Monday evening features a five-game NBA DFS slate that has three games totaled at 219 or above, with the slate peaking at the 227.5-point total carried by the Suns vs Bulls game, but also features 210 and 206.5-point totals. The low point comes between the Heat and Wizards, a gritty early first game with a low total and the visiting Heat favored by 6, as the Wizards continue to take the floor without their best player Bradley Beal and big man Daniel Gafford. The low-end game also sees Jimmy Butler listed as questionable alongside a host of teammates including wings Caleb Martin, Max Strus and Tyler Herro. Avoiding this game for the majority of NBA DFS lineups is not recommended. However, if Butler plays, he looks like a top option across the industry. Similarly, Kyle Lowry stands out on the FanDuel slate, while a handful of players from both sides have optimal lineup appearance rates between 10 and 14% on the DraftKings slate. The other early game is a highly targeted contest between the Raptors and Hornets that should draw a significant amount of attention, though the game with the lower total is pulling efficient popularity as well. The Suns vs Bulls game looks to be both high-scoring and a strong source of plays from every angle, and the extreme value options of the night appear to be coming from the Thunder’s expected lineup once again, although some pieces are on the table in the last game of the night between the Knicks and Jazz as well. A broad blend of options should create an interesting mix of lineups on a five-game slate, as things currently stand only one player is projected for more than 30% ownership on the DraftKings slate, which is a reflection of a very large plateau of probability in early projections.
This space will always focus on the factors mentioned above, but at times we will call out plays that are over-owned, taking the opportunity to discuss the potential pivots. With five games on the slate, this article will focus on a variety of the top plays with positive leverage on the Boom/Bust Tool. As always, the goal is to find players who are under-appreciated for the frequency with which they land in the optimal lineup in DraftKings and FanDuel NBA DFS projections and simulations.
NBA DFS Optimizer Picks for DraftKings & FanDuel Lineups
These picks are made utilizing the Boom/Bust Tool, specifically analyzing the optimal lineup rate, leverage score and boom probability. The optimal lineup rate represents the frequency at which a player appears in the optimal lineup in Awesemo’s simulated DraftKings NBA and FanDuel NBA slates. The leverage score is the difference between the optimal lineup rate and projected ownership, while the boom probability indicates a player’s likelihood of hitting a ceiling score. It is important to remember that not all of these NBA DFS picks are highlights, at times we will discuss plays that are outright bad or come at such aggressively negative leverage that they are rendered bad in this space, so be sure to read the analysis and not just the headlines.
Devin Booker: DraftKings $8,900 — PG/SG | FanDuel $8,900 — SG
At the same price and similar probability marks across both DraftKings and FanDuel, dynamic Devin Booker stands as one of the top plays across the industry tonight. Booker is a prominent piece of the Suns attack, and they are in the most highly totaled game on the board tonight, creating a very favorable situation for NBA DFS scoring upside. Booker is popular on both sites, at best he will come in at efficient ownership, but his 1.17 fantasy points per minute over the average situation this season has strong appeal at his fair price tag. Booker has slipped somewhat over the team’s three most recent games. His production sits at just 1.01 per minute over that stretch. he posted just 25.9 FanDuel points in 30 minutes in the team’s most recent outing, but the player obviously possesses major potential on any given slate. Booker has a 55.2% true shooting percentage, a 20% assist rate and 7.6% rebounding percentage this season. He is primarily a scorer, but he is capable of facilitating teammates to find additional fantasy production.
Booker checks in with a 31.9% ownership projection on the DraftKings slate, the highest on the site, but he seems highly likely to be a key piece of the top lineup builds going into the slate. Booker lands in the optimal lineup in a slate-leading 28.3% of simulated slates, which does technically leave him at negative leverage, but it also makes him easily the most optimal option above $8,500. At $9,200 and a 20.7% optimal lineup appearance rate, Toronto big man Pascal Siakam is the next-most frequently optimal player above that threshold, while Booker’s teammate Chris Paul comes in with negative leverage at a 16.7% optimal lineup rate and 18.3% popularity for an inflated $9,600 price tag on the site. Booker is easily the better choice in spite of the efficient ownership. The Suns scorer is projected for a 45.1-point median DraftKings score and he has an excellent 29.64% boom score probability at his low-for-him price. The boom score probability ranks second at any position, trailing only Gordon Hayward by only 0.05 percentage points and slightly ahead of Knicks value guards Immanuel Quickley and Alec Burks on the site. At $8,400 and with matching positional eligibility, Terry Rozier has a 23.18% boom score probability and a 35.8-point median projection with 19.7% ownership and positive leverage at the position. Rozier is a quality alternative, but Booker is the better play as long as differentiation is possible at other positions. A fair mix of both players would be a find approach at the top-end of guard spending tonight. Booker checks in at a -3.6 leverage score that is perfectly playable, while Rozier is at a 2.9 which helps offset the popularity of his Suns counterpart when rostered together.
On FanDuel, Booker lands in the optimal lineup in 30.7% of simulated slates, which makes him the fifth-most frequently optimal player at any position. Booker slots in behind Jimmy Butler, who is currently questionable but has a 32.9% optimal lineup rate. If Butler plays, he is a prime target who may go under-owned on the slate. He is currently carrying a 20.7 leverage score but that is simply a reflection of his 12.2% ownership projection at this point in the day. Booker also slots in behind Rozier, Scottie Barnes and Miles Bridges, who leads the slate with a 35.4% optimal lineup rate and an excellent 5.9 leverage score (Bridges is a strong recommendation again today based on his metrics across both sites). Booker is a good play among these options, but he is also the most popular of them at a 35.9% ownership projection, which drops him into negative leverage land at -5.2. The Suns’ star is eligible at only the shooting guard position on the FanDuel slate, but he has an excellent 42.97-point median projection and a targetable 22.88% boom score probability, ranking him sixth overall on the slate. Booker is slightly over-owned, but it would be fine to roster him at, or even somewhat beyond, the field’s projected popularity mark.
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Donovan Mitchell: DraftKings $8,400 — PG/SG | FanDuel $8,500 — SG/PG
As the featured piece in the Utah Jazz’ offensive machine, guard Donovan Mitchell has posted 1.22 fantasy points per minute across all situations this season, the exact same rate he put up on nearly the same usage last season. Mitchell is seeing 32.2% usage this year compared to the 32.7% he needed to reach the same fantasy production last year. The Jazz are playing the slow and plodding Knicks, but the game is still carrying a targetable total and Mitchell looks like a strong option in Awesemo’s probability metrics this evening. The guard put up a huge 38.6-point FanDuel performance in just 22 minutes in the team’s most recent game, a 1.76 per-minute mark in what was his first appearance after missing several games with a concussion. Mitchell is projected for a full 34-minute night against the Knicks tonight. He looks like a top-notch option who can be rostered at efficient ownership on both sites.
On the FanDuel slate, Mitchell fits in at either guard position and he lands in the optimal lineup in a competitive number of simulated slates. The guard’s 26.4% optimal lineup appearance rate ranks him sixth overall on the blue site and he comes at slightly positive leverage with a 1.4 in the category. Mitchell has flexibility and he is inexpensive for his upside, with just an $8,500 asking price on the FanDuel slate. The guard has a 15.83% boom score probability and 25% of the field is expected to include him in lineups, which makes sense for a player carrying a 38.91-point median projection at his price. Mitchell seems likely to deliver value and has the potential to hit a ceiling score; he simply needs appropriate playing time to do so. He is easy to mix and match into lineup shares at a pace that matches the field’s projection, it would not be a mistake to add extra shares while focusing on some of the low-owned highly leveraged options at other positions.
On the DraftKings slate Mitchell is an $8,400 option at either guard position. He lands in the optimal lineup in an appealing 21% of simulated slates for the site, which makes him the seventh-most frequently optimal player at any position on the site and the second-best semi-expensive option on the board at the guard spots behind Booker. Mitchell can be rostered alongside the Suns’ star in a number of configurations. He is a helpful piece who is projected for just 18.4% ownership, leaving him with a solid 2.6 leverage score. Mitchell’s 40.7-point median projection is an easy mark to book into lineups frequently when rostering a wide range of combinations of other premium options on the slate, his fair price will not break the salary cap and he is at a quality positive leverage score while landing at a 21.88% boom score probability. Mitchell ranks seventh by boom score as well, but it is noteworthy that four of the six options above him by boom score percentage also have eligibility in at least one guard position. Still, given the raw scoring upside, extending beyond the field’s projected 18.4% popularity to a range of 25% or more seems like a sound approach that does not incur unnecessary risk on this slate.
Knicks Value Guards
With ailing veteran point guard Kemba Walker taking a seat in one of the final contests before the trade deadline, the presumptive primary beneficiaries will be Alec Burks and Immanuel Quickley, both of whom vaulted toward the top of the board on news of Walker’s absence. Between the two, Burks has produced a slightly better fantasy season so far this year, coming in with a 0.87 per-minute rate compared to the 0.82 at which Quickley has performed in limited minutes. Burks sees 26.7 minutes per game in the average situation. He is more of a cog in the regular machine, where Quickley is deployed for 21.8 minutes a night in more of a hot-hand approach. Over the team’s most recent three-game stretch, Quickley played 16, 27 and five minutes. He averaged just 0.65 fantasy points per minute over that run of games. Burks has seen 22.7 minutes a night in the same stretch, putting up 1.04 fantasy points per minute and clearly outplaying his young teammate. In the most recent outing, Burks played 30 minutes and posted 29.2 FanDuel points, which would be only slightly above a median performance for his salary tonight. Among the remaining Knicks, R.J. Barrett looks like the most frequently optimal player at any position, outpacing Julius Randle with a better optimal rate on FanDuel and a better boom score probability on DraftKings for a much lower price. Barrett is coming off a 53.1-point FanDuel performance in 50 minutes in the team’s most recent game, while Randle put up 62.7 FanDuel points in 41 minutes. With Barrett ready, willing and able to play nearly the entire game at a very high level, he seems like a quality option, but the field is aware of him and he is a negative-leverage play with underwhelming probability metrics on both sites, making him a mix-in option at best.
On FanDuel, Burks easily outpaces Quickley, checking in with a 30.2-minute projection and a 19.1% optimal lineup appearance rate. The younger guard has just a 24.9-minute projection and an 8.2% optimal lineup rate. The ownership marks on both players have not caught up with the uptick in discussion, they are both going to struggle to come in at positive leverage on this slate, but it is currently Quickley leading the way by virtue of a simple single-digit ownership projection, but he is the far less likely option to deliver the necessary value. Quickley has just a 9.73% boom score probability while Burks is at a 17.94% mark. Burks has eligibility at both guard positions and is the better play despite Quickley’s $4,400 price at the same positions. If either player starts the game particularly hot shooting, however, all bets are off, as the minutes will be distributed along those lines. The wild card of rookie Quentin Grimes is also a factor. If the Knicks need Grimes’ defense, or if he starts the night hot, he could see an uptick in minutes at the expense of either teammate, but Grimes is currently not a factor in FanDuel projections.
On DraftKings, Burks comes in with an excellent 23.8% optimal lineup appearance rate which makes him a top option on the slate overall. He also has positive leverage, coming in at a 4.1 with just 19.7% of the field getting to him despite the highly optimal nature of the play. Burks has a 26.5-point median projection and eligibility at both point guard and small forward on the site, making him a terrific option for lineup differentiation and flexibility. It is Quickley, meanwhile, who comes in at a better boom score probability, his $3,600 salary has him at a 27.62% mark in the category and he lands in the optimal lineup in 21.3% of simulated slates. Quickley is a much better target on the DraftKings slate for his low salary and flexibility between both guard spots. At this asking price, Quickley will not have to do much at all to pay off his salary, but his public ownership projection is not nearly caught up to the quality of the play. Even if the leverage gap closes as lock approaches, Quickley would be an excellent option for added shares on this slate.
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