NBA DFS Core Plays LIVE: Tuesday, October 24th
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. 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.
First of all, I can’t believe the NBA season starts on Tuesday night. The NBA Finals somehow feel like they both were six months ago and a few days ago. It’s funny how time works. Whether we are ready or not, we have a slate to discuss.
The NBA schedule didn’t do us any favors in this opening week, as there are two games on Tuesday, 12 games on Wednesday, 2 games on Thursday, and 11 games on Friday. I much prefer a balanced schedule, but at least we get to ease into the season with a two-game slate.
If you are new to the Core Plays LIVE article, we start each day by taking a look at the slate as a whole (schedule, back-to-backs, injuries) and doing mini previews for each team. As the day progresses, we will finalize the player rankings tables at the bottom and post an update every time there is news that meaningfully impacts the slate. If you are new to NBA DFS, trust me, there will be a lot of updates on the bigger slates.
More than in any other sport, injuries dictate who we play in NBA DFS. Rather than posting a long list of the current injuries that will often quickly become outdated, we will link you to the Situation Room, which will be updated instantly throughout the day with injury news and the potential DFS impacts. We will also touch on important injuries in the team previews.
Are we all set? Ready to dive into the first slate of the season? Let’s get to it.
NBA DFS Top Picks: Core Plays LIVE for Tuesday, October 24th
Slate Overview
- 2-game slate
- 7:30 PM ET – Los Angeles Lakers at Denver Nuggets
- 10:00 PM ET – Phoenix Suns at Golden State Warriors
- Teams on the front end of a back-to-back: None
- Teams on the back end of a back-to-back: None
- NBA DFS Injury Report: The Situation Room
Team Previews
Los Angeles Lakers: LeBron James enters his 21st NBA season in hopes of making it back to the NBA Finals. The Lakers return a similar roster to the one they had last season, although they do have more depth after bringing in Christian Wood, Gabe Vincent, Jaxson Hayes, Cam Reddish and Taurean Prince. The team could only muster up a 2-4 record in the preseason, but their win total is set at 47.5 for the season.
At this point, we know what to expect from LeBron and Anthony Davis. The former should be low-owned relative to the other superstars, while the latter could soak up ownership at a price of only $8,900 on DraftKings. Scanning through the preseason data, I was impressed by the per-minute production of both D’Angelo Russell (1.34 DK / 1.36 FD) and Austin Reaves (1.26 DK / 1.25 FD). Russell appears to be the chalk on both sites and for good reason.
The rest of the Lakers can be reserved for MME play. Prince will likely start at small forward and is cheap, but his minutes are far from guaranteed. Rui Hachimura and Wood are capable per-minute players, but they have both have a wide range of potential outcomes. We currently have Reddish, Hayes, and Vincent all projected for minutes in the low teens. It’s worth noting that the Lakers come into the game with the lowest implied total of the four teams in action.
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