NBA Starting 5: Saturday, November 12th
The Starting 5 Series will provide Grinders with a quick look at the day’s top positional plays, analyzed through the lens of our Daily Research Tools.
Today, we’ll take a closer look at the Touches tool. This tool is great for seeing who has the ball in their hands the most and how efficient they are at turning those touches into fantasy points.
Point Guard: Marcus Smart
Marcus Smart had a great game against the Knicks last night. This will certainly drive his ownership up some, but I’m not as concerned because it’s an 11-game slate. This should spread out the ownership on all players to some extent. Smart comes in averaging .48 fantasy points per touch, which ranks second on the slate behind CP3. It’s probably safe to assume that Smart will be starting again and in line to exceed value by a large margin. Still priced low at $4,900 at FanDuel, Smart is a great play in all formats.
Shooting Guard: James Harden
James Harden leads the league in assists. Let that sink in for a bit. Much has been made about how much Giannis is handling the ball for the Bucks, but as we can see, Harden is averaging 22 more touches per game. That’s an insane amount. We saw Harden put up a triple-double in San Antonio just a few days ago, and now he gets the same matchup at home. Some people will probably be scared off of Harden in this perceived bad matchup, but the Spurs lack an elite defensive point guard, which is great news for Harden. Look for Harden to flirt with another triple-double today.
Small Forward: Gordon Hayward
Gordon Hayward is playing like an All-Star since returning from his injury. He leads all small forwards on the slate in touches at 69 per game. George Hill’s potential return tonight might hurt Hayward’s production slightly, but I’ll be all in on Hayward if Hill is out. He is just too cheap for his current workload regardless of pace or matchup. We saw last night that slow pace isn’t hurting Hayward at this price, as he was on several winning GPP lineups even though the Magic/Jazz game was the lowest-paced game of the night.
Power Forward: Blake Griffin
Anthony Davis is a usage monster, and he’s getting all of the headlines, but look at Blake right there with him at 79 touches per game. Davis certainly has a higher ceiling, but Blake is $2,900 less and could certainly put up 50 FanDuel points tonight. Gorgui Dieng, who will be guarding Griffin, is a solid player with a high motor, but Griffin is still an elite athlete at the power forward spot. There is a good amount of value at power forward tonight, so paying up for Blake might be a way to differentiate yourself in some tournament lineups.
Center: Marc Gasol
The Bucks are a bottom-third team in the league versus centers, and Gasol leads tonights centers in touches per game at 69. At only $7,100, Gasol could certainly hit 6-7x in tonights matchup. Kelly Olynyk is probably going to be the chalk tonight, so paying up for Gasol will get you into a different lineup build that you might need to take down a tournament. With that said, Gasol is probably one of the safer cash game plays tonight, as well, with his high floor. Vegas is expecting this to be a close game as well, so we should get a full compliment of minutes for Gasol.
Starting your FanDuel lineup with these five guys will leave you with an average of $5,100 left per player. There already appears to be enough value on tonight’s slate to make this work.
Hopefully this information helps you with your roster construction today and leads you to a nice score. As always, feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me on Twitter, @Socky21.