Hittin' The Nuts: Squirrelpatrol's NBA Lineup Advice - Thursday, January 11th
Want to hit the nuts and take down 1st place in these massive contests posted by FanDuel and DraftKings? Who better to walk you through their favorite NBA DFS picks than Squirrelpatrol! Undoubtedly one of the best DFS players in the game today, Squirrelpatrol has accumulated 90+ Live Final seats, won the FanDuel 2021 World Fantasy Basketball Championship for $500,000, and most recently, took down the NFL Milly Maker in Week 2. Should we roster the chalk picks? How off-the-board should we get in large-field tournaments? Squirrel answers all of these questions and more below!
We have a 4-game slate on tap for Thursday night, and there is a whole lot of Dallas showing up in lineups. We start things off at 7:30 PM ET, with the Celtics visiting Milwaukee on the second half of a back-to-back after playing in OT last night. Al Horford is resting for the Celtics, while Kristaps Porzingis is back in the lineup, although I would watch the injury reports carefully in case Boston decides to rest anyone else.
The next game is Portland visiting Oklahoma City, where OKC is favored by 12.5 points in a game with a 236 total.
The most interesting game for our DFS lineups is up next, with the Knicks visiting a Dallas that will be without Luka Doncic (Grant Williams is also questionable). As expected, that is giving us tremendous value on the rest of the Dallas players.
The last game of the night is Phoenix at the Lakers, with LeBron James carrying his standard questionable tag.
This is very much a binary slate unless we get additional news, where your primary decision point is figuring out how many Mavericks you feel comfortable playing in your lineup. Let’s sort through the slate and figure out what to do with our DFS lineups.
NBA DFS Lineup Advice: Squirrelpatrol’s ‘Hittin’ The Nuts’ (January 11th)
Dallas Point Guards And Other Guys Who Play Point Guard
On FanDuel, the only Dallas point guard you can play is Kyrie Irving. Kyrie averages 50.3 FD points per 36 minutes with Luka off the court compared to 46.6 FD points with Luka playing, but at $10,100 ($800 more expensive than his last game), the increased production is already priced in. On DraftKings, Kyrie is only $9,000, making him a much easier play, and we also have Jaden Hardy at just $3,700, meaning we should see Mavericks players absolutely dominate that position on DK. Hardy should draw the start, but even if there is a surprise, it’s very difficult to get away from him on DraftKings. Kyrie seems a bit more tenuous. If this game starts going sideways, he seems like a player who could have a difficult time paying off his price, even on DraftKings, and he may be over-owned if people ignore that possibility.
If we’re pivoting away from Dallas players, one of my favorite tournament plays is Damian Lillard. Boston allows the 3rd-fewest points per game in the NBA but the 8th-most 3-pointers made, meaning they are much more susceptible on the perimeter. I’ll aim to be overweight Lillard in the hopes that his shot is falling from long range.
Jalen Brunson is another pivot to consider, and he could be paired with the Dallas players in hopes this game stays competitive. If you want to risk overthinking things, Miles McBride is near-minimum priced and would likely get the blowout run for the Knicks, but he should be in the rotation regardless.
Dallas Shooting Guards And Other Guys Who Play Shooting Guard
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