Gary Gustafson 
Happy Monday my NBA DFS friends! After a massive Sunday for the Win Daily Sports family, where our boy “JayThe Guru” turned $185 into EIGHTEEN GRAND – yeah, you read that right – we are back with afull day of NBA and two slates to break down on this MLK day!
With Super Bowl 55 just a few weeks away, we are rolling out a SUPER promo to join the Win Daily Sports family as you can get a month pass of our All-Sports Gold Membership for 55% off!
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Early Slate Breakdown
Today’s slate is chopped into two mini-slates with a 3 game early slate and a 4 game main slate and the over-arching theme today is going to be finding a way to build around studs. We talked about this on Sunday’s three-game slate but jamming in the high raw points stars like Nikola Jokic was the key to cashing and I think these Monday slates are largely going to follow the same path.
The early slate is driven by the guards, with Damian Lillard ($9.9K) priority spend #1. Over the last two seasons with both Nurkic and McCollum off the court (both out today), Dame Time is sporting a 35% usage rate and nearly 1.5 FP/M which is a 5% usage boost in a massive 800+ minute sample size.
When you are done with Dame – head to Atlanta/Minnesota where you get a battle between two top 10 pace teams and Mr. Trae Young ($9.4K) gets to battle with a TWovles team that ranks 2nd to last in the NBA in defensive rating.
While the efficiency has not been there for Trae, the volume has been and he continues to draw 31% usage which ranks within the top 5 in the NBA. Trae destroyed this match-up last season with 65 and 57 DK points and with the usage, pace, and volume trio – is lock #2 in all my builds.
With Minnesota down Karl-Anthony Towns, the burden of the offense falls on D’Angelo Russell ($8.6K) especially with Ricky Rubio also sidelined. You do not have to go back far to see what a ceiling game can look like for D-Loading, as back on January 5th, right before KAT came back, he shot the ball 21 times against Denver with 9 3’s on his way to 60 DK points.
Speaking of solo stars with a banged-up supporting cast – Bam Adebayo ($8.8K) is one of the few healthy Heat players again today and gets the same match-up against Detroit he just dropped 51 DK points on and his price moved only $400.
Now this Core 4 of stars will leave you with $3.3K per player to fill out the rest of your build – may seem like not enough – but we have multiple paths early on to fill this out.
We mentioned the injury to CJ McCollum, which could open up a start for minimum priced Anfernee Simons ($3K) who started the second half of the last game with CJ hurt and could run the second unit for Portland with CJ not there to stagger with Dame. Gary Trent and Derrick Jones Jr. become additional viable options that got all the closing 4th quarter run last game alongside Dame, Kanter and Carmelo Anthony.
Oh by the way – it is Gary Trent Jr’s birthday today so lock the button accordingly.
We also mentioned that Minnesota was short-handed with KAT, Rubio, and Juancho Hernangomez hurt- which means you could get 3 starting players under $4K in the Minnesota lineup with Josh Okogie, Jarret Culver, and Ed Davis. We would also see Jordan Vanderbilt ($4.3K) re-enter the starting rotation as this was a player who put up 30 DK points in the two games prior to KAT returning.
Between Minnesota and Portland, there seem to be ample value options on this slate we can mix and match – but don’t get it twisted – this slate is not about prioritizing value, it is about getting in the studs and using the value where you need it to make the roster build work.
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown
Where the Early Slate had “second tier” star power and multiple value paths – the Main Slate has the real elite NBA star power but the initial lack of value to make it all work.
The headline story here is the Bucks-Nets game.
Giannis versus Harden and Durant.
Now, the tricky part – will Kyrie Irving return for his first court time alongside Brooklyn’s new Big 3?
I would be lying to you if my first instinct was not to try and find a way to get Giannis Antetokounmpo ($10.4K) into a build with both Kevin Durant ($10.1K) and James Harden ($10.4K).
Now this three man trio would leave you with $3.7K per player so its some serious scraping of the bargain bin – but my goodness, if we can find a way to make it work, it could simply go nutso.
Harden and Durant were exceptional in their first game together, sporting 38% and 37% usage rates respectively. Steve Nash worked to stagger the duo in the first half and that is the kind of rotation that allows both stars to get there.
Now if Kyrie comes back, it would throw a wrench into the plans but there is no question that both Nets stars can get there in our DFS lineups.
Finding the value is going to be the trick and the place we may need to focus on is in Dallas as all of Josh Richardson, Dorian Finney Smith, Maxi Kleber and Dwight Powell remain out.
If Tim Hardaway Jr. remains out as well, with this team on the tail end of a B2B – we are going to get another 8 man rotation here tonight for Dallas that could be our path to value. Add in the fact that Kristaps Porzingis played 33 minutes yesterday – are the Mavs really going to push him with a game 24 hours later? Could we get BOBAN night? Oh please say yes.
Josh Green and Wes Iwundu both played over 30 minutes on Sunday and are in the low $3K range and we could get Jalen Brunson ($4K) here playing a considerable role running the 2nd unit after sitting out Sunday and being the lone pair of fresh legs.
Strategically – this slate is much harder to lock in on because the Kyrie Irving news AND the value paths is what will dictate the slate. If Kyrie is out – I want to anchor my GPP builds to Giannis/KD/Harden.
We saw it last night with Joker and Fox – on a small slate, ceiling stars dictate cash lines and this game in Brooklyn is loaded with them. All we need is 1-2 value pieces to break and with what we likely already have in Dallas – it is not as crazy as it seems.
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
These slates today are going to be heavy Stars and Scrubs approaches for me again. We do not have the “obvious” value at first glance that has made it so easy in previous slates but what we do know is we have the star power that we simply have to priortize – not doing so, makes balanced builds a waste on these short slates.
I also firmly believe that value will come – yesterday we go the late Zubac news with Serge Ibaka out and it opened up a path we didn’t see early in the day. So keep an eye on the news – the value is coming guys.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this NBA DFS season with some big wins!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
