NBA DFS Core Plays: Saturday, January 18th

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2020-01-18 22:33:27 Premium Content Part of the product Core4

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.

Saturday, January 18th

Thus, the assumption arises that McCollum won’t play tonight. If we run a CourtIQ query with McCollum off the floor, we see that Damian Lillard owns a usage rate above 33%, and he will need to have a big game in order for Portland to pull out a road win in Oklahoma City. Over the last two years, Lillard’s usage rises by 5% without McCollum, and Lillard scores around five additional fantasy points per 36 minutes. Despite playing with an illness, Lillard logged 40 minutes of playing time and a 34/1/10 line last night. In addition, Lillard is somewhat discounted in DFS right now with a price tag below $9,000 on both FD & DK. Take the value here.

Simons is another value that we will need to consider if McCollum sits. He is basically sitting at minimum salary across every DFS site, and he logged a respectable 7/5/5 line in 28 minutes last night. I would expect him to top 30 minutes this evening with McCollum likely out for the entire game. Though Lillard will dominate usage, Simons checks in as a free square value, particularly if he draws a start. I don’t see how we can avoid using Lillard and Simons at these salaries given the circumstances.

(Tournament pivot: Lillard and Simons are the chalky options, but perhaps the frisky GPP pivot is to utilize a different value play for the Blazers. Someone like Gary Trent fits the mold of a player who could get hot off the bench. If that happens, Trent could easily log as much playing time as Simons, and Trent will check in at a fraction of the ownership. Golden State is another team where we could look to find some value plays, as they are dealing with a lot of injuries right now. Damion Lee has been playing much better of late when he has been healthy, and he checks in as a very intriguing GPP option with Green, Evans, and Looney all sidelined. Mike Conley is also dirt cheap everywhere and enters the mix if we get news that he will play a decent amount of minutes.)