Rise & Grind: Monday, March 16th
Welcome to the RotoGrinders cup o’morning joe. Start your day off right here, as we sort through the weekend’s happenings and take a peek at the upcoming DFS day.
In Case You Missed It
The Ha-Ha-Hawks – Did you lose last night on FanDuel because the Hawks decided to rest their starters? Well if so, the Hawks have a message for you:
Thanks, Hawks, for rubbing a little salt in the proverbial wound. I certainly don’t mind a team resting starters. I also don’t mind a good joke on Twitter. Both of those things are okay. What you should be sorry for is waiting to announce your starters would rest. You have a Twitter account right? How about a little heads up next time? I know, you still don’t feel sorry for people who lost. That’s okay, we won’t feel sorry for you either when the Cavs knock you out of the playoffs.
Selection Sunday – Yesterday kicked off one of the most exciting and least productive work weeks we will see all year. The field of 68 is set for March Madness. One notable team missing from the field are the CSU Rams. No, not the DFS player, but his alma mater. The Rams had a very strong case to make the tournament but were ultimately passed over by a few teams from “Power Conferences.” Another even more exciting field of 64 was also set yesterday. DraftKings drew matchups for their March Mania bracket challenge last night on #DKTV. Congratulations to all the Grinders who are participating on Thursday, and good luck.
FanDuel NHL Final – Congratulations to Grinder Mirage88 for claiming first and last place in the inaugural FanDuel WFHC. Ricky Bobby from Talladega Nights would be proud. Sometimes you can be both first and last.
Vernon Wells – Speaking of live finals, former professional baseball player Vernon Wells qualified for the DraftKings NBA Live final. While this news did not happen recently, it appears to have gone unnoticed. I did a little research to confirm that the account in question does indeed belong to Vernon Wells. How did I do that research? The same way I research my NBA DFS news. I searched on Twitter. If it’s on Twitter, you know it’s true. Seriously though, if you check this page on DraftKings, you will find one VWells10 listed as a qualifier. If you go to Vernon’s verified twitter account (@VernonWells10) you will find he follows Al_Smizzle and also tweets DFS related things from time to time. Also, someone started an RG Forum Thread about it. If something is on Twitter, mentioned in the RG Forums and featured it the Rise and Grind, it’s pretty much gospel.
Big Winners – While none of the people who won this past weekend are pro athletes, they are all celebrities in my mind, at least for a few days. Obviously, I can’t mention everyone but here are some big wins by Grinders over the weekend. On Friday, aardvarksoup and bcalicore cleaned up. Both placed top 10 or better in the Shot, Swat, Slam and a few other GPPs. Grinder mickeykid22 also managed to take first in the Super Slam. Over on DraftKings, altoon24 took down the Sharpshooter while msteinberg09 took down the 3-Ball. The full list of Friday’s links is here.
On Saturday, ehafner won the FanDuel Slam and placed highly in just about every other GPP. RG’s own CruzinToVictory put up a huge score and ended up in second place in the DK Crossover for a nice payday. Meanwhile, RotoGrinders moderator and blogger bhdevault also deserves a shoutout for his seventh-place finish in the FanDuel Shot. Over on DraftKings, presley177 won the 3-Ball, while majik1016 won the SharpShooter. The full list of Saturday links are here.
Last night, Grinder the_big_lombardi claimed second (x2) in the FanDuel Slam as well as Shot (x3), and Swat. The footballguru29 also showed his NBA skills, claiming first in the Monster and Slam with a 400.3. Over on DraftKings, geotico claimed first in the Crossover while AshyL4rry claimed second through fourth. The full list of tournament links for Sunday are here.
On The Menu
NHL Tonight – With just four games on the schedule, NHL volume will be a little lighter than normal. There are still plenty of chances to claim a ticket for FanDuel’s King of the Ice and DraftKings’ Triple Deke though. If that interests you, be sure to give Pepsi7’s NHL Daily Plays a read later today and join the NHL strategy discussion in our daily forum thread.
NBA Tonight – If you decide not to play NHL, the only other game in town tonight is NBA. It’s also worth noting that tonight is your last chance to qualify for the DraftKings NBA final. The $1000 Qualifier is already full. There is still room in the $27. Might as well toss a few bullets in and win a chance to play against Vernon Wells. With ten games on the menu, DFS options abound tonight. Notorious has some suggestions for a good starting point in his First Look. Later today, the usual offerings will be posted, including the Starting Five, NBA Grind Down, and NBA Advanced Matchups. We also have three hours of NBA advice kicking off at 3:30 PM EST on GrindersLive.
#NarrativeStreet – While the pieces I just mentioned are all worthy of your clicks, you won’t find the players with a little extra motivation in them. The only place you can get that is #NarrativeStreet. The most obvious narrative tonight is LeBron James returning to Miami in a #RevengeGame. The DFS gods may rob us of that one as LeBron is questionable with a sore knee. Another notable #revengegame is Thaddeus Young and Kevin Garnett facing off against the teams who traded them earlier this season. Last but certainly not least, we have a #FriendsAndFamilyGame tonight. Berkeley California native Jabari Brown returns home tonight to face off against the Golden State Warriors. Who is Jabari Brown you ask? He is a Lakers SG who was called up from the D-League last week. Honestly though, it doesn’t matter if you care who he is. His friends and family care and they will all be at the game tonight. Fire up Jabari Brown on all your teams tonight – it should work. If it doesn’t, I apologize, but just like the Hawks I’m not even sorry.