NBA GPP Contrarian Picks - Friday 10/28/16
Point Guard
Chalk:
Russell Westbrook - $11,800 DraftKings / $12,000 FanDuel
Stephen Curry - $9,300 DraftKings / $9,000 FanDuel
James Harden (Point Guard on DraftKings) - $11,300
Contrarian:
George Hill - $5,500 DraftKings / $6,100 FanDuel
There are a plethora of options at point guard tonight, and people will be looking elsewhere with Stephen Curry being almost criminally underpriced.
Derrick Favors might come back tonight since he went through a full practice on Thursday, but it is possible that he will still be somewhat limited with this being his first game back. However, Gordon Hayward remains out with a finger injury which is great news for the Utah Jazz guards.
Last year with the Indiana Pacers, George Hill owned a paltry 16% usage meaning that he was only involved in 1.6/10 offensive plays ran when he was on the floor. Expect this number to rise with his new Jazz team because not only does Utah expect more out of the back court than does Indiana, but the usage for all guards on the team got over a 10% usage increase when Hayward was out even when Favors was still on the floor. Hill should see somewhere in the 25-30% usage rating again tonight as he grabbed 27% in their season opener. The probable usage by itself is enough reason to give Hill a look at given his price, but his matchup is stellar as well.
Tonight the Jazz take on a Los Angeles Lakers team who are still settling into their places sans Kobe. They beat the Houston Rockets on Wednesday which was thoroughly unexpected, but they still gave up 114 points, and allowed James Harden to dole out a career high 17 assists while piling up fantasy scoring across the board. Hill certainly will not hand out that many assists, or have Harden like stats, but he was very good against the Lakers last year.
Last season, George Hill managed to average just over 27 fantasy points with his 16% usage in 33 minutes of work in two games against Los Angeles. Tonight, even if his minutes stay relatively similar, his usage will be at least 50% greater than last year giving him a mountain of opportunity to eclipse that previous 27 fantasy point average.
If Hill's first game with the Jazz without Hayward is any indication, expect him to take over a dozen shots, and to be completely comfortable with distributing the ball against a Lakers team that so far has no inclination of interfering in passing lanes.
Shooting Guard
Chalk:
James Harden - $11,300 DraftKings / $11,300 FanDuel
Victor Oladipo - $6,600 DraftKings / $7,000 FanDuel
Devin Booker - $6,400 DraftKings / $6,100 FanDuel
Contrarian:
Klay Thompson - $6,500 DraftKings / $6,100 FanDuel
It might not have been expected that the Golden State Warriors would be blown out on their home court where they have only lost a small handful of games over the past two seasons, but some growing pains were assuredly prognosticated. Normally, Klay Thompson is not much of an asset in fantasy because he is so scoring dependent, but the down game on Wednesday, and his almost complete dependency on real scoring should keep his ownership depressed.
Head Coach Steve Kerr will need to come up with some sort of game plan to allow all four of their stars to take all of the shots they want. It would make the most sense for him to stagger the minutes the Big Four so that one, or two of them have a good run with the bench guys.
Kerr will not run Curry with the bench for an extended period of time because Curry's scoring against opposing starting squads is key to the Warrior's success. Draymond Green has got some run with the bench over the last couple of years, but he is still largely needed against opposing starters as well. This leaves Durant, and Thompson as the most likely options to pick up the most minutes with the secondary crew.
Last year, Klay Thompson vied for the second most minutes on the bench crew at over 900 while playing 3500 minutes all season meaning he traditionally has played just under 25% of all of his minutes with the bench unit. During his time spent with the bench, he garnered a huge 31% usage. That usage number will likely stay static, but the minutes spent with the bench is going to increase.
Thompson is going to be taking over a dozen shots tonight against a New Orleans Pelicans team who plays very fast just like the Warriors. Unlike the Warriors, the Pelicans play almost zero defense.
Because of the pace of the game, and the Pelicans lackluster defense, this game is one where you are going to want to have some exposure. If Thompson's shot is falling, he will have an exceptional chance at 30+ real points with just enough peripherals to push him into the 6x value range.
Small Forward
Chalk:
Kevin Durant - $9,600 DraftKings / $9,300 FanDuel
LeBron James - $9,400 Draftkings / $9,900 FanDuel
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist - $5,400 DraftKings / $5,600 FanDuel
Contrarian:
Harrison Barnes - $5,900 DraftKings / $5,100 FanDuel
Harrison Barnes does not have a very high ceiling, and his floor is somewhat low as well which which usually means that he should be shied away from in GPP games, but the slate is interesting at the small forward position tonight. The crowd will be onto both LeBron James, and Kevin Durant very hard, and they will also be chasing points with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist as well as Joe Johnson. Neither of the latter two are a model of consistency, so they cannot be relied upon to put up the games they did in their respective season openers.
Barnes has come over to the Dallas Mavericks from the Golden State Warriors, and he has already been granted the starting role. During his time in Golden State, he was relegated to a second, or third option with the bench unit, so he really did not have a lot of opportunity to make much of a difference which also speaks to the aforementioned issues with his floor, and ceiling. His role on an aging Mavericks team will be increasing dramatically now that he is not only in the starting role, but also by far the youngest player in the starting five.
Tonight, Dallas takes on a Houston Rockets team that allowed the Los Angeles Lakers to score 120 points. Houston does not play defense. The Rocket's defensive inabilities aside, this game is projected to be the highest scoring of the night with an over/under of 224 meaning that everyone on the Mavericks will have ample chances to contribue all over the floor. The Rockets' style also plays right into Barnes' game because they play very fast, so the Mavericks will actually get quite a good bump in pace tonight. Additionally, Barnes has the largest gas tank on the starting squad, so he should be able to keep up the entire game.
Considering his new role, there may only be one game to go by so far, but he hit 8-14 shots for 19 points with 9 rebounds. It is the smallest data sample possible, but it does show that Dallas trusts him enough to give him so many shots. He should easily be able to produce in a similar fashion tonight with even a couple more shot attempts, and rebounds. He is in a great position to get close to 6x value on DraftKings, and over 6x value on FanDuel.
Power Forward
Chalk:
Anthony Davis - $10,900 DraftKings / $10,800 FanDuel
Kevin Durant (Power Forward on DraftKings) - $9,600 DraftKings
LeBron James (Power Forward on DraftKings) - $9,400 Draftkings
Contrarian:
Thaddeus Young - $5,700 DraftKings / $6,000 FanDuel
Thaddeus Young is in a great spot tonight because he is taking on a Brooklyn Nets team that is just not very good defensively anywhere on the floor. Brooklyn is the team Young used to play for, so there is some narrative in this game if you are one for storylines. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of reliable stats to go along with him tonight because he is playing against his former team which he has not played against since his time with the Philadelphia 76ers back in the 2013-2014 season. What he lacks in reliable stats tonight he makes up for with peripherals though.
Young is a player who contributes across the board in all fantasy scoring categories, but especially rebounds, and steals. Over his career, he has averaged 5.9 rebounds per game, and 1.5 steals per game, so even meeting his average would gain him 9 fantasy points before figuring real scoring, and other peripherals into account.
The game tonight might be a very small down tick in pace for Indiana, but the it is also projected for a 209 over/under, so both teams are expected to do a lot of scoring meaning Young should be in line for a bump in all fantasy scoring categories allowing him to exceed his historical averages.
Center
Chalk:
Anthony Davis (Center on DraftKings) - $10,900
Hassan Whiteside - $8,300 DraftKings / $8,500 FanDuel
Myles Turner - $7,100 DraftKings / $6,900 FanDuel
Contrarian:
Clint Capela - $5,800 DraftKings / $4,700 FanDuel
This is a better play on FanDuel than DraftKings because of the large discrepancy in pricing.
On a different night, Clint might be chalky because he is the newly named starter in the Houston Rockets' front court, and he is generally pretty cheap. However, players on DraftKings will be trying to get Anthony Davis into the Center position in order to grab a second, or third power forward. Myles Turner who hit 60 fantasy points his last game will have players chasing points, and Hassan Whiteside is always highly owned, so Capela's ownership should be kept low on both sites.
Last year, Capela mangaged 0.98 fantasy points per minute with only an 11% usage rating, and did tend to produce when he was given the opportunity to do so. He has only had a single game as the named starter, but in that game his usage jumped all the way up to 20.1%, and he went just a little over 1.0 fantasy points per minute of court time.
This game is expected to be the highest scoring of the night, and Capela is going against a team that was ranked in the bottom five in rebounding all last year. Tonight's game is very similar to his Wednesday's game against the Los Angeles Lakers from a statistical standpoint as those statistics pertain to the front court.
Considering this game has such a highly projected total, and the Mavericks are quite bad at rebounding the ball, Capela should make a repeat performance of about 6x on FanDuel, but does have a shot at 6x on DraftKings as well.