Thursday Night DFS Dunks: Walking in Memphis

Welcome back to Thursday Night DFS Dunks!  Tonight we have a small three-game slate.  In addition to the $10 I’m investing in cash games, I will attempt to turn $2 into $400 in the Draftkings $4K Elbow Shot [single entry] contest. This is a contest I finished second in earlier this year and I’m not moving on until conquering this mountain and plant the Cousin Timmy flag at the top.  I like to enter this contest on a nightly basis because it has a flat pay structure. Depending on ownership (comes out around 12 PM ET ) I’ll use anywhere from two to four guys from this article in that lineup. There are ~2300 entries in the contest and you don’t need to have a lineup with nine guys at less than 5% to take it down. Ok, let’s move on to the goods.

If you’re new to this article, I break down tonight’s NBA slate and give you my starting five for both FanDuel and Draftkings.  These will be my core plays (guys I’ll be playing in my lineups with my money) for hitting the cash line in 50/50s and double-up contests.  If you’re looking for GPP winning plays you’ll have to follow me on Twitter (@TimmySperos) and then we can talk. At the end of the article, I’ll have a pool of three to five players I like that you can use to fill in the rest of your lineups. It’s important to have a process in DFS so let’s review the strategies you should be thinking about.

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Strategies

1. Focus on teams with high game totals and a high pace of play. On tonight’s slate, the Lakers play at a pace of 101.3 (2nd fastest in the league) possessions per game and face the Grizzlies who are 25th in defensive rating. A nice game to stack some cheaper Lakers.
2. Select players from high game totals who play lots of minutes and have high usage rates or FPP (fantasy points per minute). Over time, when comparing two players with similar salaries, choose minutes over a hot hand. It’s the correct thing to do.
3. NBA may be the toughest DFS sport to play for a few reasons.  Number one is time. Throughout the season players will get ruled out for rest, injury, or because they think the Earth is flat. This tends to happen shortly before lock or even after lock as we experienced last year. It’s imperative that you make yourself available for the 15 minutes before lock or you may lose some money for a simple user error.   

Ok now that you know the basics, it’s time for tonight’s slam dunks.

Tonight’s three-game slate: 

The Starting Five

Tyus Jones, PG/SG, MEM (DK $6000, FD $5800)

Ty Jones has been starting since Ja Morant went down two weeks ago. Now, he doesn’t have a huge usage rate at only 17% in that time frame but these stats stand out for this price: 8.2 assists and 2.08 steals per game over his last five. He’s averaging .97 fantasy points per minute on the season and unless this game is a blow-out, he’s in line for 32-34 minutes tonight in a fast-paced game vs. the Lake-Show. Lock him in for cash.

Derrick White, PG/SG, SAS (DK $6300, FD $7900)

White is coming off a 44-point slate-breaking night vs. the Knicks. He was in the winning lineup on DraftKings on Tuesday’s three-game slate. Recency bias is the last thing I look at when selecting players because it typically has very little merit but it’s something on a small slate. The best reason to play Derrick tonight is his .95 fantasy points per minute and 20% usage rate. The Spurs play at the 3rd fastest pace in the league and fellow starter Keldon Johnson is listed doubtful to play tonight. KJ’s 20% usage has to go somewhere and likely not to Dougie McBuckets who should start in his place.

Dillon Brooks, SF, MEM (DK $6200, FD $6100) 

Brooks sat out the first 10 games of the season but has finally come back to life. He’s a high-usage player (30%) and is averaging 1.1 fantasy points per minute. He’s going to play 30 minutes or more tonight vs. the Lakers and at this price, he’s solid with a high ceiling if he has a good shooting night. Don’t look at the box scores for minutes here because the Grizzlies have been involved in a few blowouts, including a 75-point absolute beat down of the Thunder last week (he only played 15 minutes). That game outcome is not likely to happen tonight nor again this season.

Jaren Jackson Jr., PF/C, MEM (DK $7000, FD $6200) 

JJJ’s usage climbs six points from 23-29% with Ja Morant off the court. 1.17 fantasy points per minute are second among guys that will see more than 20 minutes on tonight’s slate (AD is first). He has shot seven three-pointers in four of five games and is a double-double threat every night. Memphis played the Lakers back on when JJJ shot 3-for-12 from the field and finished with 25 Draftkings points. Tonight is a different situation and I expect a better outcome.

Nikola Jokic, C, DEN (DK $11800, FD $11100) 

Hahahaha. The Joker is still laughing. Markieff Morris still hasn’t played a game since he got blind-sided by the 7’0” Serbian (cheap shot by Jokic, IMO). All laughing aside, Jokic has a 70-point ceiling every night now that Denver has no other options (MPJ done for the season and Jamal Murray still out). Giannis is the only other player in the league that comes close to the 1.72 fantasy points per minute that Jokic averages. The Spurs play at a fast pace which should get Jokic lots of rebounds.  We know he’s going to score and dish out some assists (7.1 APG). He’s the most expensive option tonight but I don’t think we’ll see Embiid get 70 again on a back-to-back vs. a tough Utah defense. Jokic is the top-tier play.

Other guys on my radar:

• LeBron James, SF/PF,  LAL (DK $10100, FD $10400) 
• Royce O’Neale, SF/PF, UTA (DK $4300, FD $4900)
• Desmond Bane, PG/SG/SF, MEM (DK $6900, FD $6400)
• Jakob Poeltl, C, SAS (DK $6400, FD $6700)

Feel free to hit me up on Twitter if you have any questions or need help with lineup building. Good luck tonight and I’ll see you guys next week!

– Cousin Timmy