Kmarko's NBA DraftKings Picks - December 15th
Welcome back to the daily DraftKings picks where we try to get super rich playing daily fantasy basketball. As usual I’ll do a brief recap of my lineups from the week before then throw out some picks that I’m brainstorming for this weekend, and hopefully get some good feedback/tips/picks from you guys either in the comment section or on Twitter @kmarkobarstool.
Wommpppp wommppppp.
Blog picks: Gallo and Jameer both paid off with flames. I took my own brainstorming advice from my blog and went with Wall over Lillard for tournaments – did not work out. Lillard hit his projected score, Wall pooped in his pants.
I wish I had mentioned Leuer in my post because he’s at an interesting spot right now. He’s been a great value play for a few weeks now, but now that his price is bordering on 6K, he’s actually an even better tournament play. Everybody who knows basketball knows Jon Leuer is not talented enough to deserve you spending 5.9K on, but he’s still getting the minutes, all the opportunities, and if you can catch him exceeding value, you’ve got a solid 35-40 points that nobody else has.
Just something to think about.
Short slate tonight so let’s check out the plays –
SF Lebron James $10K
James Harden will probably be 55-60% owned tonight and is the obvious chalk play, with his 70 point upside and his history of absolutely demolishing Sacramento. I’m hoping to catch Lebron a little lower owned – it’s a 4 game slate, so he’ll be up there regardless, but if I’m spending up on someone it’s Bron Bron. He always bring the heat against Boston, and the Celtics have looked real good lately so this should be a close, hard fought game with no blowout factor. As the season goes on I’ll get concerned about Bron’s minutes, but tonight he seems safe to get all the run he can handle with a little extra grudge match edge.
Other SF options: He’s hard to play in DFS, but anytime Rudy Gay drops below 7K, I take notice. Trevor Ariza is back to getting infinity minutes and looks healthy, and you can’t argue with his price. And Omri Casspi has been an incredible value play – his price is up though, so weigh the risk/reward there.
SG Will Barton $6.2K
Well it looks like Will Barton isn’t a fluke…one hot game turned into a week, which turned into 2 weeks, which has basically turned into the entire season. I mean look at the guy’s game log. Consistently throwing up 30 and 40 spots. He comes off the bench but is getting 32-36 minutes a game, and with Mudiay out there’s even more run for him. He’s a shooter so if you get unlucky and catch him on a night he goes cold it could hurt, but he’s been grabbing a lot of boards (9 in each of his past 2 games) and honestly just hasn’t been cold in a while, so at 6.2K you’re looking at some good upside.
Other SG options: OJ Mayo is still running the offense and getting plenty of minutes, and has been lower owned than expected lately – personally I think I like Middleton better tonight though. If you want a Nugget who is off the radar, Gary Harris came back last night and promptly got 40 minutes and dropped 30 fantasy points…at 4.1K, it’s a risky but possibly high upside value play. Also, Kevin Martin has been hot, and is super cheap – I hate playing him though. Always burns me.
PG Lou Williams $5.2K
Jameer Nelson is once again the premiere value play at 4.2K, but as we saw last night, he’s owned by half the field. Darren Collison is also a good play, but will also be very popular with Rondo out. So in the interest in finding a lower owned guy with just as much (if not more) upside than those two, I’ll raise the value price up a little bit to 5.2K. Lou Williams has been starting for the Lakers, and while the real life team sucks incredibly bad, the fantasy production doesn’t. Kobe dropped 50 last game, D’Angelo Russell is off and on, and Lou has been quietly consistently solid, putting up around 28-35 points per game. On a short slate with everyone flocking to Jameer and Collison I like the play here.
Other PG options: My man Isaiah Thomas at only 7.7K is a steal. The analytics love Ricky Rubio, but he’s been dropping way too many duds lately. If you’re trying to take a shot? MCW is one of the most annoying players to ever play in daily fantasy. He’s got a floor of single digit points…but with a matchup against the Lakers, who knows if he can bust out one of his 45 point gems.
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That’s it for me, good luck tonight. Tweet me @kmarkobarstool with your picks or to talk shit, whatever. Also if you’re depositing to play make sure to use my referral and we’ll both get hooked up with some stuff.