NBA DFS Leverage & Optimizer Picks: Hard to Avoid the Heat (Feb. 4)

With football on hold until next weekend, the NBA offers us a nice seven-game slate on Saturday. This article will analyze Stokastic’s ownership projections to see how to best handle high-and low-owned players in order to gain leverage in DFS tournaments. Let’s get into the top NBA DFS leverage picks for today, including Max Strus, to help you build optimal NBA DFS lineups.

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NBA DFS Leverage Picks & Optimizer Plays | Feb. 4

Like they have done for most of the year, the Miami Heat will play shorthanded tonight. Despite the tough matchup against Milwaukee, there’s a lot to like about Miami in NBA DFS. While the trio of Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo all look like some of the best plays on the slate, a lesser-known wing, Max Strus, stands out as one of the top targets DFS players can look to for leverage tonight.

At only $3,800 on DraftKings with both shooting guard and small forward eligibility, Strus is projected for a modest 20.3% ownership share. More expensive on FanDuel at $4,500, Strus is getting even less love there, with only 8.4% of lineups expected to roster him.

With Gabe Vincent questionable, Victor Oladipo doubtful and Kyle Lowry out tonight, Max Strus should see a bump in pretty much everything and is one of the slate’s best tournament plays. He is currently projected to be optimal a whopping 33.3% of the time on DraftKings and 16.1% of the time on FanDuel and offers strong leverage across both sites.

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Houston guard Daishen Nix is also flying under the radar. Priced at only $3,700 on DraftKings and $4,200 on FanDuel, Nix is barely getting love on either site. While Nix isn’t nearly as safe as Strus in terms of raw production, he is right there with Strus as far as leverage goes across both sites.

Nix has a great matchup tonight. He’ll face an Oklahoma City backcourt that ranks 29th in the NBA against opposing point guards. Nix is projected to be optimal 17.9% of the time on DraftKings and 13.6% of the time on FanDuel. Despite his high optimality percentages, NBA DFS players are forgetting about Nix on both sites, as he is projected to be only 8.5% owned on DraftKings and 7.7% owned on FanDuel.

Like Strus, Nix is more of a solid player than a spectacular one, but he offers surprisingly good leverage on both sites — especially with Kevin Porter Jr. out and Jalen Green questionable.

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On the flip side, Josh Christopher rates poorly from a leverage perspective on both DraftKings and FanDuel in Stokastic’s Boom/Bust Tool and might be worth fading. At only $3,200 on DraftKings, Christopher is projected to find himself in 41% of lineups with an optimality percentage of only 23%.

Christopher’s affordable price and strong recent production will make him a popular value tonight, but with other value plays like Strus and Nix going under-owned, it may be wise to avoid him in large-field tournaments.

Situations to Monitor

In typical Saturday fashion, there multiple big-name players have picked up questionable tags. They include Nikola Jokic, Jalen Brunson, Jalen Green, Spencer Dinwiddie, Klay Thompson, Aaron Gordon and Draymond Green

NBA injury news is always unpredictable, and it seems like every night we get unexpected scratches, sometimes at the last minute. That’s especially the case on weekends, when beat reporters and staff are less aware of team situations. Tune into the Stokastic Live Before Lock show on YouTube at 6 p.m. ET for all of the up-to-date analysis as late NBA news breaks and changes to the best NBA DFS picks and plays.

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Author

Matthew Belman

Matt Belman graduated from Tulane University with a degree in Consumer Behavior. He has been playing and analyzing DFS full time since 2018. He has qualified for the 2023 DraftKings NBA World Championship (5x), the 2023 DraftKings MLB World Championship (2x), the 2023 FanDuel MLB World Championship (2x) and the 2023 DraftKings NFL World Championship. You can find him on X at @fantasytipsmatt.