Hello DFS Army members and welcome to Mutt18’s Value Traps and Who’s Trending for 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.
Tonight we have a really juicy 11 game slate, so there’s going to be more Value Traps than you would find on a smaller slate and we’re going to need to really single them out to avoid them and kill your lineups, as nailing the value picks will be key to winning tonight.
Value Traps
Darius Garland (FD: $4,400 DK: $4,800) – Garland has struggled so far this year to say the least, yet he keeps popping up as a solid value play in the Research Station. He’s projected as the top value on FanDuel at 6.1x and really high on DraftKings at 5.8x value. However, over the first few games of the season he’s only averaging around 15 FPPG. He’s only been returning 3.6x value over that same time frame, and while his price is down a little, you’ll still need him to score over 20 FPs in order to return 5-6x value, and he’s shown his ceiling is pretty low as well. You’re better off just avoiding him tonight.
Dewayne Dedmon (FD: $4,000 DK: $4,300) – Dedmon hasn’t been doing anything on offense since joining the Kings, he’s averaging just under 14 FPPG which simply won’t get it done. He’s also playing less than 20 minutes per game so it really limits his ceiling there as well. The kicker here though that really makes him a value trap is that Harry Giles is likely back in this game as well, so he’ll be added to the rotation as well which likely means both less minutes and less usage for Dedmon again tonight.
Just Missed the Cut: Cedi Osman (FD: $4,500 DK: $4,600) – Osman’s value really gets killed with Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson as he just doesn’t get the usage, and he’s projected to get you 5x value on both sites, but over the first few games of the year, he’s only returned 2.9x value, and Otto Porter is a decent defender. Even if he has a solid game, he just simply doesn’t have the upside you want on a big slate like this so he’s easy to fade.
Who’s Trending
RJ Barrett (FD: $7,200 DK: $6,500) – RJ Barrett is likely going to be a lock play for me, as Elfrid Payton and DSJ have already been ruled out for this game and he’s going to be on the floor a ton and having the ball in his hands even more. He’s the one guy on the Knicks that you can trust to get his minutes as he played 40 minutes last game, and has played at least in the mid 30s every game so far this year. He’s way too underpriced for this matchup and he should be a lock for your cash games, and I’m likely locking him in for GPPs as he’s scored at least 30 FPs in each of the first 4 games and he has 50 FP upside in this game.
Devin Booker (FD: $8,500 DK: $7,900) – I LOVEEEEEEEE Booker in this matchup, as he is the undisputed leader of this offense with Ayton suspended for almost half the season. The Suns have been the surprise of the West so far, as they beat the Clippers and almost took down the Nuggets in OT and hung with Utah as well. Now, they get a team that is pretty lax on defense and plays at a fast pace as well in the hammer game of the night. His price has also gone down because he struggled a bit against Utah (which was predictable) but he has 50+ FP upside in this game as he can take it over at any time.
Jaylen Brown (FD: $5,700 DK: $5,500) – Brown is simply way too underpriced for this matchup, as he does show up for big games and this is a huge game for the Celtics. He’s going to want to prove that he is worth the money and this is the game to showcase it. He already showed it in the game against Toronto, as he put up almost 50 FPs and at his price he has almost 10x value upside. I expect him and the rest of the young Celtics to show up for this game and they’re all in play for sure, Brown is likely going to be your best point per dollar option though.
UPDATE: Brown is out with an illness tonight, Marcus Smart will likely slide into the starting lineup and becomes another great FP/$ play here in a big game for the C’s.
Just Missed the Cut: Ersan Ilyasova (FD: $3,600 DK: $3,400) – Ily has been playing really well to start the year, and I could see him picking up a few extra minutes in this game, as he gets a good amount of usage with the 2nd unit and Boston struggles against bigs. He’s also been returning 5.9x value over the first few games of the season and if Giannis gets into foul trouble he’s going to absolutely smash.
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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