Happy Friday everyone, we’ve made it to the end of yet another work week, and to December. Congratulations to anyone who enjoys the winter months, I do not, but I’ll save the “what is the best season?” debate for another time (hint: it heavily depends on where in the country you live).
We’re heading into a fun sports weekend, with college football conference championships, several interesting NFL matchups, and of course, a plethora of NBA action. Tonight, we’ve got a manageable eight-game slate, and I suspect we’re once again going to see late, relevant injury news, so pay attention to that and adjust accordingly.
Tonight’s slate seems to be directing us to look at mostly reliable, mid-priced players, rather than trying to make a YOLO boom-or-bust roster (but don’t fear, if you want to YOLO, I’ll throw in an option for that as well). Let’s take a look:
Guards
Kyle Lowry (TOR): $8,100 vs. IND
Lowry is on the high-end of where he’s been price-wise this season, but if we take a look at his last four games, it’s easy to see why. He’s had games of 52, 57, 43.75, and 55.75 DK points during that stretch, and I don’t see any reason not to pay this price for him tonight. He’s been far more consistent than DeMar DeRozan, and DeRozan is only $200 cheaper tonight.
Happy Friday everyone, we’ve made it to the end of yet another work week, and to December. Congratulations to anyone who enjoys the winter months, I do not, but I’ll save the “what is the best season?” debate for another time (hint: it heavily depends on where in the country you live).
We’re heading into a fun sports weekend, with college football conference championships, several interesting NFL matchups, and of course, a plethora of NBA action. Tonight, we’ve got a manageable eight-game slate, and I suspect we’re once again going to see late, relevant injury news, so pay attention to that and adjust accordingly.
Tonight’s slate seems to be directing us to look at mostly reliable, mid-priced players, rather than trying to make a YOLO boom-or-bust roster (but don’t fear, if you want to YOLO, I’ll throw in an option for that as well). Let’s take a look:
Guards
Kyle Lowry (TOR): $8,100 vs. IND
Lowry is on the high-end of where he’s been price-wise this season, but if we take a look at his last four games, it’s easy to see why. He’s had games of 52, 57, 43.75, and 55.75 DK points during that stretch, and I don’t see any reason not to pay this price for him tonight. He’s been far more consistent than DeMar DeRozan, and DeRozan is only $200 cheaper tonight.
The issue with Lowry is usually that he isn’t a high-upside guy, but he’s shown he goes up to mid-50s in DK points, and that’s good enough for me. I love Lowry for cash tonight, and I don’t hate him for GPPs either.
Kyle Anderson (SAS): $5,500 @ MEM
Nobody talks about Kyle Anderson (or any Spurs, really), but he’s been really solid for basically the entire season thus far. Anderson plays around 30 minutes per night, and even when his scoring and assist numbers are down, he can still get us there with steals (and his turnover numbers are astonishingly low for a guard who handles the ball a lot).
In his last five games, Anderson has had a ceiling game of 38.50 DK points and a floor game of 25.5. I honestly haven’t played Anderson enough this year, but that needs to change based on his consistency and relatively low price (for comparison, Anderson is $300 more on FanDuel).
Forwards
Otto Porter (WAS): $6,500 vs. DET
With John Wall out for at least another week and Bradley Beal underperforming so far in his absence (at least in the last two games), Otto Porter demands consideration. No one would argue that he’s the most consistent player. In his last five games, he has a floor of 19 DK points and a ceiling of 49.5, but I like his chances tonight in a game that should be played at a reasonably fast pace against a team that struggles defensively (particularly the second unit). Porter will play around 30 minutes tonight, and even though he has a low floor (~20 DK points), I like his ceiling, which I’d set around 45 DK points.
Tobias Harris (DET): $6,300 @ WAS
Tobias Harris seems to be one of those players who is cash-viable almost every single game, and tonight is no exception. As I mentioned with Otto Porter, this game should be a pace-up spot, and both players should benefit, although I like Harris much more than Porter for cash games because of his relative consistency. In his last five, Harris has a floor game of 22.25 DK points and a ceiling of 43.5.
I could see him going over 40 DK points again tonight, although I’d project him for more like 32-33, which hits value and is plenty good enough for cash games. The only downside with Harris is that he doesn’t have the highest upside, but if you’re looking for consistency, he deserves serious consideration.
JaMychal Green (MEM): $4,300 vs. SAS
I’ll be the first to admit that I have no idea what Memphis is going to do with its rotations now that David Fizdale has been fired. I have a side question though: what should I do with my “Take That For Data” t-shirt now? No one save for hardcore NBA fans understood what it meant even before he was fired, and now it seems completely irrelevant. “They not gonna rook us,” is one of my top five favorite post-game press quotes of the past 10 years. Did Fiz deserve to be fired? Did Marc Gasol lay down an ultimatum to the owner? Will he get another chance to be a head coach? Tweet your hot takes @ me on this or any subject.
Ok, let’s get back on track. Memphis’ interim coach suggested that they may mix up the rotations, and as a result, I’m not comfortable playing any Grizz tonight save Marc Gasol or JaMychal Green. I think Green’s minutes are relatively safe because they don’t have a ton of options to play power forward.
I’d project Green for around 30 minutes tonight, which should be more than enough to pay off his cheap salary. He’s a whopping $1,200 more expensive on FanDuel, and that tells me that he’s a value play on DK tonight.
Centers
LaMarcus Aldridge (SAS): $8,500 @ MEM
I haven’t played much LMA this year, which is sub-optimal considering how well he has been playing recently. He’s scored 35.75, 61.5, and 53 DK points in his last three games, and his usage remains consistently very high. The 53 DK point game came in his last outing, on Wednesday, against Memphis, who they play again tonight. San Antonio is only favored by four points tonight, so I think the risk of a blowout is fairly low, and blowout risk would be the only reason I’d shy away from LMA.
Fire him up in cash games, and in my opinion, he’s worthy of consideration in GPPs as well. One final point: I mentioned Marc Gasol earlier in this article, and I’ll throw his name in again here because I think he’s another viable center option tonight in this game. Despite the coaching shake-up, his minutes and usage are secure, and he’s undoubtedly got 50+ DK point upside, although I’d project him for around 37-40 DK points tonight.
Domantas Sabonis (IND): $5,300 @ TOR
This recommendation is ONLY VALID IF MYLES TURNER IS OUT TONIGHT. Do I need to repeat that? It’s important, because if Turner plays, Sabonis will only see 20-22 minutes, and will struggle to pay off his salary.
A look at Sabonis’ game log will scare anyone thinking of playing him tonight, but you’ve got to go back to the ones where Turner was out, at the beginning of the season. Sabonis was a stud, and there’s no reason that shouldn’t continue if Turner sits tonight.
A center who is going to play 30 minutes at $5,300? Sign me up, please. A final note about Sabonis: He will likely be reasonably chalky if the news breaks that Turner is out, but that’s fine for cash games, and he would remain viable for GPPs as well on this eight-game slate where there are a ton of decent options in every price range at the center position.
YOLO Pick of the Night:
Because I know that everyone wants to try out the YOLO life every so often, I’m going to start throwing in a wild, high-variance suggestion that will almost never be a good option for cash games. This will be a GPP-only pick based off of a hunch that I have, without a ton of data to back it up. Tonight’s pick is Paul George (OKC): $8,200 vs. MIN, and to be honest, he’s not an uber-YOLO pick on tonight’s slate.
There’s a pretty good chance he goes for 35-40ish DK points and pays off his salary. The reason I like him for GPPs tonight is that his price is a little too high, and I think he’s going to be very low-owned. Minnesota is still horrible defensively, and there’s a good chance someone from the Thunder goes off.
The obvious choice would be Russell Westbrook, but I’m not going with an obvious choice for this pick. I’ve got a hunch that it might be PG-13 tonight.
As always, feel free to tweet @ me any hot takes, suggestions, or questions. Good luck, and I hope everyone has a great weekend!
Jason Biggins is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Jason, check out his archive and follow him @biggsportsfan.