We’re back with a nice sized nine-game slate on Friday. Using Stokastic’s NBA DFS Boom/Bust tool, let’s dive into the player pool to discuss the best NBA DFS contrarian picks on DraftKings this evening. Nonetheless, onto our NBA DFS contrarian picks.
NBA DFS Contrarian Picks – Plays For Today
Contrarian Stud — Tyrese Maxey: Philadelphia 76ers-Detroit Pistons
Coming off a two-game slate where the good contrarian plays were few and far between, it’s nice to be back to some normalcy with nine games on tonight’s docket. Keeping in mind that everything can change as injury news comes out during the day, Tyrese Maxey is the clear top contrarian spend up option at $8,100 on DraftKings.
Matched up with a Pistons team that routinely gets torched by opposing point guards, Maxey couldn’t ask to be in a better spot. With James Harden now out of the picture, Maxey has seen his usage and numbers rise and he looks like a steal on DraftKings at only $8.1K.
Coming into tonight’s contest averaging 47.1 DrafKings points per game, that’s right in line with the 44.88 we have him projected for in a smash spot against Detroit. As of this writing our Boom/Bust tool has Maxey projected to be optimal 18.40% of the time this slate plays out on DraftKings. Compare that to his 12.10% expected ownership and it’s clear why Maxey looks so good as a contrarian spend up.
Contrarian Mid-Tier — Marcus Sasser: Philadelphia 76ers-Detroit Pistons
Sticking with Philadelphia-Detroit in a game that looks good from a tournament perspective, Marcus Sasser stands out as the top mid-tier differentiator on DraftKings. After an average salary of only $3,777 through Sasser’s first nine career games, DraftKings finally bumped him up to $5,800 and the field is finding it difficult to get to him at this new price point.
While I’m not completely buying what Sasser is selling with only a nine-game sample size, he’s clearly shown he can pay off a $5,800 price tag and he’s the highest graded leverage play on the slate. Similar to Maxey, Sasser is projected to be optimal 17.70% of the time on DraftKings.
Unlike Maxey, however, no one is prioritizing Sasser with only 4.80% of lineups expected to roster him. Although there’s definitely some risk in allocating $5,800 to an unknown commodity at the NBA level, there’s also potentially much more skin on the bone at this price tag, with the masses not interested in finding out.
Contrarian Value — Dwight Powell: Los Angeles Clippers-Dallas Mavericks
As DraftKings continues to do a much better job of consistently pricing up players, there seems to be a definite lack of viable value pieces priced under $4,000. As such, we’ve had to dumpster dive a bit for contrarian value, and that theme continues tonight with Mavericks center Dwight Powell.
While it goes without saying that Powell is much more solid than spectacular, he’s the top contrarian value play tonight at only $4,100 on DraftKings. Despite his cheap price point, only 0.80% of the field is expected to roster Powell on this slate. With an optimal percentage of 3.60%, however, Powell stands out as a really good, low-cost way to get different in large field GPP’s. The statuses of both Dereck Lively (questionable) and Maxi Kleber (doubtful) will certainly have an impact on these numbers so make sure to stay updated with our tools as we lead up to lock!
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