point to his ownership will matter a lot tonight. But if the value is remotely good — which is what is expected on most late-season NBA DFS slates — there’s most likely a lot of merit in just rostering copious amounts of Westbrook once more and living with the result. Because as he’s proven dozens of times lately, the result will most likely be tremendous.
Final Thoughts for Your NBA DFS Lineups
- Just play Rudy Gobert.
[NBAPAGE]
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