After a good Friday night on Fanduel, Saturday night is not going as well. I had the right players, just not in the right lineups. I still have a small chance in one lineup if Hayward, Favors, and Gobert all play great, but slim chance they all do against Golden State.
Glad I kept my investment small on Saturday while looking forward to today. A huge Sunday slate of games, with tons of great plays, and plenty of value to go around. Point guard today is particularly strong. I have 4 point guards in my Top Ten and 4 more made Honorable Mentions. Picking the right combination for point guard could be the difference between winning and losing tonight.
On a side note, watching ESPN, NBA TV, and listening to sports radio, am I the only one that feels like Steve Nash died? He retired, but they have so many highlight packages going all the way back to high school, and all the sports anchors are talking about him as if he has passed away. Listening to Mike D’Antoni on NBA TV saying things like “He was a great teammate” ” He always did things the right way” “The game of basketball changed because of him” really sounds ominous. Maybe it’s just me?
Sorry, went off a tangent there. Back to the matter at hand. Trying to win some money on a packed Sunday. I do have one recommendation for today, and something I’ll definitely be doing, keep your investment low on the All-Day slate. With all the late scratches and the dreaded “illness” going on now, you don’t want to have your lineup locked, only to find out at 6pm that 3 teams are resting players, or that Bledsoe suddenly has an “illness” and won’t play.
I’m not saying don’t play the all day slate, just don’t go all in. I’ll be going all in on the later slate though, I kept my investment low on Saturday for that exact reason. Ok, enough of me babbling on, let’s get to it.
Today’s Top Ten Plays
10) PF Nerlens Noel $7800 Man, what a game he had the other night versus the Knicks! He scored 58 Fanduel points. I don’t think you’ll get that out of him tonight, but he gets to play the West Coast Knicks, or are the Knicks the East Coast Lakers? Either way, Noel will have a big game.
9) PF Kenneth Faried $7200 He has averaged 36.5 Fanduel points since Denver fired Brian Shaw. I’m not really sure what Shaw was trying to do with Faried, and why he limited his minutes, but as someone who loves the MANimal and his style of play, I’m glad they fired Shaw. The Fandeul and Fantasy world are glad too. The Magic make for a good matchup today for him to continue his recent play.
8) SG DeMar DeRozan $7500 After a mild slump, DeRozan is back to his old self. A great matchup with New York shouldn’t slow him down, and thankfully the Knicks have found ways to hang around with good teams lately. At least long enough for the star players to get a ton of Fanduel points.
7) C Marcin Gortat $6600 Four straight sub-par games has brought his price down considerably, but 3 out of 4 of those games were against very good interior defenses. The 4th game was against this same Kings team, but I don’t expect him to repeat that performance. The Kings are the worst team in defense versus the center position, so Gortat will break out of his slump tonight.
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6) SF LeBron James $10800 Here is an interesting stat that started off as a hunch. I felt, for some reason, that James always seems to play well on Sunday. I went and looked at his last 4 Sunday games, and sure enough, over his last 4 Sunday’s he has averaged 53 Fanduel points. James likes the spotlight, and will come up big today.
5) SG Victor Oladipo $8400 Oladipo has been really good over his last 4 games. With Tobias Harris and Vucevic out of the lineup at different times, he has remained the one constant. Today he has a date with the 4th worst team versus shooting guards in the Nuggets. They also have the second highest pace in the NBA behind Golden State, which means tons of shots for Oladipo.
4) PG Elfrid Payton $7400 He was a “Dunk List” main-stay for a long time, and with 2 back to back triple doubles, he makes his Top Ten debut, and all the way at the number 4 spot. I used call him the poor man’s Ricky Rubio. I’ll have to modify that a bit. He is a better, healthier version of Rubio who also plays better defense. I’m not going to predict another triple double today, he is still a ways away from being a poor man’s Westbrook, but with the pace Denver plays at, and the lack of defense versus the point guard, he is my 4th best play of the day.
3) PG John Wall $9600 Anytime you can get 40 Fanduel points versus Chris Paul, you’re doing something. Now he gets a matchup with the worst team versus the point guard position, and the Wizards need to win this game after losing to the Clippers, I expect John Wall to come out firing.
2) PG Chris Paul $10500 With Harden, Westbrook, and Curry playing out of their minds, and one of them being a shoe-in for MVP, I’m of the mind-set that in a different year, Chris Paul would be the top contender. He has been over-shadowed by those other guys, and has quietly been putting in work. Tyreke Evans may sit this game out, forcing Cole into the starting spot against Paul, which actually may hurt Chris’s value a bit, as Cole is a plus defender. It won’t hurt it that much though. He may only get 55 instead of 60.
1) PG Russell Westbrook $13300 I’m going to just type up some generic praise of Westbrook, and just copy/paste it here every night he plays. Fade at your own risk.
Honorable Mentions
- SG Giannis Antetokounmpo $7500
- SF Rudy Gay $8600
- C Al Horford $7600
- PG Reggie Jackson $7400
- PG Alexey Shved $7200
- PG Goran Dragic $7100
- PG Kemba Walker $6900
- C Nikola Vucevic $8100
Dunks of the Night
- PG Ish Smith $5700 Two starts and two near identical 33.3 Fanduel point games. Lakers will offer no resistance.
- SG Evan Turner $5800 I’m putting 3 Boston Celtics on the Dunks list. One of them will benefit from Smart’s suspension, all 3 get a small bump, one will be huge.
- SG Avery Bradley $6000 see Evan Turner
- SF Jae Crowder $5200 see Evan Turner
- PF Andrea Bargnani $5800 Won’t get you much more than his baseline value, but still viable in a good matchup tonight.
- PF Ersan Ilyasova $5700 He won’t get the benefit of a triple overtime game tonight, but still a good play versus the Cavs
- C Alexis Ajinca $4900 Tough matchup, and I only like him if Asik and Davis are out.
Passes of the Night
- PG Tyreke Evans $7600 Tough matchup, and playing on a bum wheel. May not even play.
- SG Kevin Martin $6400 When you score 20 Fanduel points in 44 minutes versus the Knicks, you’re going to be on the Pass list the next game. Especially when you play a top 10 defense in the Hornets.
- SF Chandler Parsons $6200 Struggled last few games and hard to trust. Mavs offense isn’t what it was pre-Rondo.
Punts of the Night
- SF Chase Budinger $4200 His minutes have gone up in his last 4 games. I doubt he’ll be able to improve upon the 43 minutes he got last game, but 30+ should be enough to make him a viable punt.
- PG Norris Cole $4200 Tough matchup, and I only like him if Evans sits.
- SG Jodie Meeks $3900 Not a great punt, but you could do worse.
- SF Michael Beasley $4000 Flirted with a triple double last time out, and he has a decent matchup tonight with OKC.
That’s it for today’s post. I’ll try to put up the CVP Chart tomorrow and get up the “Things You Should Know”, but I have a very busy Sunday planned, so I may not have the time.
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