NBA DFS Core Plays LIVE: Sunday, December 31st
A daily fantasy sports OG, Notorious has been roaming the DFS streets ever since they were invented. He has racked up multiple live final seats and several six-figure tournament wins in his DFS career, and Noto will mix it up in all different types of contests. On weekends, Taylor Smith takes the reins. So, who better to walk you through the madness of an NBA DFS slate? Core Plays LIVE will zoom out on the slate as a whole, zoom in on the best NBA DFS picks, and constantly update as news breaks. Whether you are diving into the slate 5 hours before it starts or 5 minutes before it starts, you’ve come to the right place.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the final day of 2023. You can celebrate with a behemoth of a 13-game NFL slate, but we’ve also got a nice little 5-game NBA docket to consider on NYE. Prize pools predictably aren’t massive around the industry, but it could still be worth your while. We’ve got just 1 team playing the second half of a back-to-back, so things could be a little light on the injury shenanigans front. One can hope, at least.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Sunday, December 31st
Slate Overview
- 5-game slate
- 7:00 PM ET – Boston Celtics at San Antonio Spurs
- 7:00 PM ET – Los Angeles Lakers at New Orleans Pelicans
- 7:00 PM ET – Brooklyn Nets at Oklahoma City Thunder
- 8:00 PM ET – Sacramento Kings at Memphis Grizzlies
- 8:00 PM ET – Orlando Magic at Phoenix Suns
- Teams on the front end of a back-to-back: Suns
- Teams on the back end of a back-to-back: Lakers
- NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
- Scroll to FanDuel and DraftKings Rankings & Core Plays
News Updates
Here’s where I’ll update for news throughout the day.
Team Previews
Boston Celtics (at SAS): The first game of the night is also the biggest on-paper mismatch. The Celtics are favored by nearly 2 touchdowns in the Alamo City tonight over the Spurs with Jrue Holiday listed questionable with an elbow injury. This team is otherwise healthy. If Jrue is a no-go, we’ll presumably see Payton Pritchard crack the starting unit and have a path to significant playing time. A sub-$10,000 Jayson Tatum looks like a solid spend regardless against the woeful Spurs’ defense. He and Derrick White get 5% usage boosts this season with Holiday on the bench, while I’d have some interest in Kristaps Porzingis at only $8,000 on DraftKings.
San Antonio Spurs (vs. BOS): The Spurs will be without Zach Collins tonight, while Keldon Johnson was downgraded to questionable. Victor Wembanyama is back after missing Friday’s game. The team has been limiting him to around 24 minutes of late as he battles through an ankle injury, but we saw in the last game he still offers a legitimate ceiling even without a full complement of minutes. Wemby’s just a dart throw on this slate in such a bad matchup, but not a bad one on DK ($8,500). San Antonio is otherwise running a deep and underwhelming rotation, which leaves the likes of Johnson, Devin Vassell, and Tre Jones as little more than large-field GPP fliers. Johnson missing the game would make Vassell and perhaps Julian Champagnie more attractive targets, but hardly core plays either.
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