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 playing on FanDuel as well, 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!
Sunday is always a weird day for NBA DFS, we’ve got two slates split up and a random 1p.m. game so play light today. You should also check out some NASCAR today as we’ve got you covered here at DFS Army.
Last Article’s Traps:
DeMarre Carroll (31.25) – He crushed in this spot. It’s tough to predict a teams rotation when a player comes back from injury and he got hot which helped him see some additional minutes, he then proceeded to dud last game.
Jayson Tatum (32.5) – He was pretty much a bust, his FPs were really inflated here since he had 5 steals. Take those out and he’s in the mid 20’s.
Josh Jackson (13.25) – He seems to be falling out of favor with the Suns coaching staff. He is still young and needs time to develop his jump shot, he’ll be unplayable moving forward unless Booker is out.
Just Missed the Cut: Ed Davis (5.0) – Called it.
Now we’ll look at my picks from last article:
Harry Giles (25.75) – Value: 8.3x
Willie Cauley-Stein (41.50) – Value: 9.2x
Moe Harkless (28) – Value: 7.4x
Tyler Johnson (17.75) – He’s dead to me.
LeBron James (58.25) – 5.1x in a slate lacking a lot of stars.
Trae Young (87) – Insert sunglass emoji, Value: 10.7x
Julius Randle (29.75) – Meh, he was a disappointment in a cake matchup.
Alright, lets get into today! I’m going to be doing it a bit different with how the slate is broken up. I’ll do 2 traps and 3 plays for each slate (3:30 and 6pm). I’ll start with the 3:30 games.
Value Traps
3:30 Slate
Gordon Hayward ($4,000) – Hayward started to look like he was rounding back into his old self, but the wheels have really fallen off the last few games. He’s looked completely out of sync and his shot really isn’t falling.
Marcus Smart is also likely going to get a few additional minutes in this game as he will be tasked with guarding James Harden. Hayward is a liability on the defensive end so I expect he sees a few less minutes in this one. Hopefully the Celtics can right the ship, but I don’t think it’ll be against this tough Houston team today. I’ll be staying away from Hayward.
Ivica Zubac ($4,200) – Zubac has basically settled into the Marcin Gortat role and it appears he is only going to play about 20 minutes a game. With that kind of playing time it really caps his ceiling and he is already volatile as we know from a few weeks ago when he completely dudded in a smash spot. The RS is projecting him to net you 5.8x value today, but this looks like it’s going to be a Harrell game. I’m staying away from him on DraftKings today, I advise you do the same.
6:00 Slate
Andre Drummond ($8,800) – Marc Gasol started last game with the task of shutting down Jusuf Nurkic…and he did just that. Kawhi has just been ruled out and I expect Toronto will start Gasol again today to matchup with Drummond. I’m off Drummond today being they’re on the 2nd half of a B2B (although he sat out the 4th quarter) and he gets a tough matchup especially if Gasol starts. He has a decently safe floor and I think he will still do alright. I don’t expect Drummond to put up a 50 burger today and hit that 5.5x value he’s projected. Even if Gasol doesn’t start the two of them will be on the floor at the same time for a good amount of this game. This is an avoid for me, if you’re paying up for center I’d rather go with Vuc or all the way up to KAT.
Josh Okogie ($3,400) – With the T-Wolves fully healthy, I don’t see Okogie having very high of a ceiling in this game. His usage is sitting at 16.4% and he’s playing around 25 minutes per game. With those two combined it really limits his ceiling and with Teague back it’s another mouth to feed in the starting 5. If you’re looking for value today, I have better options than Okogie.
Who’s Trending
3:30 Slate
Alex Len ($3,600) – I love Len in this spot today. He put up over 40 FPs last time out against these same Bulls, and Spellman is out tonight after he hurt his ankle. I’m not expecting another 40+ FP performance but I think he can get you around 30-35 today. The Hawks really prefer to limit Dedmon’s minutes to under 30 a game, and with them being shorthanded in the front court, Len is going to be needed to play at least 20 minutes at minimum today. He’s a great value option at C.
Mitchell Robinson ($6,500) – DeAndre Jordan has just been ruled out, which opens up about 30 minutes for Robinson. My trend lately is to target bigs against the Clippers, and Robinson can be a monster down low. Let’s take a look at how he’s trending in the RS:
He should have a field day against the Clippers today. He has a really legit shot at a 50 burger today.
DeAndre’ Bembry ($3,200) – DraftKings just refuses to raise his price and now we get him at almost bare minimum with both Taurean Prince and Omari Spellman out today. He should see 30ish minutes and only needs 18 FPs to get you that 6x value we look for in GPPs (Please don’t play cash games on Sundays, it’s too volatile). He’s popping in the RS:
Sign me up for a guy averaging 9.4x value over his last 3.
6:00 Slate
Karl-Anthony Towns ($10,800) – In my lineups where I’m not paying for Westy, I’ll be paying up for KAT. Just look at his numbers in the RS:
It looks like a damn Christmas Tree! The Wizards are also horrible against bigs, KAT will be able to do whatever he wants to today. I’m expecting another 60+ FP game from him today.
Pascal Siakam ($7,000) – It’s starting to become a trend, when Kawhi is out, play Siakam. He’s really picked up his play lately, and the Raptors will come out firing in this game because they very well may be playing this Pistons team in the first round of the playoffs. With Kawhi off the floor, Siakam sees the biggest usage bump at +3.5% and brings his usage to 24.5%. He has legit 50+ FP upside in this one.
Dennis Schroder ($5,400) – If PG13 is out. With George off the floor he actually sees the biggest usage bump at +7.1%, Westbrook sees a 4% bump. With George off the floor Schroder likely starts, and even if he doesn’t he’ll see at least 30 minutes off the bench. At just over 5K I’ll take that all day, especially in the hammer game.
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 for tonight!) or via Twitter (username is at the top of the article) Now let’s go get that money!
