For today’s Slate Starter, I want to recap some of the events of Monday’s slate. I have lots to say, so we’re going to forgo the introduction and get right to the NBA DFS Picks for DraftKings and FanDuel, and the recap of the 12/29 recap.
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The NBA DFS Slate Starter: DraftKings + FanDuel Strategy & Picks 12/29
Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls
One of the most difficult things about hosting an early look NBA DFS article and podcast is how drastically a slate changes as the day progresses. Plays I think are good/great/sneaky one moment can become bad/terrible/irrelevant the next. That’s why I try my best to provide useful strategies and analysis for DraftKings and FanDuel rather than just plays since that will be more beneficial to us both long-term.
For example, the Kyrie Irving news came out a few hours before lock. I analyzed multiple pieces of information on the situation. I started giving out takes and contemplated contrarian Nets plays such as Landry Shamet, Jeff Green and Tyler Johnson. I wrote a blurb about how Shamet, who was chucking in limited minutes, could see double the run of their last game (he did). I told a few buddies to keep a look out for Green and Johnson to sneak into the starting lineup and jam them at the minimum on FanDuel (they didn’t, so I didn’t). Basically, I did a bunch of work and research on those plays and was ready to rock.
And all that work was rendered useless as soon as Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot was announced in the Nets’ starting lineup. I frantically began backtracking to my friends, reaching out to the people I talk hoops with and informed them that he was my preferred plug-and-play on DraftKings at just $3,100. Did I see 37 fantasy points in his future? Absolutely not. But there were enough good vibes from rostering him during the bubble that I was willing to jam him in and live with the result since the minutes were now secure. In fact, with Irving, Kevin Durant and Spencer Dinwiddie out, Monday’s Nets roster was going to look a lot like it did back in August.
But having good vibes is not justification enough for me to play someone. That’s why I took a quick jump over to the ESPN Game Logs where I live from time to time to check my preconceived notions. Here’s Luwawu-Cabarrot’s entire bubble tenure:
He had outings of 24, 26, 24 and 19 points in the regular season and double figures in every playoff game against the Raptors. He also had decent rebounding totals in a few of those spots. In other words, Luwawu-Cabarrot went from what I perceived as an over-owned punt play 25 minutes before lock to one of my highest-owned plays of the slate five minutes later. I still wound up with some shares of Green at power forward on FanDuel since I hated the position. But for the most part, the three low-owned Nets plays I targeted in on became unnecessary and nearly unowned in my lineups.
There are two lessons here. First, things can change fast. News can shift so much so quickly, and it’s all situational. Sometimes you’re ecstatic to see someone in a starting lineup, sometimes you wish they’d be getting second-unit run and usage. Sometimes coach speak carries weight, sometimes you throw it out the window. In this instance, we had no history of Steve Nash’s handling of Luwawu-Cabarrot. But we had concrete evidence the Frenchman could bust out ceiling games if he saw the minutes.
And secondly, learn to do the research yourself rather than just waiting to be be told what to do. The beautiful thing about the Awesemo experience is having all the tools at your fingertips to decide for yourself what’s a good NBA DFS play and what’s not. Using math, logic and reasoning, Alex Baker creates the best player and ownership projections in the business. The YouTube chat and the premium Slack leave no plays unturned. Articles such as Adam’s Deep Dive (which is in front of the paywall for this season) can give you comprehensive breakdowns of games and players beyond just the numbers. And NewsGod’s Live NBA Blog gets lineup news to you faster than you can say “Antetokounmpo.”
All of these combined give you the best chance possible to be a successful NBA DFS player. And I still didn’t win tonight with an absurd amount of Luwawu-Cabarrot due to Houston getting blown out. But I felt like my process and plays Monday were as good as it could be, besides thinking LeBron James would sit and jamming in too much Anthony Davis.
Final Thoughts for Your NBA DFS Lineups
Tuesday is shaping up to be a glorious 10-game NBA DFS slate with a nice two-hour gap between the early window of matchups and the late-night hammers. I love slates like this since you’ll have a very strong idea of how your lineups are doing and can make the appropriate pivots if necessary. Have some brutal lineups? Gain leverage by pivoting off a possibly popular Nikola Jokic to lower-owned options. Have lineups that are smashing with Jokic left in them? Let it ride since all he does is accumulate triple-doubles now anyways.
Also, unlike on a five-game slate, there should be some low-owned pivots that still grade out as decent plays. I’m very interested to see where the Timberwolves grade out in ownership coming off a dud on Sunday. With Karl-Anthony Towns and Josh Okogie out on Tuesday, there’s value at the high and low ends of the salary spectrum, albeit against a stout Clippers defensive unit.
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