The NBA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each day’s slate using the FantasyLabs Tools and predictive metrics to highlight notable players.
Friday features a three-game slate starting at 7 p.m. ET.
Point Guard
Stud
John Wall has been a different player since teammate Marcin Gortat threw shade at him on Twitter. In 37 games this season pre-shade, Wall averaged 42.1 DraftKings points, a Plus/Minus of -1.60, and 51% Consistency. But in nine games post-shade, he’s averaging 54.3 DraftKings points, a Plus/Minus of +12.43, and 89% Consistency. Gortat’s ruthless sub-tweet obviously lit a fire under Wall, and it’s purely a coincidence that those last nine games are the first Wall’s played since undergoing an arthroscopic procedure to address a nagging knee injury he’s been dealing with for most of the season. Either way, post-Gortat-slander/post-knee-surgery Wall is the top-rated player on the slate in the Phan Model, which historically has been our most accurate Pro Model for NBA. Through five games of Washington’s first-round series against Toronto, he hasn’t scored fewer than 47.5 DraftKings points and has topped 60 three times. If this is the last time we get to roster Wall this season, it sure has been one hell of a ride down the stretch.
Not only does Wall carry a higher median projection than the more expensive Russell Westbrook, but Wall’s floor projection (the fantasy point total we expect a player to reach 85% of the time) is 14 points higher than Westbrook’s. In cash games, the choice is obvious, but tournament players will want to note that both star point guards have similar ceiling projections, and Westbrook’s series-high in DraftKings points is 75.75, which is 9.25 points higher than Wall’s. That 75-point outburst occurred in the Thunder’s comeback win in Game 5, and they needed every ounce of that production to stay alive in the playoffs. With them going into Utah as a road underdog tonight, it’s very possible this is also the last time this season that we get to roster the triple-double machine.
Value
Ricky Rubio has the top Projected Plus/Minus of any point guard not named Wall. Rubio is averaging 8.6 rebounds and 7.8 assists in the series, which enables him to not only post high-ceiling games when he shoots well — such as his 59.2 FanDuel points on 9-of-18 shooting in Game 3 — but also finish right around salary-based expectations when he shoots as poorly as the 8-of-26 stretch he’s been in since.
Fast Break
Our Models have Kyle Lowry rated right up there with Rubio and ahead of Westbrook. Lowry’s salary has come up since the start of the playoffs, but he would’ve still hit value at his current price point of $8,400 on FanDuel and $8,000 on DraftKings in each of the past four games. With just a 1.5-point spread in the Raptors-Wizards game, there’s merit to stacking Lowry with Wall in tournaments and hoping for overtime.
Shooting Guard
Stud
A pretty big gap exists between the Projected Plus/Minuses of Donovan Mitchell and DeMar DeRozan compared to every other shooting guard on FanDuel. Mitchell’s $8,700 cap hit implies 39.18 fantasy points, which he’s gone over in four of five playoff games and fallen short of by fewer than two points in the other. DeRozan hasn’t been as consistent as Mitchell and thus carries a floor projection that’s more than four points less than Utah’s rookie phenom. However, DeRozan does have the edge over Mitchell when it comes to projected ceiling and Opponent Plus/Minus.
Value
The Cleveland Cavaliers essentially punt the wing positions in real life with Kyle Korver and J.R. Smith, so it’s only fitting that they rate among the top punt options in DFS. Korver, who is priced in the mid-$4,000s on both sites, is the more efficient fantasy scorer of the two; he averages 0.74 FanDuel points per minute over the past month compared to Smith’s 0.59. Smith’s value lies mostly in the 33-36 minutes per game he’s been logging since Game 2.
Fast Break
The main reason Smith’s minutes have been so consistent is that he’s been doing a great job as Cleveland’s primary defender on Victor Oladipo, who’s been trending in the wrong direction:
Oladipo’s salary is still $9,000 on FanDuel but only $7,900 on DraftKings, so the latter is where you want to roster him if you want to bet on his 12-of-50 (24%) shooting over the past three games regressing to the mean.
Small Forward
Stud
Only Wall has a higher rating on FanDuel or a higher Projected Plus/Minus on DraftKings than LeBron James, who has at least 24 points, 10 rebounds, five assists, and two combined steals/blocks in all five playoff games. James has played 40-46 minutes in every playoff game, and since we added actual minutes as a filter option in our NBA Trends tool, we can see how James has historically performed when playing that many minutes on the road (spoiler: he’s performed exceptionally well):
(Data from FanDuel since 2014-15)
Value
Kelly Oubre has been playing 26.4 minutes per game since Game 2 yet can be had for only $4,200 on either FanDuel and DraftKings. At that price point, Oubre’s salary-based expectations are below 20 fantasy points, but he’s gone for 20-plus in three of his past four games. His value would be enhanced even further should the bone contusion in Otto Porter‘s left leg limit him or force him to sit out altogether.
Fast Break
Paul George is coming off consecutive games of dropping more than 30 points for the Thunder and leads the position in Pro Trends on FanDuel, where he also has a 90% Bargain Rating. Using the Trends tool, I found that players with similar Bargain Ratings and Pro Trends in George’s salary range have historically hit value at a 60% clip:
Power Forward
Stud
There’s no true stud power forwards on this slate; Kevin Love is the highest-priced option at the position on FanDuel at $7,400 but comes with a better Bargain Rating on DraftKings (90%). Love has been too unreliable to use in cash games for a while now — he’s averaging a -3.17 Plus/Minus and has exceeded value just 47% of the time over the past month — but is capable of posting a high score if he could manage to combine a decent shooting night with his rebounding ceiling in this series:
Love isn’t the only boom-or-bust power forward option on the slate. Save for LeBron, who has eligibility at the position on DraftKings, no other power forward has a rating of 70 or more in the Phan Model — the only such position where that’s the case.
Value
After playing fewer than 20 minutes in Games 1 and 2, Domantas Sabonis has played 24 or more in each of his past three. The 11th overall pick in 2016 has come on especially strong over his past two games, posting 19 points and six rebounds in 25 minutes in Game 4 and following that up with 22 points and five rebounds in 33 minutes in Game 5. Sabonis is averaging right around 1.0 fantasy point per minute over the past month.
Fast Break
Thaddeus Young has been reliable lately, scoring at least 24 DraftKings points in each of his past four games. Young also has a 95% Bargain Rating on DraftKings and a +6.6 Opponent Plus/Minus, which is ranked second among all players on the slate.
There are a lot of other relatively affordable power forwards to choose from but little reliability to be found. Carmelo Anthony started out the playoffs hot with 38.4 FanDuel points in Game 1 against the Jazz, but his production has been decreasing in every game since and he got benched down the stretch in Game 5, ending up with only 25 minutes played. Markieff Morris also started out the playoffs with a bang, scoring 22 points in Game 1, but he’s gone on to score only 25 points in the next four games combined. Derrick Favors also saw his minutes drop below 24 last game while fellow teammate Jae Crowder got a series-high 37 minutes — the first time he’s played over 30 in a month. All of these players are better suited for tournaments than cash games.
When there’s this much uncertainty at a position it’s smart to consider punting it. Our models rate Jerami Grant as the top option at the position under $4,000. The fifth-year man out of Syracuse can be frustrating to watch on offense, but he’s averaging 20.6 minutes per game and capable of registering a little bit of everything in the box score.
Center
Stud
At $7,900 on FanDuel and $7,000 on DraftKings, Rudy Gobert isn’t priced like a true stud, though he does have a ceiling projection in the mid-50s — seven points higher than any other center’s on DraftKings and more than 10 points above any other center’s on DraftKings. Gobert has a 97% Bargain Rating on DraftKings, where his salary has come down by $700 over the past month.
Value
Marcin Gortat mostly had a season to forget in 2017-18, with the aforementioned spat with Wall garnering more headlines than anything Gortat did on the floor. But Gortat has been solid of late, exceeding salary-based expectations on FanDuel in six of his past 10 games and 64% of games over the past month. After a scoreless, three-rebound outing in Game 2 that resulted in whispers that he might be benched for Mike Scott, Gortat has stepped his game up with averages of 12.7 points and 7.7 rebounds per game in three games since. Priced at $4,700 on both sites, Gortat leads all centers in Projected Plus/Minus Friday.
Fast Break
Jakob Poeltl is averaging 20.1 minutes per game for Toronto over the past two games and is the top punt option if you’re looking to pay down lower than Gortat at center. Poeltl hit value in both of those games and has one of the top Opponent Plus/Minuses at the position.
After this piece is published, FantasyLabs is likely to provide news updates on a number of players. Be sure to stay ahead of your competition with our NBA News Feed.
Pictured above: John Wall
Photo credit: Geoff Burke – USA TODAY Sports
