NBA Daily Fantasy Picks: DraftKings + FanDuel Optimal Lineups

Last night’s daily fantasy basketball slate was a lot like my morning, gone up in flames. Suffice to say, it’s basically a tie between Joel Embiid’s injury tanking most my lineups and waking up to the building next door pouring out smoke and firemen in the yard for worst moment of the last 24 hours. So, on we move to the seven game Saturday slate, and the grind continues. With seven games, we’ll be focused on a few of the top optimal-lineup plays on the board before dipping into the lower-owned end of things. We are always looking for players who are under-appreciated 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. 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.

Toronto Raptors

If you caught today’s GamePlan show, or any of our other content, you already know that the Raptors are going to be a critical piece of the puzzle on tonight’s slate on both sites. Toronto will be without several prominent players once again, with Fred VanVleet, Pascal Siakam and OG Anunoby, among others, still in the league’s medical protocols. This leaves Kyle Lowry as the team’s lone star, and thrusts several role players into big spots for daily fantasy basketball value.

Since the start of 2019, with those three teammates off the floor, Lowry has a 1.15 fantasy point per minute rate and a 26.1% usage rate, both team-leading marks. The point guard will have the ball in his hands as the team’s primary facilitator and will call his own number frequently, as the top scorer available. Lowry comes up as one of the top plays for optimal lineup appearance rate on both sites, with a fourth-ranked 25.8% mark on FanDuel and a third-best 21.8% on DraftKings. Lowry will be owned by the field, but not at rates so significant that we will need to get away from him. On DraftKings, he has a -4.3 leverage score, while he comes up with a -1.9 on FanDuel, making him slightly more appealing on the blue site.

Lowry’s teammates are all over the top of the board as well. DeAndre’ Bembry leads the DraftKings slate with a 29.6% optimal lineup appearance rate, given his $3,800 salary at the small forward spot. He will be extremely popular, pulling in a 37.5% ownership share with a -7.9 leverage score, but he is so frequently optimal that he likely trends more toward key building block than problem. On FanDuel, he is further down the board but still in play with his 19.7% optimal lineup rate and only a -2.6 leverage score. His $4,100 salary fits into our shooting guard requirements well, as does the 34.2% boom score probability.

Norman Powell is a player we prefer to get to when he is inexpensive for the situation, that is not the case on either site tonight, though Powell’s opportunity keeps him very much in play. For $7,600 at small forward on FanDuel, he comes up in the optimal lineup in 24.0% of simulations, and his -1.2 leverage score isn’t bad for the upside. Powell makes for an awkward fit, given how salaries fit together on the slate tonight, it will be interesting to see the depths to which the public is willing to sacrifice upside at other spots to get to him. On DraftKings, Powell comes up as both a shooting guard and a small forward, adding to the appeal and increasing his utility. He lands in the optimal lineup in 22.5% of simulations while carrying a 23.9% boom score probability. The field is on Powell on this site as well, he has a -3.5 leverage score but remains a top play, given his 0.95 DraftKings points per minute rate and nearly 37-minute projection.

Chris Boucher is another Raptor who could be thrust into the spotlight tonight, Awesemo has him slated for a 27-minute projection and the upside is apparent. Boucher ranks sixth on the FanDuel slate with a 22.3% optimal lineup rate, though the field will be on him to the extend that he has a -4.6 leverage score. Despite the popularity, Boucher slots in as a strong option at power forward on the blue site. On DraftKings he is eligible only as a center, limiting the degree to which he fits in. The $6,600 salary is also an awkward demand on the overall construction of a lineup on this site tonight. Boucher lands in the optimal lineup only 14.0% of the time, and the field is getting to him a little too often, he has a -1.4 leverage score. There are better center options on the slate.

Stanley Johnson and Terence Davis are both on the board as well. Johnson has produced 0.72 fantasy points per minute across all situations this season, with Davis checking in at 0.85. They will both see minutes in the 20s, Johnson has a 28-minute projection from Awesemo while Davis is at 23.4, where the dominoes actually fall could be slate deciding given the extreme value pricing on both players on both sites. Adding center Aaron Baynes to the value mix complicates things, though he is not the most optimal center play on either site, coming in with just a 12.0% rate on DraftKings and an 11.3% on FanDuel, while getting too much public exposure. Between Johnson and Davis the pick on FanDuel appears to be Johnson. He offers significant utility at the small forward position for the bare minimum, and his 32.8% boom score probability fits into our lineup nicely when he is not over-exposed. Davis will be in numerous lineups as well, though his more limited projection and 19.6% boom score probability, combined with being Terence Davis, make him less appealing overall. On DraftKings, Johnson slightly outpaces his teammate with a 16.7% optimal lineup rate and 15.7% boom score probability, compared to juts 12.7% and 11.8%. Neither player will be dramatically over-owned, and both offer significant salary savings and the ability to roster key players at other positions.

Caris LeVert — Indiana Pacers

DraftKings — $7,100 — SG | FanDuel — $3,900 — SG

LeVert is making his triumphant return to the NBA tonight, joining his new Pacers team for the first time on the court, and he is hilariously mispriced on FanDuel. DraftKings took the optimistic outlook to the player’s return, listing him at $7,100 and making him all but an afterthought for daily fantasy basketball purposes. As nice a story as it is – and it is truly inspiring to see him overcome his kidney ailment so quickly – we simply don’t know what to expect from a player who has been out for this long for medical reasons. As it stands, LeVert is pulling in a 23.2 minute projection from Awesemo, which is enough to vault him near the top of the FanDuel board. If he sees that much run he will absolutely be relevant on the blue site.

LeVert was averaging 1.27 fantasy points per minute with the Nets at the start of the season, before being dealt in the gigantic James Harden multi-team extravaganza of a trade. He will likely eventually become a focal point of the Pacers’ attack, though that might not come immediately. If LeVert falls below our minutes projection significantly he will lose value fast, though at just $3,900 he does not have to do very much, and it is unlikely that he produces so little that he destroys all hope. The shooting guard has a 28.7% optimal lineup appearance rate and a 39.6% boom score probability, but his best feature other than the salary is the 7.6 leverage score. The public simply does not trust the play right now, and it’s difficult to blame them. Pay close attention to any news about a minutes cap and adjust accordingly, if we expect more than 20 minutes, LeVert looks like a key to FanDuel success.

Sorry, DraftKings folks, he’s simply not worth discussing on that slate at $7,100. You’re on your own if you choose to roster the 0.50% optimal lineup appearance rate and 0.8% boom score probability. Wait for the minutes to catch up before rostering LeVert at that salary, or let the cost fall first. Maybe next time.

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Anthony Edwards — Minnesota Timberwolves

DraftKings — $6,500 — SG/SF / FanDuel — $6,500 — SG

The first overall pick of the draft has probably already written his Rookie of the Year concession speech; unless he utterly blows the doors off LaMelo Ball’s production in the second half, Edwards is playing for second place at best. Still, the rookie is having a strong season and has produced both highlight worthy dunks and playable production for daily fantasy basketball. He has a 0.88 fantasy point per minute rate across all situations this season, and he looks to be in play on both sites.

On DraftKings, Edwards lands as both a shooting guard and small forward, our favorite combination that lets him land all over our variable lineup constructions. Edwards has a 17.8% optimal lineup appearance rate that ranks fifth on the slate and comes up with an 18.6% boom score probability. He will be owned by the public, but his -5.3 leverage score is still in the range where we can push past the public at a total exposure mark of just 23.1%. I would have no qualms about doubling that mark, given the player’s value and flexibility.

On FanDuel, Edwards is locked to the shooting guard position for $6,500, but he retains strong value. He will be a popular play at 27.4% public ownership, delivering a -5.9 leverage score against his 21.5% optimal lineup appearance rate. The dearth of options at the position makes him one of our best bets for both a ceiling score and just delivering median projection value. There simply are not strong shooting guard choices on the slate tonight. Edwards fits in well, his 23.6% boom score probability suggests there is enough upside that it makes sense to extend to at least the field’s ownership. Carving off shares of the shooting guard spot for James Harden is tempting, but the superstar costs nearly twice as much and lands in the optimal lineup with less frequency while significantly devaluing what we can get to at other positions. Sometimes it is more about what a player takes away than what he adds.

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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.