Seige's Slate Strategy: Monday, March 13th

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Welcome to another edition of Seige’s Slate Strategy. The last few weeks I’ve gone through and broken down the slate in terms of guys I want to play at the mid-tier and the cheap level, which is an extremely important skill to have, but I want to pivot today to talk about fading.

You can’t play 10% of everyone in tournaments, which means you are going to have to pick guys to not play (even if they are in good spots). There are many reasons to fade, ranging from ownership to lack of upside, and I’m going to hopefully cover all of them over the next couple weeks.

Author’s Note: These are plays I plan on fading at the time of writing. Based on news that comes out after publication, things could change.

FADE: John Wall – $10,200 – Washington Wizards

John Wall is a player I almost always fade because he’s consistently overpriced. Coming in at $10,200, I’m looking for a player to get 55-56 DK points with upside of 65+DK points on a semi-regular basis, and John Wall, for all of his consistency, doesn’t flash the upside often enough. Given his ownership every slate, he becomes a regular fade. Working against Wall on this slate is the depth of PG position, where I have at least six guys ranked ahead of him. The dream matchup makes this fade annoying, but a correct one.

FADE: Marc Gasol – $7,300 – Memphis Grizzlies

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I can’t quite figure out what Gasol’s ownership will be on DK at this reduced price. It could be small given the likely stars/scrubs nature of the slate, but either way he’s not a guy I want to roll out. He’s been super consistent, but against Milwaukee I see lots of success for the wings (Vince Carter even in a turbo slate) and I don’t think they will need Gasol to score 25+ real-life points, which is what I think he’ll need for GPP value around 42-44 DK points. And even if he gets there, how many times can you profit (get more than GPP value) from Gasol? The price is tempting, and if he gets a <5% ownership projection from guru @ChrisGimino I might reconsider, but the numbers don’t seem to support the big man on this slate.

FADE: Jimmy Butler – $9,300 – Chicago Bulls

Normally low-owned superstars are right up my alley, but Jimmy Butler could be 1% owned and I’m still staying away. Butler simply hasn’t been aggressive or right since the All-Star break. Is he upset he didn’t get moved? Is he hurt? I’m not sure, but I know a guy almost averaging 10 FT attempts per game has gone to the FT line six or less times in six of nine games and has gone to the FT line zero times in two of those games. If Butler isn’t going to be aggressive, he has no chance of paying off this price tag and becomes an auto-fade. (The lack of FT attempts is also why the perception of Paul George is that he’s a better player than he really is, because he never gives himself free points).

FADE: Dwight Howard – $6,200 – Atlanta Hawks

The price is one of the lowest we’ve seen all year for Howard, and I normally love to pick on players who have a massive price drop, but in this situation I am going to run for the hills. Ersan Ilyasova has now started to close games out over Howard, which makes it tough knowing if we are going to get 26 minutes or 33 minutes out of him. To win a tournament, even at this cheap price point, we still need him to get into the mid-30s for minutes to get us into the 40 FP territory to give us a profit on his GPP value of about 36 DK points. On a slate with so much value, it’s tough to just take on the kind of risk I am with a Dwight Howard play with unknown and risky upside, so despite the price drop I’m going to look elsewhere today.

As always, if you have any comments or questions feel free to post in the comments, and with that, good luck in your games everyone!

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