Rise & Grind: Monday, March 23rd
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
New DFS Millionaire – Congratulations to GOULET, who took first place in the DraftKings WFBC yesterday and became the newest DFS millionaire. He went with a very bold strategy of playing Caron Butler and Quincy Pondexter on the same team. The reaction by second place finisher Makisupa (who took home a cool $250K himself) when he learns Butler was on the winning team was priceless. Check out his reaction in Dean’s interview here.
NHL Final – While first place was a “measly” $100K, LSphila also had a good weekend in Vegas at the WFHC. He claimed first place in the field of 25. Unfortunately, LSphila was unable to attend the event in person but did send his mother. For a full recap of DraftKings’ championship events, give LeoTPP’s recap a read.
Other Winners – On Friday, ehafner continued his hot streak, taking first in the WFBC qualifier ($25) as well as 3rd and 4th in the Slam on FanDuel. Drolson22 also had a nice weekend claiming second in the Friday slam as well as 19th and 20th on Saturday. Grinder imhungry13579 also claimed first in the Saturday FanDuel Slam. On DraftKings, jezlax took down the four-day March Mania Cinderalla, jmo26 took down the Friday Crossover, while presley177 won the 3-Ball. In short, there were a lot of Grinders winning money this past weekend. I apologize that I can’t mention every single one. If you would like to take a look through the results visit the NBA Forum which has links for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
March Madness – Four days of madness began Thursday and ended yesterday. Notable upsets include #8 seed NC State knocking off #1 Villanova, #7 seed Wichita State taking down #2 Kansas, and #11 UCLA sneaking into the Sweet 16.
NBA Recap – It was a “nutty” weekend in the NBA. Things started off Friday with Marcus Smart taking a swing at Matt Bonner’s nuts. Let’s just say that wasn’t very smart. The shenanigans continued as Brooklyn needed three overtimes to beat Milwaukee, much to the shagrin of anyone without a BKN/MIL stack. The craziness continued all weekend long and culminated in Danilo Gallinari dropping 40 real life points on Orlando yesterday. If March NBA has you frustrated, hang tight. MLB starts in two weeks.
On the Menu
NBA Action – Tonight kicks off a rather strange week on the NBA schedule. We get six games tonight, six tomorrow, 13 on Wednesday, one on Thursday, then 13 again on Friday. Notorious already has his First Look posted for tonight’s six games. Later today we will be offering the NBA Grind Down, Starting Five, Advanced Matchups, and Six Pack for your clicking pleasure. With three games featuring a spread of 11.5 or higher, tonight could offer some blowouts.
#NarrativeStreet – While attempting to avoid blowouts is one option, picking players based on narratives is also an appealing option. Vegas can use statistics to quantify expected points but they can’t accurately account for that little extra motivation #NarrativeStreet offers. For example tonight is Gordon Hayward’s birthday. You will want to monitor late news as Hayward is questionable, but if he plays fire him up and enjoy the birthday bonus. If he sits, you can use Derrick Favors in his place. His name is Favors, so I’m sure he doesn’t mind partying on behalf of someone else, because you know, “party favors”. Makes sense right? In fact, since there really aren’t many other narratives tonight, so let’s just nominate the entire Utah Jazz team as the official narrative street team of the night.
NHL Tonight – If you aren’t interested in predicting NBA blowouts tonight, NHL makes a fine pivot. There will be seven games tonight on the ice, including two with a Vegas moneyline over 350. We will have his NHL Daily Plays up later today. Give them a read and go win some tickets to either FanDuel or DraftKings’ end of year NHL GPPs, depending on which site you prefer.
GrindersLive – If you decide to play NBA tonight, check back around 3:30 PM EST for three hours of NBA analysis on GrindersLive tonight. BritDevine and DraftCheat kick things off at 3:30 PM EST, followed by CrazyGabey and RadThad at 4:30 and Dean78904 and Al_Smizzle at 5:30. DB730 and STLCardinals84 will also be on Sirius XM from 6:00 to 7:00 to bring you any late breaking news right up until lock.