Hello DFS Army members and welcome to the first installment of Mutt18’s Value Traps and Who’s Trending of the 2019-2020 NBA DFS Season! My name is Steve aka Mutt18. 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 6-7 years now. DFS helped me pay my way through college and I am now a full-time firefighter. If you’re familiar with last year’s article then welcome back! I’m very excited to keep doing these as I feel they provide a huge edge, especially now that FanDuel has gotten rid of the Drop Score, identifying those Value Traps is going to be even more important as rostering one of them in your lineup will ruin your night. For those unfamiliar or new to the article, I break things down as follows:
This article here at DFS Army as we will be looking at Value Traps. A value trap, also referred to as a land mine, is 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.
Today we have a really nice slate for a Saturday, and if you were following along with notes and plays yesterday, we absolutely crushedddddd! It was one of those nights where I wish I played more because I returned almost 15x in winnings! Now without further ado, let’s get right into it! Now since it is only the first week of the season and most teams have only played 1 or 2 games, we don’t have a ton of data to work with, so today’s article will be a little less number and statistic oriented than it usually will be.
Value Traps
Ivica Zubac (FD: $4,700 DK: $4,200) – Zubac is a frustrating player to roster, as he starts for this Clippers team, but Harrell is their guy as he comes off the bench and plays huge minutes. Zubac was just playing really well last game which kept him on the floor a little longer than usual. The Clippers are going to be a problem in the West this year, and they’re facing a Suns team who are on the 2nd half of a B2B and went to OT last night as well. They’ll also be without DeAndre Ayton and possibly Rubio as well, so I don’t see this game staying close at all, which would mean Zubac likely doesn’t see the floor as much tonight as there won’t be any reason for Doc to run his starters out there for an extended period of time. There are much better value options at C tonight, especially Kyle O’Quinn with Embiid out, so there’s really no reason to go to Zubac.
Landry Shamet (FD: $4,200 DK: $4,300) – Two Clippers making this list, but Shamet is simply way too scoring dependent and with him being a starter I don’t see him getting a ton of minutes tonight as they should handle this Suns team pretty easily. He’s projected to get you 5.2x value on DraftKings and 5x value on FanDuel. There are just so many better value plays on this slate that can get you 6x value easily that I just don’t think you need to go here. He only becomes viable if someone like Kawhi or Lou Williams gets ruled out for rest purposes tonight.
Just Missed the Cut: Darius Garland (FD: $5,300 DK: $5,200)- Not sure why, but Garland is projected to return 5.1x value on FD, and 4.8x value on FanDuel. However, we have no reason to go here, as we have Coby White playing a much more significant role on a competitive team for a couple hundred bucks cheaper. Garland also hasn’t proven much so far this year, do yourself the favor and fade him like I am.
Who’s Trending
Coby White (FD: $4,700 DK: $4,700) – Coby is going to be a stud in this league, as he can score from anywhere on the floor and he’s getting serious run. He’s a rookie so it being the 2nd half of a B2B I can see the Bulls resting some of their guys here, which will only boost his role coming off the bench. He’s a borderline lock play for me on both sites at his price as it didn’t move from last night. He even criticized himself for not playing well in the first half, so he also has that will to be great. I think we maybe have one or two more nights before people catch on and he’s 50% owned, take advantage of it tonight.
Josh Hart (FD: $4,200 DK: $3,600) – Jrue Holiday is out tonight, which is a huge boost to Josh Hart as he’s been in that 6th man role for them to start the season. He’s way too underpriced for this matchup even before Jrue got ruled out, as he’s put up at least 30 FPs in each of the first two games, and the Jrue news only raises his ceiling even more. This Pelicans team does run a lot of guys but Hart seems to have his role carved out in the 24-28 minutes off the bench, and he should see some additional minutes and ball handling duties with Jrue resting.
Pascal Siakam (FD: $8,800 DK: $8,500) – Siakam is going to be a core play for me moving forward anytime he is under 10K with his new role in the offense. Kawhi Leonard is gone and you can see how hungry he is to be great. The offense will flow through him, and he’s already showed 60+ FP upside early in the year. The only thing that prevented him from doing it again last night was foul trouble early against the Celtics. He’s in another smash matchup tonight against Chicago as the combo of Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. won’t be able to contain him. I’m likely going to be locking him in for most of my lineups tonight, don’t overthink it as he has 70+ FP upside.
Just Missed the Cut: Zach LaVine (FD: $8,000 DK: $7,700) – LaVine is still way underpriced here for this matchup. He put up a 60 burger last night and he’s still young that I’m not too worried about it being a B2B. The Bulls have talked about resting guys like Porter on B2Bs as well, so if he sits it just boosts him that much more.
Everyone, NBA is very volatile with late scratches so please pay extra attention to Breaking News today! Stay on your toes!
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’m your FanDuel coach today!) or via Twitter (username is at the top of the article) Now let’s go get that money!
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