NBA Starting 5: Tuesday, April 5th
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.
At this point in the NBA season, no tool is more valuable than CourtIQ. Players are being shut down for the season, guys are resting and hurt, and all sorts of opportunities are being made available to players you’d normally never consider rostering. The best way to see who stands to benefit from the absence of their teammates is to fire up CourtIQ and take a look at how a player’s fantasy points per minute will be affected. Let’s take a look at a player at each position today that you should consider for your DraftKings lineups based on their expected production and minutes.
Oh, and be warned, it’s Pelicans Day.
Point Guard: Tim Frazier, $4,200
We might need to rename CourtIQ to PelicansIQ. Value abounds today as the Pelicans have a whole bunch of cheap players that get to face the Sixers. Tim Frazier tops my list of favorite Pelicans to target today unless Norris Cole ( questionable ) suits up. Considering head coach Alvin Gentry has said that Cole may not return this season, I don’t expect him to play in these meaningless games. Frazier comes off the bench, but he most recently played 37 minutes and scored nearly 50 fantasy points against Brooklyn. If we look at the CourtIQ results with all of the hurt Pelicans players off the court, we see that Frazier is producing at a very impressive 1.11 DraftKings points per minute. At his price, we only need him to see around 20 minutes of court time to be a solid play, and given he’s likely to play more than that, we can safely lock him into our cash game lineups. Also, let’s not forget that he’s facing the Sixers, which will provide a nice production boost as well. He’ll be a core member of my lineups today.
Shooting Guard: James Ennis, $3,500
Third on the Pelicans list of points per minute producers is shooting guard James Ennis who, in a limited sample, is producing nearly a fantasy point per minute. He’s played 24, 30, and 29 minutes in each of New Orleans’s last three games, crushing value at $3500 in each one of them. There’s really no better time to load up on these cheap Pelicans and go stars and scrubs. The Sixers are a terrible team, and this game is simply going to be an opportunity for these guys to try to showcase themselves. Starting or not, Ennis should provide solid value at a very cheap price for a Pelicans team that simply doesn’t have many bodies at this point in the season.
Small Forward: Jordan Hamilton, $3,900
Moving down the list a bit we see that Jordan Hamilton is producing at a solid 0.9 DraftKings points per minute clip. He’s starting and playing over 30 minutes per game for the extremely short-handed Pelicans, and he’s yet another safe New Orleans play against a Sixers team that is equally as bad. No self-respecting NBA fan would subject themselves to a game like this, but as daily fantasy players, there’s nothing more exciting than a completely meaningless game between two awful teams that are forced to give significant minutes to a bunch of guys that either weren’t in the league or only saw garbage time at the beginning of the season. Hamilton has been very productive since joining New Orleans, and the great thing about these guys is that they are giving full effort as it is their chance to show the rest of the league what they can do. At just $3900, Hamilton is another solid value play that should exceed value tonight.
Power Forward: Kevin Love, $6,900
Sadly, the Pelicans have two players listed at power forward on DraftKings, and they are Anthony Davis and Ryan Anderson. Both are out for the season, so I had to find someone from another team to include here. It wasn’t long ago that you could run CourtIQ and see that Love’s production with and without Kyrie Irving was nearly the same. Now, we’re starting to see a difference. Love averages 1.08 DraftKings points per minute this season, but that jumps to 1.16 with Irving off the court. Given the season is almost over and this number was around 1.08 recently, we can assume that Love’s recent production with Irving has been tremendous. Irving is currently questionable tonight, and if he sits out, Love is one of the easiest plays on the board. He draws an excellent matchup with a soft Bucks front court that has given up big games to opposing power forwards all season, and he should easily pay off his cheap $6900 price tag. Even if Irving plays, I still think Love is a solid option given how productive he has been recently.
Center: Alexis Ajinca, $3,900
The second-most productive Pelican is Ajinca, producing at a rate of 1.06 DraftKings points per minute. Omer Asik drew the start last game, but played just four minutes. Ajinca, meanwhile, played 29. While I’m assuming Asik will see more than four minutes tonight, Ajinca should still see at least 25 minutes, making him a solid value play against a Sixers team that has been dreadful against opposing centers this season. He’s not my favorite value play from New Orleans because his minutes aren’t quite as secure as the guys I’ve already listed, but at just $3900, I feel comfortable rostering him in both cash games and tournaments tonight. He only needs about 20 minutes of court time to justify his salary, and I think he’s a safe bet for at least that tonight.