NBA DFS Ownership Projections and Tournament Plays - Thursday, March 3rd
Hello Grinders. We have a seven-game slate on this Thursday night. We’ll go through the top NBA DFS tournament picks on both DraftKings and FanDuel, highlighting key plays using data from our RotoGrinders Premium tools, which you can access here.
The focus of this article is to review early ownership projections and identify where the ownership is likely to be focused on, as well as what are some DraftKings and FanDuel picks we can consider for leverage. Keep in mind that news will trickle in throughout the day, changing ownership projections and the dynamics of this slate. The RotoGrinders projections and ownership numbers will adjust as the day goes on, so you’ll definitely want to consider having access to those tools for the most up-to-date information. With all that in mind, let’s dive in.
NBA DFS Ownership Projections for Today
The early morning projections for ownership are very interesting, as it is very condensed on FanDuel but more spread out on DraftKings. On FanDuel, we have three players already projected for >40% ownership (Dejounte Murray, Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum) and 11 players projected for >25% ownership. On DraftKings, nobody is projected higher than Malik Monk at 33.7%. Perhaps that will change as the day goes on and potential injury situations shift things around, but ownership is much more flat. Only two players are >30% (Malik Monk, Marcus Smart), and we have 12 players between 20%-33% projected ownership.
On both sites, the ownership is clearly going to the Boston Celtics players, as they have ruled our Jaylen Brown. Marcus Smart and Jayson Tatum are both accounting as two of the top three projected owned players on both FanDuel and DraftKings. The RotoGrinders CourtIQ tool show that when Brown has been off the court this season, Tatum owns a team-high 35.4% usage rate and averages 1.38 fantasy points per minute. It is also his birthday today so do what you will with that information. As for Marcus Smart, he doesn’t see as massive a usage bump (just 1.3%) but he’s averaged 0.90 fantasy points per minute with Brown off the court and given he’s just in the $6K range on both sites, there’s a fairly solid floor here.
I’ll admit I was a little surprised to see Malik Monk popping as the top projected owned player on DraftKings. He’s failed to reach 20 DraftKings points in three of his last four games and is coming off a massive 7.25 DraftKings point dud. At the same time, he’s just $4,700, which is the lowest he’s been since January 30th, so my guess is this is a pricing thing. If we get better value opening up later in the day at the guard spot, I suspect that will drop Monk’s projected ownership. The one injury situation I’m monitoring is out in Atlanta, where Trae Young missed shootaround and remains questionable. The team also called up Sharife Cooper from the G League. If Young can’t suit up, someone like Delon Wright could enter the conversation as a better salary relief option.
As a reminder, if you want to see all our projected ownership numbers, be sure to sign up for RotoGrinders Premium access.
Best Tournament Plays
DraftKings
Tyler Herro – Herro is coming off a massive 48.75 DraftKings point performance against the Bucks yet his price dropped on DraftKings from $6,500 to $6,300. Herro and the Heat now face a Nets team that will be without Kyrie Irving (although they will get Kevin Durant back). The appeal with Herro is that Kyle Lowry has missed the last two games due to personal reasons and given we haven’t heard any positive news on his status as of this writing, I’m assuming he’s closer to doubtful than probable for a return tonight. RotoGrinders CourtIQ shows that when Lowry has been off the court this season, Herro leads the team with a 29.6% usage rate.
Jayson Tatum – There is nothing sneaky at all about Jayson Tatum tonight. As mentioned above, he’s averaged 1.38 fantasy points per minute this season when Jaylen Brown has been off the court. In fact, our very own Andy Means has tagged Jayson Tatum as a Core Play in cash games to begin the day. Yet just because someone is going to be popular and is a good cash game play doesn’t mean you need to ignore them for tournaments. In fact, you could make the case being overweight on Tatum despite his likely high ownership and $10,000 price tag is still viable in tournaments. Tatum is cheaper than LeBron James and Kevin Durant on DraftKings yet has a comparable median projection. Tatum is going to be one of my top targets on this slate and someone I may choose to be overweight on even in tournaments as I know the offense will flow through him.
Trey Lyles – Lyles was massive chalk last night at just $3,300 and in a starting role, only to end up disappointing everyone with an 11-point DraftKings point performance. He played just 20 minutes and essentially lost playing time to Jeremy Lamb, who played 26 minutes. I’m assuming Lyles continues to start and now his price has risen to $4,000. Given the negative recency bias, I’m expecting his ownership to plummet tonight. I’ll admit, even I’m scared of using him knowing he could lose playing time to Lamb in an instant, but that alone makes him an intriguing tournament option. He’s just two games removed from a 34.5 DraftKings point performance, and he now gets a revenge game against the San Antonio Spurs. Additionally, the Kings have a 117 point total (2nd highest on this slate) and this Kings/Spurs game has a massive 241 over/under (highest on the slate).
FanDuel
Domantas Sabonis – So much of the forward ownership will go to Jayson Tatum tonight (and rightfully so) that it might leave someone like Domantas Sabonis overlooked on this slate. Everything that I wrote up above on Lyles’ game environment applies to Sabonis. Sabonis gets a plus-matchup against a Spurs team that ranks 3rd in pace and bottom-third of the league in Defensive Efficiency. Sabonis even got a price drop on FanDuel from $9,600 last night to $9,200 tonight. Sabonis grades out with the third highest RG Value score among all forwards on FanDuel, yet is projected to have lower ownership than all of Jayson Tatum, Pascal Siakam, Jimmy Butler and OG Anunoby. This is a spot where I’d be more than fine targeting Sabonis in a great game environment at an ownership level that isn’t out of hand.
Luka Doncic – I know this isn’t sneaky at all, but if I told you that Luka Doncic had just the 9th highest projected ownership on a seven-game slate priced at just $10,800 on FanDuel (his lowest price since January 30th), you’d have interest, right? That’s exactly the spot Doncic finds himself in tonight, where a cheaper Dejounte Murray is projected for more than 2x his projected ownership. I’m not saying you should fade Murray, but what I am saying is that giving Doncic consideration in tournaments is a good idea for this slate. Doncic’s matchup against the Warriors is not an ideal one as the Warriors have the top Defensive Efficiency grade in the league. However, we just saw Doncic drop 50.2 FanDuel points against the Warriors two games ago so it’s not like Doncic can’t have a good game here. There will be better point-per-dollar options on this slate, but when it comes to raw ceiling, Doncic grades out as the best option among all point guards with a 66.35 FanDuel point ceiling.
Dejounte Murray – I made the argument above in the Jayson Tatum writeup that just because someone will be popular in cash doesn’t mean you can’t use them in tournaments. I feel this way about Dejounte Murray on FanDuel, where he is priced down at just $9,600 (he is $10,600 on DraftKings for context). For some reason, FanDuel dropped the price of Murray from $9,700 to $9,600, making him the lowest he’s been since right before Christmas. Yes, he is projected for over 40% ownership, but this is another spot where I might just eat the chalk in tournaments and go overweight on Murray in a spot where his Spurs have a 124 point team total, highest on the slate by a wide margin.
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