NBA Starting 5: Wednesday, December 6th
The Starting 5 Series will provide Grinders a quick look at the day’s top positional plays, as analyzed by one of our daily fantasy sports experts.
Wednesday, December 6th
Well, after a terrible little three-game slate yesterday — I saw my night end about 30 minutes in when T.J. Warren decided it’d be fun to get thrown out — it’s time for a nice little palate cleanser. We’ve got a 10-game slate with a bunch of studs and one game so juicy that I wouldn’t be surprised if half of their starting lineups become the chalk.
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 RG’s CourtIQ and USG%. Fade these DraftKings plays at your own risk.
Point Guard: Rajon Rondo, New Orleans Pelicans, $5,500
There’s a few things we know about the Pelicans. We know that Rondo’s old, Boogie is a hot head, Davis is made of plastic, and that if Davis or Boogie go down, everyone else gets a boost. Well, Davis is still doubtful to play tonight, and with him out of the game Rondo gets a huge boost. If we look at the RG CourtIQ page, we can see that without Davis in the lineup, Rondo gets a nice little .15 FPT/min bump and averages a near elite 1.14 points per minute.
If this wasn’t enough to just lock him in here, the Pelicans have the highest implied team total on the slate and are facing a pace-up game versus the Nuggets, who rank near the bottom of the league in DvP vs. the PG position. This game is also expected to stay close. Until Davis gets back (and probably even after he does), Rondo is way too underpriced, considering he hasn’t scored under 38 points since Davis has been out of the lineup. If you want to fade him because of ownership, do so at your own risk.
Shooting Guard: Jamal Murray, Denver Nuggets, $5,100
In a similar situation to the Pelicans, the Nuggets have injuries that are going to force some of their other players to step up, and the player with the largest usage without Jokic or Millsap on the court is Jamal Murray. On the year, without Jokic or Millsap in the lineup, he has a 30% usage rate. In Murray’s last game he may have only put up 28 DK points, but he did so with no assists or rebounds, and he did put up a 44.5 DK points in the game prior.
Murray gets a matchup against Rondo, who’s old enough to sign up for AARP and whose defense is about as good as the first kid off the bench on your average high school girls B squad. I’ll say it again, this is the highest O/U on the board, it’s projected to be close, it’s a pace-up matchup, and it’s a plus defensive matchup. Any time you have all these scenarios come together, the downside is minimal and the upside is through the roof. If you aren’t stacking this game tonight, you’re doing something terribly wrong.
Small Forward: Will Barton, Denver Nuggets, $6,900
We already have two players from this game, but now seems like a good time to throw in a third. Sorry to keep going back to this game, but if you don’t have multiple players from this game, you are probably just better off taking your money to the Salvation Army, because either way you won’t get it back. In the three games since Jokic and Millsap have been out of the lineup, Barton has posted 51.5, 34.5, and 46 DK points respectively (fun fact: playing Barton lately has a higher ROI than Bitcoin). This is setting up for another smash spot, with Barton coming off the bench and soaking up all the usage against a fast-paced team in the Pelicans.
Again, if I’m sounding like a broken record, it’s because I’m trying to pound it into your head that you need to play multiple players from this game. Barton averages the highest FPTs/min of anyone on the Nuggets at 1.09 and tends to thrive in high-paced games. At his current price of just $6,900, there aren’t many situations in which Barton doesn’t hit value tonight.
Power Forward: Rudy Gay, San Antonio Spurs, $5,200
Gay hasn’t played badly this season for the Spurs, but the main concern has been that he isn’t getting minutes. With Anderson out on Monday, Gay was moved into the starting lineup and played 31 minutes while putting up 36.5 DK points. On the season, Gay has been averaging over a fantasy point per minute (1.09 DK PTs/min), and even though he gets a matchup against the Heat, who are average at guarding the three, I think we can still expect Gay to play 30-35 minutes, which at his current output, is enough for him to easily crush value in this spot.
While I do like several forwards from the DEN/NO game at similar price points, I think that Gay has a better floor/ceiling tonight and should come in at less ownership than either Faried or Plumlee. There is always a chance that this game turns into a blowout, but with half the games on the slate being a 6+ point spread, there seems to be blowout risk everywhere.
Center: DeMarcus Cousins, New Orleans Pelicans, $11,300
Sorry to keep going back to the NO game, but these are plays you need to have in your lineup. Boogie has actually let us down a bit over his last three starts without Davis, averaging around 53 DK points per game, but this is a perfect spot to get right. He should also come in at lower ownership than he should (99% is lower than it should be for this game). With Davis out of the lineup, Boogie has a sky high 38.2% usage rate and is averaging 1.63 FPTs/min.
With Jokic out on the other side of the ball, Cousins will get a the defense of the great Mason Plumlee, who may actually be the worst defender of all the Plumlees (which is like comparing the worst kidney stones you’ve passed…they’re all bad). I know I’ve already said it countless times, but with the high pace, high implied total, and the favorable defensive matchup, Boogie is in a prime spot to crush value here. Even if he’s highly owned, I don’t think there’s any reason to fade him.