NBA Starting 5: Thursday, March 9th
Welcome back to another article in which you’re going to hear some fun facts and gain insight into the mind of a person who once smeared Nutella on his walls as an air freshener (true story).
We have an interesting little five-game slate with a lot of interesting plays on the board. As of now, I’m really not sure there are too many real chalk options. Obviously, that could change (and Gimino may prove me to be a really dummy) if someone decides to slap us in the face and sits out for trying to do the cinnamon challenge right before the game time, but we’ll deal with that when it comes along.
Today, I’m going to go through my top plays at each position regardless of price. We are going to use some of RG’s wonderful tools to look and find some great spots at just a glance. Mostly what we are going to be looking at is Defense v. Position and Advanced Player Stats. Fade these plays at your own risk.
Point Guard: Chris Paul, Los Angeles Clippers, $8,000
I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t listen to everything you read on the internet. That’s why I believe that Tupac is still alive, that whales and dolphins ended WW2, that microwavable chimichangas are part of a balanced breakfast, and that Memphis isn’t great at guarding the PG position. Want to hear something neat? Andrew Harrison is a great defender and he’s the reason that you see that little #2 DvP over there on DraftKings. Something else that’s neat is that he’s not the starter for MEM anymore. There is a drastic fallacy in DFS that Mike Conley is a great defender, but Kevin Love’s immune system plays better defense than him — #HeAteTheFish.
Conley owns around a -1 DRPM, which is right around the D’Angelo Russell range at 54th in the league. I love to target PGs against the Grizz, and if the matchup wasn’t a great enough reason to play him, his price should force you to. He’s currently sitting at $8,000 and put up a disastrous game last night in which he ended up with 26.75 DK points, which will keep ownership much lower than it should be. He only shot the ball nine times in that game and on top of that he only made three. Any time I can get an $8K guy with a great shot at 50 or 60 DK points, I don’t care what he’s done lately. Take the discount and move on.
Shooting Guard: Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns, $6,600
There are four main indicators, outside of box scores, that I use to figure out if someone is a viable option for the night: price, minutes, shots, and matchup. Well, Booker’s price hasn’t risen. His minutes are very high. He is guaranteed double-digit shots every night, and his matchup is against one of the worst defensive teams vs. the guard spots. He owns the second-highest usage rate at the SG position on the slate and the Lakers play at one of the highest paces in the league. Although Booker hasn’t looked too great over his last two matchups with the Lakers, he did put up over 50 on them earlier this year. You may be able to fade Booker in cash today, but at this price and matchup, I don’t think it’s a great idea to fade him anywhere.
Small Forward: T.J. Warren, Phoenix Suns, $6,100
Late night TV told me that fortune favors the bold, but it also told me that there are hot singles that want to talk to me and that it can make certain parts of my body much larger. So, I tend not to believe what I see on TV anymore, and that’s why I’m going with a safe play here. Over the last seven games, Warren’s lowest score has been 26 and his highest has been 34. That’s pretty darn consistent. He’s getting over 30 minutes almost every single game with PJ no longer on the team and he draws a pace-up matchup going against the 26th-ranked DvP against the SF position. Warren should be a lock for 5x tonight with a decent chance at 6x or 7x. Start off your cash game teams with Warren and build around him.
Power Forward: Al-Farouq Aminu, Portland Trail Blazers, $5,700
Hey, remember all those things I said about T.J. Warren a second ago? Well, all that applies to Aminu. Portland has a bunch of guys who are out, forcing Aminu to get a bunch more minutes. With Evan Turner and Ed Davis being out of the lineup for a while, it’s forced Aminu to play a bigger role on the Blazers. Outside of the Detroit game, which was an anomaly, Aminu is averaging well over 30 DK points per game over his last eight.
His floor should be somewhere around 30 on the night and he has a ceiling around 40, which is what I tend to look for around this price range for cash games. Although Covington is an elite defender, the rest of the Sixers defense is less present than an absentee father. This game has a 220 O/U, which is the second highest on the slate and Aminu should get a good piece of that. Playing Aminu tonight is much like flying on Spirit Airlines. It may not be pretty, but it’s cheap and it most likely won’t kill you.
Center: Jusuf Nurkic, Portland Trail Blazers, $7,000
If you were looking for some real hot takes in this article, then, much like every woman I’ve ever met, I’m going to disappoint you. If you want something off the board, play a different center, but there really isn’t much to like that the position today. As of this point in the day, we’re not really sure who’s going to be starting at the C tonight for PHI, but much like gas station sushi, we know it’s not going to be good.
Anyone who starts at the C position tonight is going to be less effective than any team facing Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. Philly ranks 29th in DvP vs the center position on the season and that’s with Embiid, a solid defender, playing a significant amount of time at the position. Nurkic does offer a little bit of volatility here because he can rack up fouls quicker my bar tab on a Friday night, but since coming over to Portland we really haven’t seen it yet. If he stays out of foul trouble he has around a 35-point floor and a 55-point ceiling which is more than enough to justify his price. If you’re worried about the foul trouble, you can go elsewhere, but your options are about as extensive as the list of rocket scientists at Walmart at around 3 AM.