Monday, Nov. 11 has a solid six-game main slate on all the big daily fantasy sites. Before you lock in your NBA DFS lineups and NBA DFS picks on DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo and FantasyDraft, make sure to check out check out Awesemo’s DFS basketball NBA rankings and projections. Let’s dig into some NBA DFS Picks, including Joel Embiid and Norman Powell.
Don’t forget to check out the NBA DFS Strategy Show with Josh Engelman and Loughy as they break down the NBA DFS slate and give out their thoughts on LeBron James, Anthony Davis, the Toronto Raptors injuries and more.
NBA DFS Picks: Prime Time Players
Houston Rockets at New Orleans Pelicans
We have a 243.0 projected point total with the Rockets as 3.5 road favorites. James Harden is spendy, but playing at his MVP level over his last three games with 40.7 points, 8.0 rebounds, 9.3 assists, 3.7 combined blocks and steals in 36.1 minutes. Oh and his shot is falling again as he has averaged 17.0 three point ATTEMPTS making 43.1% along with 14 trips per game to the free throw line.
Russell Westbrook has seen a dip in minutes, but the last three games have been blowouts one way or the other. He has seen his price dip and I would really want to have Westbrook in my non-Harden lineups.
On the other side of the ball we have Brandon Ingram who is 11th in the league scoring 25.9 points per game along with 7.3 rebounds and 3.9 assists with 1.7 combined blocks and steals. Jrue Holiday will see his production come around very soon and both of these guys are going to see heavy minutes with the ball in their hands as Lonzo Ball is already ruled out.
NBA DFS Picks: Good ValueÂ
Chris Boucher: Toronto Raptors at Los Angeles Clippers
DraftKings $3,400, FanDuel $4,100, Yahoo $10 Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 54.2%, FanDuel 25.5% Yahoo Fantasy 28.0%
Norman Powell: Toronto Raptors at Los Angeles Clippers
DraftKings $4,200, FanDuel $4,300, Yahoo $10 Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 23.2%, FanDuel 16.1% Yahoo Fantasy 29.6%
Serge Ibaka is out indefinitely with an ankle injury and Kyle Lowry is out for two weeks with a thumb fracture on his left hand. Last night we got to see how things could potentially shake out. Norman Powell drew the start and had 25.7 minutes and Chris Boucher did come off the bench, but got 24.4 minutes.
Now this game is a back-to-back, though it is in Los Angeles again. We saw Marc Gasol play 33.0 minutes which was his second highest total of the season. in the only other back-to-back this season he played 25.2 minutes in Boston followed up by 23.2 minutes in Chicago. This is a long way of pointing out that the Lakers have two “traditional” BIGs in Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee which may have had an influence in the minutes.
The Clippers go smaller with Montrezl Harrell supplanting Ivica Zubac typically after the first quarter rotation. We also saw the bench unit last night go on a nice fourth quarter run against the Lakers to put the game away. I would think that Powell is more likely in line for 28 to 30 minutes and Boucher in the 22-24 minute range.
Fred VanVleet is already playing the third most minutes per game at 37.4, but Kyle Lowry was fourth with 36.1 so that helps Powell get the bump. Serge Ibaka was playing about 24 minutes per game and with Pascal Siakam playing the eighth most minutes per game at 35.4 so it is hard to see him get many more. Plus OG Anunoby is getting 33.1 minutes per game. That all combined with the Clippers playing smaller should give minutes to Boucher and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson.
NBA DFS Picks: Risky ValueÂ
Derrick Favors: New Orleans Pelicans vs. Houston Rockets
DraftKings $4,700, FanDuel $5,300, Yahoo $15 Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 32.7%, FanDuel 44.7% Yahoo Fantasy 25.2%
First off, I am not a Derrick Favors fan these days and he is in his eleventh season, though “only” 28-years old. He was back in the starting lineup on Friday and did get 29.3 minutes in Charlotte. He was solid with a double double and 31.5 fantasy points. I just think the pace of this game and the lofty projected popularity of this play are not worth the risk of a 20 minute, less than 20 fantasy point game.
In his last eight games against Houston (all with Utah) he is averaging 22.6 minutes per game with a 0.91 fantasy points per minute rate. He topped 25 fantasy points only once. While Favors likely won’t “bust” with 25ish fantasy points, I just do not see a 40 fantasy point performance in the likely outcomes.
Tune in to the Deeper Dive tonight with Adam “ShipMyMoney” Scherer who will likely counterpoint this “taek” by me.
FantasyCruncher NBA DFS Tip of the Day
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With the incredibly user-friendly FantasyCruncher, we can take our lineup construction to the next level.
Today we will look at how to use the “group” feature within FantasyCruncher to facilitate a game stack.
For this example we will be focusing on the 243.0 total of the Houston Rockets at New Orleans Pelicans game.
Going to the Advanced Options >>> Groups will allow us to set up the players we want to include. For this example I have named my group HOU at NO Game Stack and requested that at least five players from this group are used in every lineup. The reason I named this group is to easily find it because I do not want to make all of my lineups focused on this game, we can use the “enable/disable” function to turn this rule on and off.
When creating a group in this manner, we will want to do a few runs to see what type of lineups are created. Our individual player exposure %s will be applied and then FantasyCruncher will choose the best five on a point per dollar basis. In this case, that is bringing in more of the New Orleans players than I would like to see. So I am using the General setting tab to set a minimum number of players from each team. In this instance I am using a minimum of two from each team for some balance.
Final Thoughts
It will be interesting to see just how heavy The Masses are going to go on the Rockets at Pelicans game as it currently has 20 more projected points than any other game on the docket. Remember that NBA DFS is about point per dollar and finding attainable upside that other gamers are overlooking.
It would not be a shock to see one or perhaps even two other games with a higher score than the Rockets/Pellies when things play out. Just keep that in mind. Heck three 1-7 NFL teams won on the road yesterday (counting the Jets who were technically the home team as it was their season ticket holders and not the Giants).
As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions about DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo or FantasyDraft.
Good Luck NBA DFS Gamers! ~ EMac
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