The NBA Breakdown offers data-driven analysis for each day’s slate using the FantasyLabs Tools and predictive metrics to highlight notable players.
The only NBA game being played on Thursday is Game 6 between Boston and Milwaukee, but DraftKings and FanDuel are both running guaranteed prize pools (GPPs) for the new one-game contests they’ve started rolling out lately. DraftKings is offering a $100k grand prize in its “NBA Showdown $333K Playoff Push” GPP while FanDuel is offering 50-large to first place in its “$200K Thu. Brew Town Showdown” GPP (and I’m offering a few bucks to anyone who can come up with better names for these things).
In case you’re not familiar, the one-game contests feature the site’s usual salary cap but require you to fill fewer roster slots. DraftKings simply gives you six utility slots so that you don’t have to worry about positional eligibility. FanDuel gives you five slots: one guard, one forward/center, two utility slots, and an MVP slot, which comes with a 1.5x scoring multiplier.
From what I’ve seen, there tends to be a lot of ownership overlap in these contests since there are fewer roster slots to differentiate your lineup with, and also there obviously aren’t many players to choose from, so I’ll devote a chunk of the breakdown to players you might never hear me so much as mention ever again in this space.
So without further ado for your degenerate pleasure:
Boston Celtics at Milwaukee Bucks (-4.5) | O/U: 202
Value
So I may have gotten a little too deep into this slate last night. We don’t normally do projections for one-game slates here at Labs — not yet, at least — so I went ahead and took the projections from Game 5 in our Pro NBA Models, made a few adjustments, and calculated some points-per-dollar rankings for DraftKings:
Rather than begin with a team-by-team breakdown, I’m going to start by talking about the value plays on both sides first. Semi Ojeleye, the 37th pick of the 2017 NBA Draft, is the wild card of the slate. Celtics head coach Brad Stevens inserted the rookie into the starting lineup for Game 5 in order to get more of a small-ball unit on the floor to counter the emergence of Thon Maker, and Stevens gave him 31 minutes on the floor, which is a ridiculous amount of playing time for a guy priced at $1,300 on a site with a $50,000 cap and six roster slots. That said, Ojeleye is averaging just 0.41 DraftKings points per minute this season, which has got to be in the zeroth percentile. Under normal circumstances I’d probably go with 100% exposure to a guy who essentially doubles up or better every other player on the slate in terms of value, but we just saw Maker score 4.5 DraftKings points in 23.5 minutes of action, so anything’s possible.
For example, Shabazz Muhammad got on the floor in Game 5 and proceeded to jack up nine shots in 10 minutes en route to 17.3 DraftKings points — nearly four more than Ojeleye in one-third of the playing time. So yeah, we’re at a point in the NBA daily fantasy season where we have to talk about zeroth percentile fantasy efficiency as potential mega-chalk and Shabazz Muhammad all in the same breath.
Maker, by the way, is a pretty low-wattage per-minute fantasy scorer himself, but he’s an easier pill to swallow on FanDuel at minimum price than on DraftKings, where he costs three times as much as some of the other punt plays. Shane Larkin and Matthew Dellavedova have played at least 14 minutes in each of the past three games for their respective teams and are in the punt-play mix as well.
Realistically, almost everyone should be in the punt-play mix if you’re trying to take down a large field on a one-game slate. Take someone like Tyler Zeller for instance. He probably won’t see more than 10-15 minutes of action, but he was able to score 16.5 DraftKings points in 10:57 in Game 4. And at $3,300 , he’d offer unique roster construction because every other player on the slate is at least $600 cheaper or more expensive than him. Or Tony Snell: He’s the last player you’d ever consider on a normal slate, but he’s shot 40.0% from 3 over the past two seasons; if he hits, say, three 3s in his 10-20 minutes of action, you could be in business at a salary of $2,400.
Bucks (102 implied points)
I didn’t bring up those guys strictly for contrarian purposes, though — DraftKings has priced players in such a way that forces you to use one of them if you want to roster Giannis Antetokounmpo. Giannis is averaging 54.8 DraftKings points in nine combined regular season and postseason meetings with the Celtics this year, and even though going contrarian is the move in contests like these, I wouldn’t recommend a full fade of Giannis given his immense ceiling unless you’re entering only one lineup. (Also note it’s easier to be contrarian with Giannis on FanDuel, where you have the option of rostering him but fading him in the 1.5x MVP slot, which I would think would be a very unpopular decision.)
If you’re looking for Giannis arbitrage, Khris Middleton is your best bet. Middleton has scored at least 23 (real) points in every game this series, only failing to hit value in DFS when he uncharacteristically falls short in the peripheral stat categories:
Once you take cost into account, Jabari Parker is right there with Middleton. Parker has come on strong over the past three games:
Malcolm Brogdon, on the other hand, has been trending downward ever since Game 1:
If head coach Joe Prunty wants to continue giving Maker and Parker minutes in the frontcourt, Brogdon becomes the odd man out now that the team has Eric Bledsoe. Speaking of Bledsoe, the former Sun has struggled at times in this series and is averaging just 12.6 points and 4.2 assists per game. Bledsoe did manage to hit value in his last game thanks to three blocks and one steal, and he’s certainly capable of producing a monster stat line, but there’s been no indication that one of the league’s best defenses is going to allow him to achieve one in this series:
After dropping each of their first two games on the road, that defense wasn’t enough to deter sportsbooks from making Boston an underdog in Game 6. Milwaukee opened as a five-point favorite, though the line has since dropped to -4.5. While the Celtics have a narrow 53%-47% edge over Milwaukee in spread tickets as of this writing, 73% of the money is on Boston, and nearly 80% of the money is on the over in this game as well. Translating what that data suggests to roster construction here, you could go contrarian by fading both Giannis and Middleton and instead stacking the more affordable Celtics rotation. Maybe you even take it a step further by throwing a Bucks bench guy or two in there in anticipation of what would be unexpected garbage time to most.
Celtics (97.5)
Al Horford has proven to be the highest-upside play on the Celtics this series, registering two games with at least 45 DraftKings points to Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum‘s one apiece. Horford’s rebounding numbers have been underwhelming at times, but he snatched 14 last game; the move back to small-ball 5 should help him in that category going forward. I should point out that there is a bit of added risk with rostering Horford on the road: He’s averaging just 27.0 points in his two road games this series compared to 45.6 in the three home games, and our NBA Trends tool shows that this has been somewhat of an issue for him dating as far back as 2014-15:
Tatum has been inconsistent in his playoff debut, failing to crack 27 DraftKings points three times in five games and shooting just 39.3% for the series. In fact, per the Trends tool, he ranks only eighth on the team in Consistency on DraftKings this season:
Looking at it in a more positive way, Tatum’s inconsistency has brought about a discounted salary and thus makes him one of the better dollar-per-point values on the slate. And while we’re on the topic of inconsistency, Terry Rozier started the series hot with consecutive 23-point games but has barely averaged half that in the three games since (11.6). For lineup construction purposes, note that the fantasy production of Rozier and Brown has been more correlated than that of any other pair of teammates taking part in this game. Also note that Brown is a better bargain on FanDuel than DraftKings; he’s priced cheaper than all three of Horford, Rozier, and Bledsoe on the former.
Both of Boston’s Marcuses — Marcus Morris and Marcus Smart — have solid upside given their price points and projected playing time. Morris is averaging 28.4 minutes per game in this series, and Smart returned from injury to play 24.9 minutes in Game 5. Morris is averaging 0.9 DraftKings points per game this season and Smart’s at 0.83, but both players are capable of scoring 30 or even 40 fantasy points if things break right.
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: Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) and Al Horford (42)
Photo credit: Paul Rutherford – USA TODAY Sports
