NBA Daily Fantasy Picks: DraftKings + FanDuel Optimal Lineups

Feast or famine NBA style brings another massive 11-game slate on Friday, and after Thursday’s busy trade deadline shook things up, there are some short-handed teams dealing with unique situations. With several interesting value plays available and a significant number of stars looking appealing, there are all sorts of directions to turn on this daily fantasy basketball slate. On this 11-game slate the focus is on the top overall plays, with an eye toward leverage of course. The goal is to find under-appreciated players for the frequency with which they land in the optimal lineup in DraftKings and FanDuel NBA simulations.

As always, this article comes out ahead of lock, and many things will change with our daily fantasy basketball picks. Be sure to follow the @AwesemoNBA Twitter handle for all the latest breaking news (via our NewsGod).

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NBA Daily Fantasy Basketball: Optimals + Leverage Leaders

These picks are made utilizing the boom/bust tool, specifically analyzing the optimized-lineup rate, leverage score, and boom probability. The optimized-lineup rate represents the frequency at which a player appears 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, and we will also be discussing bad chalk and shaky investments in this space, so be sure to read the analysis and not just the headlines.

Anfernee Simons — Portland Trail Blazers

DraftKings — $3,700 — PG/SG | FanDuel — $3,500 — PG

Were you expecting a different member of the Trail Blazers roster here? Patience, my friends — the absence of superstar point guard Damian Lillard tonight has created significant opportunities up and down the team’s rotation. One such option should stand to benefit tremendously and costs the minimum on one site, close to it on another. Simons is projected for 27 minutes of action tonight and could crest that mark in the right situation. He has produced 0.79 fantasy points per minute through all situations this season, a mark that takes a minor uptick to 0.81 without Lillard. Simons will simply not have to do a lot to reach the scores necessary for his salary at a premium position.

On DraftKings Simons lands third on the boom/bust board when sorted by optimal-lineup rate, smashing the bulk of the competition with a 27.7% mark. He comes up with a 36.6% boom-score probability that is also among the slate’s leaders, suggesting significant upside for his low salary, not to mention the utility that he provides by flexing between guard positions on the site. Simons is underappreciated by the public as things currently stand, coming in with a sizable 4.7 leverage score. It makes sense to press well past the field’s ownership on one of the best building block values on the slate unless he swings into massively negative leverage territory.

On FanDuel Simons drops to seventh in terms of optimal-lineup rate, coming in with a 16.1% mark. Simons has a significant probability of hanging a ceiling score on his minimum price on the blue site, coming in with a 40.5% rate, and he will be under-owned on this site as well, landing with a 0.70 leverage score. Losing the positional flexibility costs him several percentage points in our optimal rates, but Simons is clearly one of the best plays site-to-site available on the Friday daily fantasy basketball slate.

CJ McCollum — Portland Trail Blazers

DraftKings — $7,700 — PG/SG | FanDuel — $7,500 — SG

Now for the main course. Without Lillard on the floor, the recently returned McCollum becomes the team’s top option, and he stands out for being underpriced for the situation. McCollum averages 1.18 fantasy points per minute across all situations this season, in admittedly limited action. That mark moves slightly up to 1.20 without Lillard back to December of 2019. McCollum will lead the team with a massive usage share and has the ability to produce points in buckets for both real-life and fantasy purposes. In the team’s most recent game — with Lillard on the floor — McCollum posted 35 real points on 14 of 25 shooting, taking 14 3-point attempts and making six of them. He added eight assists to that effort and managed a block, though he did turn the ball over several times. Ultimately McCollum is there to score the basketball, something he will be asked to do with regularity tonight, though his assist rate does jump from the low 20s to the low 30s without Lillard in the lineup.

On FanDuel McCollum is the top option on the board by optimal-lineup rate, and it is not a particularly close race. He lands with a firm 45.0% optimal-lineup rate, more than 7 percentage points higher than the next best option. McCollum’s paltry salary at the shooting guard spot gives him a monster 56.0% boom-score probability, and he sails into nearly 50% of public lineups. That mark tends to give us hesitation on such a large slate, but McCollum is only slightly negatively leveraged, coming up with a playable -3.7 mark that leaves us wanting to edge up over the field given the lack of strong positional options from the mid-range.

On DraftKings McCollum is second on the slate, beating out Simons by mere percentage points in the optimal-lineup rate at 35.6% He comes up with a ceiling score nearly half the time on simulations for this site as well, landing in that ranges 47.9% of the time, while he will be only slightly over-owned at 38.8% public exposure, suggesting we can leverage up on additional shares.

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Jalen Brunson — Dallas Mavericks

DraftKings — $4,500 — PG/SG | FanDuel — $4,800 — PG

Changing gears on the fly, the latest update to NBA news included the fact that Luka Doncic will be out for tonight’s Mavericks game, completely changing the look of the value point guard options. Brunson leaps to the top of the board, pushing Simons down somewhat from where he was just 10 minutes ago. He has been slate-breaking for NBA DFS players in the past, and it will be easy to roster him, which much of the field seems to be doing on both sites. Brunson’s production leaps to 1.01 fantasy points per minute in games that Doncic has missed this season.

On DraftKings Brunson is our new overall slate leader, coming in with a massive 55.5% optimal-lineup rate. He has a 64.3% boom-score probability, suggesting that he is reaching that required ceiling score for us far more often than not. Brunson’s multi-position eligibility makes him incredibly appealing tonight; the only minor ding in the armor is his -9.7 leverage score. This is typically still a playable mark, and large shares of Brunson still make for a solid plan; still, it is tempting to undercut the field on an 11-game slate. The value and utility are probably too strong for that here, however, so sticking with the optimal play and eating some good chalk should be the healthy diet tonight.

On FanDuel Brunson is in the optimal lineup in 38.9% of simulations, significantly lower across sites, given the lack of shooting guard eligibility. He still comes up with a tremendous 60.5% boom-score probability, and his optimal-lineup rate is second only to that of McCollum, so this is still a top-end play. Brunson will be popular on the blue site as well, coming up with a -10.4 leverage score that is concerning for the same reasons. On FanDuel Brunson’s raw ownership projects to be in the 50% range, which is at least more friendly than the two-thirds mark he hit on the competing site. Getting different within our Brunson constructions will be important on this slate, but he seems like a strong building block.

Orlando Magic

This section was going to be longer before the Brunson news dropped, but the shaken-up Magic are going to be slate-relevant tonight, but their importance has been whittled down significantly by the emergent value at the guard positions they were previously populating. With the team wheeling and dealing and sending all their non-replacement level players out for replacement, they are stuck with a literal “who’s who” of a roster.

Team-leading Michael Carter-Williams looks like the top option on the current iteration of the boom/bust tool. He provides value at the point guard spot given his mid-range $5,500 salary, but the emergence of Brunson and Simons on the slate has knocked him back significantly. He lands in a still-robust 25.8% of optimal lineups in FanDuel simulations, 14.7% on DraftKings, and will still be over-owned as of the late afternoon. That ownership mark will be the most important thing to monitor for the Carter-Williams play, if we see his ownership shrink and leverage score rise, he works as a mid-range pivot from the more popular value guards.

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Dwayne Bacon has more relevance with his cross-positional utility on the DraftKings slate. He lands in 19.0% of the optimal lineups in simulations for that site, compared to just 14.8% of FanDuel slates. Bacon has an interesting price point and a 31.7% boom-score probability that keeps him slightly relevant on FanDuel; his 26.3% mark on DraftKings makes the -10.7 leverage score a bit more questionable. Again, monitor the ownership and leverage marks before making your final decision on Bacon tonight.

James Ennis is likely to see significant run for the Magic tonight, Awesemo has him projected for more than 30 minutes, and he could put up a playable score for the money. Without the traded trio of Evan Fournier, Nikola Vucevic and Aaron Gordon this season, Ennis jumps to 1.06 fantasy points per minute that absolutely sparkles. Removing Terrence Ross sends it another step higher to 1.13, making Ennis a sneaky-strong play on the slate. He is drawing attention on FanDuel, where he costs just $5,000 and fits in as a small forward mid-range value play. On DraftKings Ennis has limited ownership and utility, given the $6,000 price. While he is not entirely off the board, Khem Birch appears to be the better frontcourt option given the 13.3% optimal-lineup rate, quadruple that of Ennis’ 3.6% mark.

The balance of the Magic has been rendered as mostly mix-in values until something else changes. Stay tuned.

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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.