NBA Plays from CheatSheetPros!
RECAP: Exciting news! I put down a deposit yesterday to have an optimizer built so we can add it to the website. I’m optimistic that it is going to run on my current platform but we will find out within a week or two! Massive trade yesterday changed the entire slate and suddenly Dallas had tons of value. They had 5 guys in the $3k’s on DK drop 19-25 points and Barnes exploded for 40.75 points at only $5k. Joel Embiid was the highest scoring player on the slate and only scored 60 DK points. Our Top Algo play and the guy in our write up was Pat Bev and he exploded “again” for 7.7x value which was 40.5 DK points. Reggie Jackson was our #3 algo play and he was also the 2nd highest value play on the slate behind D.J. Wilson and went for 9.1x value which was 42.75 DK points at a salary of only $4,700. If you read the write up the guy I was most excited about was Collison coming off two dud games with tough matchups and I predicted a 6.0-6.5x value night for him at $6,100 and he ended up with 39 DK points at a salary of $6,100 for a nice 6.4x value. The best part is that he was only 3% owned in GPPs!
Player to consider in your lineups!
This is the first time in several days I have not seen a GPP algo play over 100 on the DK sheet. As you know in the NBA the shit will change fast this afternoon. Most days it’s almost better to hold off on running your lines until 30 minutes before lock and get the latest news.
Nikola Jokic - $10,800
Houston has been getting killed by the C position giving up 66.3 DK points over the last two weeks which is the 2nd best matchup for the C on the slate. Jokic is coming off games of 64.75, 41.25, 76.50, 69.75 and 58.25 DK points. Solid value with some ceiling. When DEN played Houston on January 7th Jokic only had 50.25 DK points but his usage was 41.9! He only played 28 minutes in that game so imagine if they keep it close and he plays 35-38 minutes.
Kyrie Irving - $9,600
Hard not to play Kyrie when he is priced under $10k and dropping 60-65 DK points per game. He is coming off 60.0 points, 63.75 points, 45.75, 67.25 and 63.75 DK points. That is amazing! 4 of his last 5 games he is over 6x value! NYK are giving up 53.3 DK points to the PG position over the last two weeks (average is 47.0) and this is the best PG matchup on the slate. The last two games Kyrie played NYK he put up 41.5 and 58.5 DK points. The lower of the two they won by 28 and was pretty much a blowout. The higher of the two they ended up losing the game by 8. So you have to worry about a blowout here but with no many high priced options he has to be in your player pool.
Jerami Grant - $5,800
So OKC is playing MIA tonight and MIA is only giving up 209 DK points total as a team per game over the last two weeks and that is the 2nd lowest on the slate. They are the best defense vs. the PG position only giving up 38.2 points (average on the slate is 47.0 to PG) and although I think Westbrook is un-guardable he may not have that monster game people are looking for. The one place MIA struggles is the PF position as they are giving up 55.1 DK points to that position and the average on the slate is only 45.7. This is a plug matchup for JG. Now we know Grant is playing massive minutes because if you have been following along he is in the minute monster column almost every day. He has played 42, 33, 35, 33, 34 and 34 minutes. He actually has 12 games in a row with 30+ minutes. He is coming off a 34.75 and 35 point game which is pushing the 6x value mark. That is giving us a safe floor and he has a decent last 10 ceiling game. Remember what is the last 10 ceiling mark we are looking for? Do you remember? It is 7.0x value at some point during the last 10. His last 10 is 8.3x value which was 48 DK points.
DeWayne Dedmon - $5,400
Utah is giving up 69.7 DK points to the C position over the last two weeks and that is the main place to attack them. He is sitting on 5.36x value over his last 4 games. If you don’t like Dedmon you can pivot over to Alex Lin who is only $4,000 and playing less minutes but has the same great matchup.
CheatSheet Value Punt: Kyle Anderson - $4,400
(Some people ask how I come up with the CheatSheet value punt, well that is easy – I sort the sheet by GPP algo and then scroll down the salary tab and look for the first one highlighted in yellow. Yellow are salaries $4,500 and below. I usually pick 2-3 of them to put in my GPP player pool.)
Kyle makes the cut as the highest gpp algo rated play below $4,500 (on DK). He has a nice last 10 game ceiling of 10.3x value (remember the cut we are looking for to use a player in our GPP lineups is 7.0x). Last time he faced CHA he put up 33.8 DK points. CHA also has the best matchup for the SF position which is where he plays the majority of his minutes. He is also coming off 23.0 and 24.75 point games. Safe play with some ceiling behind him.
Industry Value Punt: Kadeem Allen - $3,300
Almost min priced on DK and he is now in the rotation for the NYK. He is coming off two games playing 18 minutes and put up 18.75 and 15 points. I don’t expect any monster games from him but if you need a salary saver that could return 5x or a little more this seems to be the guy.
Concept of Pivoting:
I briefly want to hit on the concept of pivoting. Most thing it’s common sense but some people that are new to DFS might not understand. So when I look through my “recent data” sheet with drop down menu I’ll pick only a single team and look for correlations. I want to see if players are crushing value at the same time others are crushing or if one goes up the other one comes down. Now the obvious are the players in the same position. So for MIA and the C position you have Bam and Whiteside. Do they both have good games? Does one go off and other drop off? Over the last 5 games one has been over 5x each game and when one of them eclipses the 6x-8x range the other falls down into the 3x range – almost like a rubber band. So if you are only playing two GPP linesup and the C position for MIA is in a good spot then do 1 lineup with Whiteside and 1 with Bam and it’s possible you could a lineup with a 7x-8x player. Now go a step further. Say you do the same thing with Jokic and Plumlee then you can run 4 GPP lines with Jokic/Whiteside, Jokic/Bam, Plumlee/Whiteside, Plumlee/Bam. Now you are giving yourself a good shot at having a lineup with two players hitting 6-8x value. Now if you took that combo and ran each one 20 times through an opto that would give you 80 lineups and you can enter them in the mini-max for $0.50/per so $40 total. And if you get a combo of two 8x value players then you have 20 lines that you sweat for the GPP takedown. You can even go further if you find additional players that are correlated. Now I will tell you that Bam & Whiteside do swing up and down opposite of each other. However, Jokic and Plumlee don’t. There are more games where they both hit value, both crush value or both miss value than the former.
VALUE MONSTERS: (Players with a significant fantasy point to salary ratio.)
1. Kenneth Faried – 8.4 value over last 12 days. (6.3x value, 6.2x value, 8.3x value, 7.6x value and 13.3x value – His price has climbed from $4.4k up to $6.9k but he should still be a 5x value and up player as his last 3 games he has 39.75, 36.5 and 44 DK points.)
2. Al Horford – 7.4 value over last 12 days. (He has been on a tear at 5.4x value, 7.8x value and 8.5x value over his last 3 games.)
3. Wayne Ellington – 7.1x value over last 12 days. (He only has 2 games played in the last 12 days but they were good for 7x value and 7.1x value. Keep an eye on him as he is projected at 5.7x value tonight.)
4. Jaylen Brown – 6.1x value over last 12 days. (Kyrie is probable tonight but when he was out Brown was smashing for 9.1x value and 7.5x value. He could still return value with Kyrie on the floor.)
5. Mitchell Robinson – 6x value over last 12 days. (Minutes for him are always going to be a concern as he has played 24, 12, 23, 15 and 17 over his last 5. His value returned recently is 5.6x, 5.0x, 6.4x, 4.8x, 5.9x and then 8.5x value. A good gpp flier to mix into your lines and hope for that ceiling game.)
6. Nikola Jokic – 6.0x value over last 12 days. (I have to add the Joker because a player with a salary over $10k usually never makes this stat column. He is now $10,800 today on DK but has put up 64.75 points, 41.25 points, 76.5 points and 69.75 points over his last 4 games.)
MINUTE MONSTERS: (Players under $6,500 with the highest average minutes per game.)
1. P.J. Tucker – 36.05 min/game over last 12 days.
2. Josh Richardson – 35.52 min/game over last 12 days.
3. Jerami Grant – 35.47 min/game over last 12 days.
4. Eric Gordon – 34.07 min/game over last 12 days.
5. Joe Ingles – 33.68 min/game over last 12 days.
6. Justin Holiday – 33.62 min/game over last 12 days.
REBOUND MONSTERS: (Players under $6,500 taking a high number of boards per game.)
1. Steven Adams – 9.0 boards/game over last 12 days.
2. Noah Vonleh – 9.0 boards/game over last 12 days.
3. DeWayne Dedmon – 7.4 boards/game over last 12 days.
4. Bam Adebayo – 7.0 boards/game over last 12 days.
5. Bismack Biyombo – 7.0 boards/game over last 12 days.
SHOT MONSTERS: (Players under $6,500 taking a high number of FG attempts per game.)
1. Eric Gordon – 15.6 FG attempts/game over last 12 days.
2. Jayson Tatum – 13.6 FG attempts/game over last 12 days.
3. Wayne Ellington – 13.0 FG attempts/game over last 12 days.
4. Kevin Knox – 12.0 FG attempts/game over last 12 days.
5. Josh Richardson – 12.0 FG attempts/game over last 12 days.
INTERESTING STATS:
Players with monster games vs. the same opponent they are facing (if it was significant to their salary ratio):
1. Russell Westbrook – 69.5 points
2. Marc Gasol – 68.3 points
3. Will Barton – 49.8 points
4. Al Horford - 47 points
5. DeWayne Dedmon – 46.8 points
Players with the highest last 10 game ceiling price under $7,500: 1. Jayson Tatum - 54.3 points
2. John Collins - 53.0 points
3. Allonzo Trier - 51.0 points
4. Alex Len - 50.3 points
5. Al Horford - 49.8 points
Thank you for reading and good luck!
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