NBA DFS Leverage & Optimizer Picks: Talen Horton-Tucker Time (Feb. 11)

With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror, the focus now shifts solely to the on-court action. The NBA is offering up a nice eight-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 Talen Horton-Tucker, to help you build optimal NBA DFS lineups.

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NBA DFS Leverage Picks & Optimizer Plays | Feb. 11

Despite not being involved in any trades himself, Jazz wing Talen Horton-Tucker stands out as one of the biggest beneficiaries of the deadline. With Utah trading away both Mike Conley and Nickiel Alexander-Walker, minutes have become available for THT, especially with Russell Westbrook unlikely to join the team at all.

With Jordan Clarkson also out last night, Horton-Tucker came off the bench and put up nine points, seven rebounds, eight assists and two blocks in 27 minutes as the Jazz came back to beat Toronto 122-116. At only $3,300 on DraftKings and with both shooting guard and small forward eligibility, Horton-Tucker is projected for a modest 12.4% ownership share. More expensive on FanDuel at $4,300, Horton-Tucker is getting even less love there, with only 7.5% of lineups expected to roster him.

Now that Conley and Alexander-Walker are gone — and with Clarkson questionable — Horton-Tucker should continue to see a bump in pretty much everything and is clearly one of the slate’s best tournament plays. He is currently projected for 32.4% optimality on DraftKings and 24.7% optimality on FanDuel, offering strong leverage across both sites.

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Miami wing Max Strus is also flying under the radar tonight. Priced at only $3,900 on DraftKings and $4,200 on FanDuel, Strus is barely getting love on either site. While Strus doesn’t offer the same upside as Horton-Tucker, he is right there with THT as far as leverage goes.

In a good spot in Orlando against the Magic, Strus is projected to be optimal 13.2% of the time on DraftKings and 20.6% of the time on FanDuel. Despite his relatively high optimality percentages, NBA DFS players are forgetting about Strus on both sites, as he is projected to be only 9.4% owned on DraftKings and 13% owned on FanDuel.

Like Horton-Tucker, Strus is much more of a solid player than a spectacular one, but he offers surprisingly good leverage — especially with Miami potentially resting players on the second half of a back-to-back.

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On the flip side, Charlotte’s rookie center, Mark Williams, rates poorly from a leverage perspective on both DraftKings and FanDuel in Stokastic’s Boom/Bust Tool and might be worth fading. At only $3,500 on DraftKings, Williams is projected to find himself in 57.1% of lineups with an optimality percentage of only 32.2%. The story is similar on FanDuel, where Williams is projected for 63.6% ownership but only of 26.3% optimality.

Clearly one of the top plays on the slate, Williams’ affordable price and strong recent production will make him a popular value tonight, but with other really good centers on the board going under-owned, it may be wise to avoid him in large-field tournaments.

Situations to Monitor

In typical Saturday fashion, multiple big-name players have picked up questionable tags. They include Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Jamal Murray, Aaron Gordon, Jordan Clarkson and Tre Jones.

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.

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.