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A fairly priced point guard position tonight, has me leaning towards Shelvin Mack ($6,300) as the best dollar-for-dollar option. He’s recorded 35+ DraftKings points in six straight games and is logging heavy minutes for the Jazz since being acquired at the deadline. He’s tallied a double-double in three of five and is scoring 16.8 real points per game in this recent stretch. The Utah Jazz are the biggest beneficiaries of matchup in terms of pace and line tonight. This game has been bookmarked with a 199.5 over/under which is six full points higher than their season average line.
One of my favorite cash game plays of the night is Monta Ellis ($6,100) who is averaging 33.5 DraftKings PPG over the last twelve games. He has reached 5x value in nine of his last ten games thanks to some well-rounded stat lines. In those ten games he is averaging 14.3 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 5.2 APG and 2.4 SPG. He is a lock to play 35 minutes or more tonight in an excellent matchup. The Pelicans are…quite honestly, very bad. To make matters worse they are being decimated by injury and will be rolling out something that resembles a D-League lineup tonight.
Now on the flip side, Luke Babbitt ($4,000) is taking full advantage of the injuries to the Pelicans. He’s only averaging 14.5 MPG this season, but has been thrust into a large role the last two games, playing 29 and 35 minutes. He produced 23.5 and 31.5 DK points in those games. Listen, Babbitt is nothing sexy but he’s proving to be a capable scorer, dropping 23 points against Miami on Tuesday night. He will contribute on the glass and should be in-line for plenty of minutes. He doesn’t need much to reach value and should have no problem getting there if he is going to jack 19 shots like he did two nights ago.
There is one or maybe two viable options at PF tonight. I wrote all about Kevin Love last night who is nearly a must-play again tonight. So I will write about the other playable PF, who is Kristaps Porzingis ($5,400). He’s going to be volatile, but he’s put together an excellent stretch of games here recently. He’s scored 28.25, 26.25 and 35 DraftKings points in three of his last four then exploded for a monster 29-10 line against Chicago last night on the road. Now he gets the same matchup tonight against the Bulls, at home, where Zinger is five DraftKings better per game this season.
The center position is rather thin as well, so I want to take this opportunity to discuss an out-of-the-box strategy that I’ve kept my eye on recently. It involves the centers for the OKC Thunder. For those of you unaware, they have two centers who play almost all the minutes at the five in Steven Adams ($3,600) and Enes Kanter ($4,900). Neither are too appealing on their own, they are both inconsistent and you never know which is going to play more minutes. I think it would be very interesting to play BOTH on a given night. Looking back at the last nine games, they have combined to exceed 6x value on five occasions (including three games of 7x+) and have hit at least 5x value eight occasions. The only game they didn’t reach 5x value, they finished at 4.87x. Tonight they would cost a total of $8,500, so they would need 51 DraftKings points for 6x value. They’ve accomplished that feat in six of eight and scored 45.25 and 48 in the other two. As an added bonus it would certainly make for a contrarian lineup on this small slate.
That’s all folks! Be sure to follow me on Twitter for more player analysis as news and injuries break closer to tip-off! Commentary based on DraftKings strategy and scoring.