Thursday Night DFS Dunks

Welcome back to Thursday Night DFS Dunks with me, Cousin Timmy.  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.

Strategies

1. Focus on teams with high game totals and a high pace of play. On tonight’s slate, the Rockets play at a pace of 104.43 (fastest in the league) possessions per game and face the Suns who play at 101.3 pace (10th fastest), a nice game to attack.
2. Select players from high game totals that 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.

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Tonight’s games

The Starting 5

Jimmy Butler, SF/SG, MIA (DK $9600, FD $10300)

Jimmy has quietly elevated himself into the elites of fantasy basketball. Hitting that 10K price tag is quite the accomplishment, although Jimmy probably has no idea it happened. He’s one of the few guys that gives you four categories consistently and is a threat to record a triple-double on a nightly basis. JB has recored 47 DK points and at least three steals in five of  the seven Heat games this season. He has a great matchup tonight vs. Boston who gives up the most fantasy points to scoring wings in the league. Jimmy is my favorite top-tier play tonight.

Georges Niang, PF/SF, PHI ( DK $4400, FD $3700)

Niang can play, and he’s finally getting his opportunity. The 8th or 9th man in the rotation is now starting due to Tobias Harris and Danny Green both missing a good chunk of time. Niang played 31 minutes Wednesday night following a 31 minute game on Monday.  He’s shown he can score (18 vs. Chicago) and against a Detroit team that has a negative 13 net rating, I think Niang hits value with 27-30 fantasy points.

Kyle Lowry, PG/SG, MIA (DK $7700, FD $5900)

After missing the first game and starting a bit slow, Lowry has found his stride in Miami. Boston’s defense has been bad so far giving up 15.3 assists and a league-worst 79.9 points per game to guards. Lowry has had eight assists and five rebounds in each of his last two games. You can lock Lowry in on FanDuel but for $7700 on Draftkings, I may look to his teammate Tyler Herro who is a bit cheaper at $6700.

Kevin Porter Jr, PG/SF, HOU (DK $6400, FD $5900) 

KPJ had 19 turnovers in his first three games and has yet to find his shooting touch, only 40% from the field in seven games. However, I’m really high on KPJ this year and at only 21 years old we can overlook the turnovers for his 50 fantasy point ceiling we saw him hit multiple times last year. He’s averaged 34.5DK points over his last two games and, as mentioned above, this game vs. the Suns is going to run at a really fast pace. Deandre Ayton may sit this one out for Phoenix keeping this game close and giving KPJ a 35-minute upside.

Al Horford, PF/ C, BOS (DK $7400, FD $7900) 

We’ve seen big Al’s price rise $1800 on DraftKings since game one. Returning to the Celtics has done wonders. He’s been a machine averaging 42.7 DK points a game over 29.9 minutes. Al is swatting shots left and right with 3.2 blocks per game. He’s recorded seven steals and five double-doubles in six games. The Celtics got a nice win Wednesday night vs. Orlando and will need Al to keep producing if they are going to compete with the Heat tonight.

Other guys on my radar:

• Chris Paul, PG, PHX (DK $8500, FD $7800) 
• Josh Giddey, SG/SF, OKC (DK $5800, FD $6000)
• Dennis Schroder, PG/SG, BOS (DK $5600, FD $6200)
• Bojan Bogdanovic, SF/PF, UTA (DK $5000, FD $5400)  – If Mitchell isn’t able to go Bogdon gets a big usage bump!

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

@TimmySperos