FREE - NBA DFS Core Plays: Friday, March 6th
Andy Means will be bringing Premium subscribers his top daily fantasy basketball cash game plays and tournament pivots to build around. A former Duke basketball walk-on and now full-time DFS player, Andy will take an in-depth look into each of his core plays, and then blend it all together from a roster construction perspective. On weekends, the GPP maestro you all know and love, STLCards, takes the reigns.
Friday, March 6th
For those that have read this article the past few years, welcome back! For those that are new, I hope you like what you see and stick around for the whole season.
It is imperative that you read the following bullet points before proceeding so you know what I am trying to accomplish with this article, as well as how it will intertwine with some other things we offer here at RotoGrinders (e.g. LineupHQ, Crunch Time).
1. This is a cash game article! These are the players that I think you absolutely must have in your cash game lineup(s) on that day’s main slate.
2. These plays are prioritized. #1 is the first player you should plug in, #2 is the second player you should plug in, etc. Depending on the slate, I could provide as few as two players or as many as five or six.
3. I will always try to provide some sort of mathematical basis as to why a player is showing up in this article. A simplistic way to get a player’s fantasy projection is to take his fantasy-points-per-minute (FPPM) rate and multiply it by his projected minutes. You will see some variation of this in almost every write-up.
4. How you handle these players in your tournament builds is up to you. Tournament pivots for each play will be provided, and it is my goal to have those pivots be from the same position, same game, or same price range.
5. I will add updates at the top of this article as news breaks throughout the day as time permits. However, I will always update my Core Play tags in LineupHQ first. So if you see my tags in LineupHQ are different from what you see in this article, go with what is in LineupHQ. For example, if news breaks too close to the Crunch Time show, I will just update the tags in LineupHQ and break down the changes on the show.
6. What may be a great play at 11:00 AM is not always a great play at 6:00 PM! The best way to get the most out of this article is to read every word (of the original article as well as any updates) and then follow it up by watching Crunch Time leading up to lock. You are short-changing yourself if you miss out on the analysis of any news that pops up while I am on Crunch Time.
7. I cannot promise that I will always be able to update my plays on late-swap sites if news breaks after lock. In those scenarios, your best bet is to reach out to me either on Twitter or the Premium NBA channel in RotoGrinders Discord. I will do my best to get back to you.
THE CORE
We have what is already shaping up to be a wild 10-game slate heading into the weekend. For starters, we have the Mavericks (who are in a big pace-up spot against Memphis) with a hefty injury report. Not only is Luka Doncic listed as questionable, but so are Tim Hardaway, J.J. Barea, and Dorian Finney-Smith (don’t forget Jalen Brunson has already been ruled out).
We also have the Pacers in a similar situation, as they recently lost Jeremy Lamb to an ACL injury and now Malcolm Brogdon is doubtful with a hip injury. On top of that, they are listing all of T.J. Warren, Victor Oladipo, Doug McDermott, and JaKarr Sampson as questionable. In fact, why don’t we talk about someone on the Pacers now!
1) T.J. McConnell, Indiana Pacers
FanDuel: $3,800, PG
DraftKings: $4,000, PG
Yahoo: $11, PG
FantasyDraft: $7,600, G
Right from the jump, there are two key things to note here before really digging into some numbers.
The first is that we are projecting McConnell to start for Brogdon tonight. That is what happened the last three games that Brogdon sat out (1/10, 1/24, and 1/26), but the roster also looked a little different then. Oladipo wasn’t back yet, and Jeremy Lamb was playing. Will they do the same thing tonight? That is our assumption, but it isn’t exactly set in stone. They could go with Aaron Holiday instead, which is what they did the handful of games that Brogdon was out before those three I just mentioned.
The other thing of note is that McConnell is grading out as a great play even with all of these questionable guys projected to play. It should go without saying that he is going to look even better if guys like Warren and Oladipo sit out tonight.
So why are we going to like McConnell tonight? Well, heading to CourtIQ to look at his rates is a good starting point. If we take Lamb/Brogdon OFF, we have a big 814-minute sample of McConnell being basically right at a fantasy-point-per-minute player (1.00 FD / 1.01 DK to be exact). If you scroll down to the ‘Differential’ section, we see that isn’t all that different from what he normally does. So obviously, this is going to be a minutes thing. But before we talk about those, I want to look at one more thing in CourtIQ.
In the sample I linked above, McConnell has a 17.3% usage rate and 38.7% assist rate that are the main reasons for getting him to a fantasy point per minute. However, to be sure we can expect that kind of production when he plays with the starters, I want to look at what he does when Lamb/Brogdon are OFF but he is ON with Sabonis. I choose Sabonis because I think he has the biggest chance to negatively affect McConnell’s assist rate, as they run a lot of things through Sabonis without Brogdon.
The results of that query are exactly what I want to see. We have 478 minutes of those two playing together, and McConnell checks in with a 16.3% usage rate, 38.3% assist rate, and 1.00 FD / 1.00 DK points per minute.
Okay, so back to those minutes. On the season, McConnell only averages 19 minutes per game. In those last two games without Brogdon, he played 29.5 minutes (January 24th) and 28 minutes (January 26th), and that was with the Pacers closing with Aaron Holiday over him down the stretch.
So even if all of these questionable guys play tonight, I would still feel confident putting him at a minutes projection of around 28-29. At that amount of playing time and him being a fantasy-point-per-minute guy, you can see how he is clearly too cheap across the industry, especially at his FD tag ($3,800). And you can also see there is clearly room for more upside on the minutes based on how the rest of these injuries play out, and not to mention if they decide to close with him.
As a result, he will be the first guy I plug in to my cash game builds tonight. There is nothing better than starting out with some extreme salary relief.
(Tournament pivot: If Luka Doncic plays tonight, I would want whichever is projecting to be lower owned between him and Trae Young on FD. Since you can only roster two point guards there, I get the sense that one of those two would be the popular pairing alongside McConnell. Both get great matchups, and thus, have huge ceilings tonight (and any other night for that matter). I don’t think you can go wrong with either, but be sure to play the ownership game depending on what kind of tournament you are playing. On DK, I will be looking for a tournament pivot in the same general price range as McConnell, with Michael Carter-Williams being that guy at just $3,300. With Evan Fournier listed as doubtful, MCW should see a slight uptick in minutes. And the matchup is absolutely phenomenal, as Minnesota has been the worst defense in the league since the acquisition of D’Angelo Russell. MCW 10x’ing this price tag is well within the range of outcomes, and I think he might go a tad overlooked tonight since we already have an abundance of cheap value.)
AY BAY BAYNES
Aron Baynes, Phoenix Suns
FanDuel: $4,900, C
DraftKings: $3,000, C
Yahoo: $10, C
FantasyDraft: $6,000, F/C
In the biggest upset since 16-seed UMBC knocked off 1-seed Virginia, FD actually manually adjusted this Baynes price tag and DK did not. Do you believe in miracles!?!!? Whoops, wrong sport.
(Side note: It took me like my sixth Googled article to find out that UMBC stands for University of Maryland Baltimore County…and their nickname is the Retrievers! Love it.)
The reason I bring up the Baynes price tag is because Deandre Ayton hurt his ankle in Tuesday’s game, and it has been pretty clear from the news since that night that it was extremely unlikely he would be playing tonight. Sure enough, Ayton is listed as doubtful, joining Cameron Johnson (out), Frank Kaminsky (out), and Kelly Oubre (out) as Suns that won’t be playing tonight.
As such, we have Baynes projected to start at center tonight in Ayton’s absence. On top of that, we also only have them projected to play nine guys. We’ll see if they bring anyone up from the G League, but all of those guys (Jared Harper, Jalen Lecque, Tariq Owens) were listed as out on last night’s injury report. And even if a guy like Owens comes up, is he even going to play?
For the season, Baynes has been right at 1.00 DK points per minute. If you want to be conservative and look at what he has done lately (if you recall, the guy started out the season on quite the hot stretch), he has been at 0.89 DK points per minute since the start of January.
But at a $3,000 price tag and what is likely mid 20’s minutes if he starts, the guy is just flat out underpriced on DK (and FantasyDraft and Yahoo, where I have also tagged him in LineupHQ). Putting in Baynes alongside McConnell on DK leaves you in a place to get a lot of the expensive guys you might want for the rest of your build. On FD, where Baynes is $4,900, he is nowhere close to a priority for me in cash games.
(Tournament pivot: Cheick Diallo is the tournament pivot here off of Baynes, as those two probably split most of the center minutes (with Baynes getting more of them assuming he starts). But if Baynes fails for whatever reason tonight (foul trouble, performance, injury, etc.), it is likely that Diallo is a direct beneficiary. So not only would Diallo be a good tournament play on his own due to that $3,200 price tag, but he also offers you direct leverage off of a chalky Baynes. And one last thing I want to point out here is to be mindful of the news, as there is always the possibility that they give Diallo the start over Baynes. On DK and Yahoo, you can make an easy pivot with the late swap function. That game starts two hours after lock, so you will want to be paying attention to get that starting lineup confirmed.)
GREAT SPEND-UPS WITH VARYING PRIORITY DEPENDING ON SITE
Domantas Sabonis, Indiana Pacers
FanDuel: $8,300, PF
DraftKings: $8,700, PF/C
Yahoo: $36, PF
FantasyDraft: $15,700, F/C
Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
FanDuel: $8,300, SG
DraftKings: $8,400, PG/SG
Yahoo: $35, SG
FantasyDraft: $15,800, G
First and foremost, let me be clear that these guys make for great cash game options on all sites (for reasons I will get to shortly). But when it comes to the sites I will actually be making them priorities, it will be Sabonis on FD/Y and Booker on DK/FDRFT/Y.
Let’s start with Sabonis, a guy whose situation we are already aware of after our McConnell discussion. I will link you again to that CourtIQ query with Lamb and Brogdon OFF, as the increase in rates for Sabonis in this situation will jump off the page.
Usage rate: from 23.5% up to 25.5%
Assist rate: from 21.2% up to 24.9%
Rebound rate: from 20.3% up to 22.2%
The end result is 1.33 FD points per minute, which you can see is quite the bump up (+0.14 to be exact) from his normal production. And it’s not like we are talking about a small sample here, as it totals up to almost 600 minutes. Sure, Oladipo will throw a wrench into some of those numbers, but he has been a shell of his former self lately. Besides, he might not even play tonight anyways. (In case you were wondering, Sabonis goes up to 1.42 FD points per minute in a 447-minute sample with Lamb/Brogdon/Oladipo/Warren OFF.)
The minutes are pretty easy to peg here, as Sabonis averages 34.5 on the season and is almost always right around 35 minutes in competitive games. At those minutes and roughly 1.33 FD points per minute, he is easily my favorite power forward play on FD tonight. And while I like him plenty on DK as well, he falls slightly behind Booker for me there since Booker is cheaper and MPE (multi-positional eligibility) makes their positions less important.
As for Booker, I am going to just take Ayton and Oubre OFF in CourtIQ to give us a decent sample size. Removing Cameron Johnson lowers the sample size substantially, and he is a low usage guy anyways.
What we see from Booker there is a team-leading 1.23 DK points per minute thanks to big boosts in his usage rate and his assist rate. And I honestly think there is even more room up on that per-minute production based on what those underlying numbers say.
Regardless of whether or not that is true, the matchup should certainly boost his efficiency. I’m not sure if the masses have noticed, but Portland is slowly falling down to being one of the worst defenses in the league. I mean, not quite Wizards/Hawks/Cavs bad, but still bad. Not only do they rank 27th in defensive rating, but they also rank 22nd in overall team defensive efficiency and defensive efficiency against opposing backcourts.
And perhaps the best part is that the minutes he plays are amongst the most secure out of any stud in the league. He is almost always at 36-37 minutes in competitive games, and it will often creep up to 38-39 in some of them as well.
So let’s call it 1.25 DK points per minute. Let’s call it 38 minutes. Let’s call it a lock for Meansy in cash games on DK.
(Tournament pivot: I will take this space to talk about how much I like Bradley Beal tonight. Taking the best player against the Hawks isn’t exactly a hot take, but I am very curious to see where Projected Ownership lands on him with so many other studs on the slate and him priced above $10,000. This is obviously one of the best game environments of the year (tight spread, 246 o/u), so I’m not sure if DFS owners blindly stack him and Trae together or go with the likes of Luka, Giannis, or one of the Lakers. We will see how it all plays out, but Beal does have that 70-point fantasy upside we are looking for. There is no need to be scared off by the $10k price tag. Just be cognizant of the Projected Ownership and go from there.)
GENERAL SLATE THOUGHTS
I am going to tie a bow on things for now to let the news cycle work its magic. I specifically have my eye on that Dallas situation, as it is likely we get some good plays out of there one way or another. And of course, we always have to be ready for the random stuff that will pop up that we aren’t even anticipating.
If anything substantial happens with the news today, I will add in an update(s) at the top of the article. But remember I will always be updating/adding/editing my tags in LineupHQ regardless of whether there is an update here. That is the spot to get my most up-to-date plays, and don’t forget to tune into Crunch Time tonight either!
Image Credit: Imagn
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