NBA DFS Lineup Optimizer Picks Today DraftKings & FanDuel Fantasy Basketball

Wednesday’s 10-game midweek mashup brings us another chaotic NBA DFS with existing value, pending news, and assuredly one or two wildly unpredictable curveballs that will get thrown in the 30-minutes immediately prior to lock. Today’s slate has a few strong options for bargain bin value plays who come up highly optimal but will have popularity while a handful of midrange options are floating to the top of the board as well. The game between the Kings and Hawks in Atlanta is the slate’s highest total at 231.5 while the Hornets vs. Pacers and Grizzlies vs. Spurs games both reach the high 220s, offering a wide range of selections for NBA DFS lineup building. The slate’s low point is the old-school Eastern Conference contest between the Knicks and Heat that flops to a 203 on the board in Vegas. Getting to a blend of value plays and strong options for boom score probability and optimal lineup rate from across the mix of games should help create a foundation of upside, and building in a few of the more positively leveraged plays should help with differentiation for large-field GPPs on FanDuel and DraftKings.

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 ten games on the slate, this article will focus on several of the top overall plays 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.

Kristaps Porzingis: DraftKings — $7,600 — PG | FanDuel –$8,200 — PF/C

Constantly under-owned Dallas big man Kristaps Porzingis looks like a standout option on the Boom/Bust Tool once again tonight. Porzingis has been featured in this space recently. He has consistently been projected for probability marks that outpace his popularity on both sides of the industry, which is the case as of the early afternoon projections and ownership updates. Porzingis averages 1.28 fantasy points per minute across all situations this season and he has climbed to a 1.30 over the team’s three most recent games. The dynamic big man was a 1.21 player last season, so the uptick is part of a general yearlong trend of quality. Porzingis is inexpensive for his overall upside, and he has positional flexibility on the site where he is at a higher price. Porzingis looks like a strong value once again tonight.

On FanDuel Porzingis is at a 15.8% optimal lineup appearance rate, the 12th-most frequently optimal player on the list on the blue site. He has eligibility at both the power forward and center positions on the site, which adds to his flexibility at an $8,200 price tag. He is projected for a 38.45-point median night on the blue site, which ranks him 17th overall on the site by raw fantasy points projection and his 18.86% boom score probability ranks 22nd overall on the slate. Given his upside and positional eligibility, Porzingis is under-owned by far at just an 8.9% popularity projection. That lack of ownership leaves him sitting at an excellent 6.9 leverage score that should be targeted.

While a 17.3% optimal lineup appearance rate on DraftKings is technically lower than across town, it ranks fourth overall on the DraftKings slate. That mark puts Porzingis second at the power forward position, behind only multi-position eligible Cameron Johnson, who costs just $4,300 and can be rostered at either forward spot. Porzingis is projected for a 39-point median score and he costs just $7,600 on the site, leaving him too cheap for the median score, let alone his 30.7% boom score probability. The boom score ranks 10th on the entire site, although a number of the players ahead of Porzingis in th category are projected for higher median totals from higher salary points, part of the slate’s give-and-take nature tonight. Porzingis is carrying just a 12.8% popularity projection on the DraftKings slate, pushing him to a 4.5 leverage score at the power forward position. He can be targeted for roughly double the field’s ownership without taking on much risk, getting ahead on this play seems like a strong approach to lineup construction tonight.

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Nikola Jokic: DraftKings — $12,400 — C | FanDuel — $11,800 — C

With an abundance of savings across the industry and a significant number of upper mid-range and star-caliber players burdened by questionable tags likely to create even more value options, it makes sense to look to the very top of the board for plug-in reliability and a shot at the night’s top scorer on any given slate. That concept is personified in superstar center Nikola Jokic, who produces fantasy points like no one else in the game. Jokic is at a 1.72 per-minute mark across all situations this season and he has been at a 1.78 rate over the team’s three most recent contests while playing 36.7 minutes a night. He has a 64.9% true shooting percentage, a 37.9% assist rate and a 21% rebounding percentage this season, and he should be rostered more aggressively than he typically is, even at the slate’s highest prices on both sites.

Jokic is a $12,400 center on the DraftKings slate, by far the most costly option on the board, but he still ranks eighth overall with a 15% optimal lineup appearance rate. The big man is projected for a whopping 61.5-point median DraftKings score, easily the top projection on the board tonight. While he does rank behind both Jusuf Nurkic and Jakob Poeltl by optimal rate, with the centers coming in at 16.6% and 16.2% respectively, Jokic is simply on another tier of production, which is clear from his 37.71% boom score probability. That mark sits above the 35.63% carried by Poeltl and the 33.2% that Nurkic rides into the slate, despite the fact that Jokic is nearly twice as expensive on the slate. With that clear of a path to a ceiling score and a lack of general popularity at just 15.7% ownership, Jokic can be rostered aggressively. He is technically at a -0.7 leverage score, but there is plenty of room to stretch beyond the field and get different in other areas of a lineup tonight, Jokic’s raw point scoring can be that impactful on a slate.

The big man costs $11,800 and can fit in only at the center position on FanDuel. He sits ninth at a 16.6% optimal lineup appearance rate, the second-best mark at the position behind Hassan Whiteside, who comes in at 23.6% for just a $5,500 salary. The major question in rostering Whiteside shares is the opportunity cost involved in skipping Jokic on this slate. The big center from Denver is projected for a 58.38-point median score compared to a 35.2-point mark for the far less expensive Whiteside. The value center has a 51.98% boom score probability on the slate while Jokic comes in with a 34.58% mark that defies his high price. With Whiteside at 26.6% popularity and a -3.0 leverage score and Jokic at an 18.1% mark with a -1.5 leverage score it truly makes sense to push beyond the field’s exposure on both plays, utilizing them in a variety of lineup combinations as the two most frequently rostered centers.

CJ McCollum: DraftKings — $7,300 — PG/SG | FanDuel — $7,900 — SG

Finally landing back in the lineup over the team’s last five games, Portland star CJ McCollum has been knocking the rust off, averaging 0.98 fantasy points per minute in 37.3 minutes per game over the last three. McCollum has produced at just a 1.0 per-minute mark on 25.7% usage across all situations this season, down from the 1.11 that he posted on 26.5% last year. With fellow star Damian Lillard on the shelf for the foreseeable future, McCollum will have plenty to do in the team’s offense, his usage bounces to a 28.3% rate, leading the team in 502 minutes without Lillard on the floor this season. The guard has a 53.2% true shooting percentage and a 20.5% assist share with just a 5.8% rebounding rate this year. He needs to score the ball to truly deliver in most cases. McCollum is not drawing much popularity across the industry, but he projects as a standard mix-and-match piece more than he is an extreme upside option.

The Portland guard has the most utility on DraftKings, where he is carrying a 14.6% optimal lineup appearance rate at both guard positions for just $7,300. McCollum is projected for a 36.3-point median projection on the slate and his low-for-him salary has a 24.32% boom score probability in the next column, pushing the clear value of the guard on this slate. McCollum is projected for just 12.7% popularity despite the cheap price, leaving him with a 1.9 leverage score that can be targeted for a fair number of shares. It is important to realize that McCollum’s probability marks are not stretched extremely far beyond the field like many of the options covered in this space on most days, but on this slate he looks like a sound option for reliable productivity, which could be enough.

McCollum’s value slips on the FanDuel slate where he costs $7,900 and is limited to just the shooting guard position. He has just a 9.9% optimal lineup appearance rate on the blue site, but his median projection is 35.1 FanDuel points, and no one will be rostering him. McCollum is projected for merely 3.7% popularity, leaving him at an excellent 6.2 leverage score. Despite a true lack of likely upside – McCollum’s boom score probability stands at just 11.62% on this slate – the shooting guard makes for a sound play based on the general lack of popularity. At a salary below $8,000, with plenty of money to spend on the slate, it is easy to include McCollum in a rotation of mid-range players who have potential upside but can also deliver value simply by coming in around their median expectation on this slate.

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Author

Terry McBride

Terry used to do other things, now he writes words on the internet. He hopes his more than 20 years’ experience in season-long and daily fantasy sports and his custom models for MLB, NBA, and NFL don't steer you too wrong when he writes columns and makes picks on Awesemo.com. A lifetime of experience keeping odd hours make Terry ideal to cover KBO baseball overnight until the world returns to normal. Most of those late night hours have been spent on the couch watching sports, T.V., and movies; just try to shut him up about any of the above. You can find his pop-culture ramblings and more on Sideaction.