Hello DFS Army members and we are now into the month of March! My name is Steve aka Mutt18. I am one of the new content contributors here at DFS Army and I’m very excited to be a part of the team! I am @mutt_18 on Twitter as well, so give me a follow for any updates on this article as I will tweet them out. A little background about me, I’ve been grinding DFS for about 5-6 years now. DFS helped me pay my way through college and I am now a full-time firefighter. I love the challenge that DFS brings and my main sports are basketball, football, and baseball. I play on both FanDuel and DraftKings and today we will be focusing mainly on DraftKings. I am also working on a Tutorial Article of how to use the RS Who’s Hot and Clock Watch tools to your advantage.
This article will be expanding into some new territory here at DFS Army as we will be looking at Value Traps. A value trap, also referred to as a land mine, are a player that jumps out either in the Domination Station or Research Station as representing value but in reality they really have no way of making value, either through inconsistent play, lack of opportunity, or they are just a bad play in general. These plays are often the ones that either make or break your lineups. My goal in this article is to dig a bit deeper and use all the great data available to us in the DS and RS and help try to identify those “Value Traps” that will destroy your lineups and end up costing you money. By identifying them my hope is to help educate you on what to look for and how to avoid these lineup killers. From there I will also be focusing on some of the lesser known tools available in the Research Station, specifically the Who’s Hot, and Clock Watch sections that can help us identify those players trending in the right direction that we can identify and use before the rest of the DFS world catches on.
If you’re also playing FanDuel tonight, the Drop Score is a new wrinkle that we can use to our advantage, for advice on using the Drop Score: PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE!
Happy Friday! Tonight we’ve got a juicy 7 game slate capped off with a solid night cap hammer game! I’ve found a few guys that might kill your lineups, so let’s get into it.
Value Traps
Michael Carter-Williams ($3,100) – How the mighty have fallen, the former rookie of the year is now the backup PG for Orlando and will likely be behind Isaiah Briscoe when he gets back. He’s projected at 5.4x value tonight and I’m telling you that isn’t going to happen. Over his last 3 games he’s averaging a little over 10 FPPG and he really hasn’t looked great. Now they get a pace down matchup against the Grizzlies and this is likely a game I’ll be avoiding altogether tonight. If you’re looking for value there’s way better options on tonight’s slate.
Noah Vonleh ($4,600) – He’s currently projected at 5.7x value, he’s currently a GTD so if he doesn’t play you can obviously cross him off altogether. The big issue here is that Mario Hezonja is currently his favorite toy right now and the rest of the rotation is in flux, especially at the 4 which is where Vonleh plays. If he plays I don’t expect him to see more than 20 minutes and that’s just not going to allow him to break that ceiling we’re looking for. UPDATE: Vonleh officially out. Whoever starts in his place is likely a trap as this will likely allow more run for Mitchell Robinson.
Just Missed the Cut: Landry Shamet ($3,800) – He just missed the cut basically because he’s going to lose minutes to Lou Williams and he is very scoring dependent, as he doesn’t do much in the way of peripheral stats. So we have a guy capped with his ceiling. I’ll be staying away.
Who’s Trending
Delon Wright ($4,900) – No Conley and no Avery Bradley for the Grizzlies tonight and their backcourt is now extremely thin. Wright should handle the majority of the PG duties. With both of them off the court he sees a nice 5% usage rate increase and at under $5,000 I’ll be locking him in almost everywhere tonight. He has legit 40 FP upside which would net you 7-8x value. He’s almost a free square.
D’Angelo Russell ($8,300) – Revenge game!!! Russell hates the Lakers after they gave up on him way too early and he’s really hot right now:
He’s also coming off a 77 FP game so his ceiling is also legit and you know he’s going to want to destroy this Lakers team that is in pure tank mode. I don’t expect him to hit for 70+ again but I’d be surprised if he didn’t put up a 50 burger.
Fred VanVleet ($5,300) – L0wry is out again tonight and he’s simply way too cheap for the opportunity that has fallen into his lap. Last game with Lowry out he played 40 minutes…
He also gets the benefit of being guarded by Russell Westbrook, who is a terrible defender (he basically just doesn’t care) and this should be a close game so he’ll likely play close to 40 minutes again. However, this one does have a bit of risk as he has been in situations like this before and dudded in the past, so buyer beware.
Kawhi Leonard ($8,900) – These two teams faced off just two days ago and Kawhi put up just under 50 FPs and yet he is still under $9K. He also gets the benefit of Lowry being out again so he will have the ball in his hands even more this game. He’s also playing heavy minutes as he was on the court for 42 minutes last game as Toronto really wants these wins to solidify their playoff spot in the East. Let’s look at his numbers:
He’s averaging 50 FPs over his last 3 games and with his ceiling tonight, he’ll be in the majority of my lineups. Cue the fake Kawhi robot laugh all the way to the bank.
Just Missed the Cut: Tyler Dorsey ($3,000) – As I posted earlier, both Conley and Bradley are out and Memphis’ backcourt is very thin. He got called up from the G-League and was an overtime hero for them the other night. I expect him to get significant run and he is minimum priced. Hard to pass that up.
As always, keep your eyes peeled for updates as we get news closer to lock. All my updates will be in BOLD.
That’s all I got for today guys, any questions feel free to hit me up in the coaches forums (I am your FanDuel coach!) or via Twitter (username is at the top of the article) Now let’s go get that money!
Come join the Army and start counting your winnings! Use code: MUTT18 for 20% off!
