Welcome to the Core 4! My name is Mike aka @MadnessDFS on Twitter, make sure to give me a follow as I’ll occasionally make updates to the article throughout the day as news breaks. But, you’ll mostly find me in our VIP coaching forums where I provide detailed lineup maneuvers and answer all lineup questions. With that said, let’s get it started!
Purpose of the Core 4: These four players are guys that I want to lock into my cash game lineups and if doing multi-entry, using the Domination Station lock them in or set high exposure percentages to them. These are players that I see as underpriced, in great matchups, in play because of injuries, increased usage, etc. I also need to mention that these plays are normally geared toward Draftkings pricing and scoring, I’m not a huge fan of NBA for Fanduel, so if you see my list has three small forwards or two centers, etc. it’s because of the multi-position eligibility on Draftkings. With that said, let’s jump right into it!
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Process:
I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I get to my core guys or what do I use to get to these guys to set a foundation for my lineups, so I’m introducing a new section to this article that I’m hoping can lead this to be a little more process-based and help all of you either find a core that you like or simply see how I got to these guys so you know I’m not just pulling them out of my ass! With that said, let’s get this puppy started!
Recognizing Value:
When it comes to NBA DFS value is truly king and being able to pinpoint underpriced guys will go along way in your success in this sport. With that said, the first thing I do is head right to the Research Station (or Domination Station if you’re closer to lock) and go ahead and sort by “Value” or “PP/$”. This will then sort the player pool from the highest projected value to lowest. Many of you will see that I post my Core 4 results on Twitter and it will say something along the lines of Joel Embiid – 6.2x, that “x” number is the particular value that the player was able to reach at their price tag. That’s why questions in slack like “James Harden or Donte DiVincenzo” are incredibly difficult to answer because Harden is the obvious better play from a raw points perspective, but DiVincenzo may have a higher value. You can also scroll to the right in the Research Station and find the two columns that will tell you how the player has performed relative to a 6x (cash) or 7x (GPP) marker this season, as seen below.
DFSA Grades:
Once we have determined the top value options on the slate we can begin to dig a little deeper into what makes them a good play. DFSA Grades is an all-encompassing metric that will lead you to the best plays on each slate each day. As you’re looking through your “sorted” Research Station or Domination Station, you will want to look for a green shade in the DFSA Grade column, green is good, red is bad!
Opportunity:
In the NBA, opportunity is everything which is very different from other sports. In baseball, a guy could get a spot start and get five at-bats and do absolutely nothing with them. That is typically not the case in NBA, if a guy is injured or out for some reason, usually a guy at a cheaper price tag will jump right into a decent role and be able to produce from a fantasy perspective no matter the actual NBA talent of the player. This is where I keep an eye on the Breaking News Feed for injuries or updates on potential value guys that we could look at starting.
Matchup/Pace:
Lastly, you don’t want a guy in a bad matchup, that much seems pretty obvious. That said, there are scenarios where I’m able to live with a poor DvP%. I’m a big believer in pace being a better representation of DFS production that simply defense vs. position especially in today’s NBA where some teams are running up and down the court forcing the other team to play up to there speed. This is where I got to the Research Station and scroll over and find the “Vegas” and “Pace” section. Simply put, the more points scored in a game, the better for DFS production. You want to target guys with a + pace boost, also noted by having a green shade in this column.
Reverse Engineering:
Below is yesterday’s core and they absolutely smashed –
- Kevin Durant – 63.25 dkp; 7.53x
- Bam Adebayo – 53.5 dkp; 7.04x
- Tyler Herro – 46.25 dkp; 8.56x
- DeMar DeRozan – 41.75 dkp; 6.05x
VIP member “Klorjuste” took home $200k last night using this core, congrats!!!
Today’s Core 4:
De’Aaron Fox (PG) – $7,800
We will kick off the Core 4 going with my lock of the day in the Full Court Press Article in De’Aaron Fox. He gets what should be a nice matchup with a Rockets team that isn’t playing much of any defense. The Rockets have played a bit slower so far this season but that’s to be expected with Westbrook out of town, however, they do get John Wall back tonight who I expect to vastly speed up the flow of this game. Fast pace is how Fox prefers to play so this should set up nicely for him. The Research Station has him projected for 40.18 DraftKings points which would put him at 5.15x his DraftKings price tag.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (PG) – $8,100
The second piece of the core is a guy that I’m really high on this season with all of the departures in Oklahoma City. With Dennis Schroder, Chris Paul, Danilo Gallinari, and Steven Adams all out of town it is now Gilgeous-Alexander’s offense to run with. If we go into the Research Station, we can see that this is a pretty nice pace up spot for him and the Thunder which plays well for him and how he likes to run. His minutes have been really consistent this season and I expect that to continue. The Pelicans don’t play awful defense but they’re definitely not great. They lost Jrue Holiday who is one of the best on-ball defenders in the league, yes they got Eric Bledsoe as a replacement but when teams are running fast as this one should be, individual defense doesn’t play into my research all that much. I love the floor/ceiling combo with SGA here.
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Christian Wood (C) – $7,300
At the moment we don’t really have a whole lot of great value options that help us jam in a high priced guy like James Harden with some of these mid-range plays, so my initial thought is to build a balanced lineup and play it by ear depending on what value opens up. That being said, I’m going to go back to that high-to-mid range and get Christian Wood here. Yes, the Rockets will be getting DeMarcus Cousins back in this one but that really shouldn’t impact Wood’s playing time. He’s played at least 37 minutes in both games this season and in a great matchup against the Kings, he’s one of my favorite plays on the slate. He’s currently projected for 39.78 DraftKings points which would put him at a 5.45x value on his DraftKings tag.
Mitchell Robinson (C) – $5,600
We’ll round the Core 4 with a bit of a riskier option, but I think we have a chance to get ahead of a potentially popular play in the near future. The addition of Tom Thibodeau is going to help Mitchell Robinson immensely as long as he can stay in this starting lineup. Thibodeau has a history of running his starters for big minutes and we’ve seen that carry over to this Knicks team. Robinson has played at least 32 minutes in his past two games and has shown he can be an elite point per minute guy in his career. The matchup with the Raptors isn’t as scary as it was last season with Ibaka and Gasol leaving town. He’s at 1.06 fantasy points per minute if we look at last years stats blended with this season, if he’s going to get 30+ minutes each night, this price is just too low on him, so I want to get ahead of the public on him. With these four guys in your lineup, you’re left with $5,300 per position to round out the rest of your roster which is more than do-able especially if we get some value to open up as the day goes on.
As always I appreciate everyone who gave the article a read! Feel free to mix it up with me in our coaching forums as news breaks and lock approaches. If you don’t know about them, our two newest pages contain Breaking News and our exclusive Coaches’ Picks……both invaluable for late-breaking news and pivots in NBA.