Today’s article is designed to help you get an edge on the large DraftKings NBA DFS tournament fields. As an example in this article I will use the $50K And-One (20 Entry Max) contest. Entry fee to this tournament is $1 per lineup. The max field of entries is 59,453 lineups. Considering there is no overlay, this contest pays out the top 15,950 places or top 26.8 percent. However, in order to make a considerable return on investment, you’ll have to have a top-19 finish. That’s finishing in the top 0.032% of lineups. Sounds crazy, right? Well, we will just have to go against the grain a little in our lineups to leapfrog the rest of the field.
My core generally consists of four to five players. I purposely go against some of the higher projected ownership. This is to gain leverage on the rest of the field. This is trickier to do on slates like tonight because we only have four games to choose from. This limits our player pool compared to last night’s 11-game slate. This likely means that we will have to eat some chalk and pivot elsewhere in our lineups.
Let’s dive into gaining an edge on the field for tonight’s NBA DFS slate.
DraftKings NBA DFS Core Plays | Feb. 13
Malcolm Brogdon (PG – $7,500)
John Wall is expected to be in around 50% of the NBA DFS lineups in this contest. Is it risky to fade him? Absolutely. If he goes bonkers, you’ll be behind half of the field. If he bombs and Malcolm Brogdon crushes, you’ll theoretically have eliminated half of your competition. However, the reasoning to roster Brogdon over Wall does not just come down to ownership.
The game total for Indiana is ten points higher than Houston’s game. The Pacers also have a seven point higher implied team total than Houston. This is Atlanta’s third game in four days and the back end of a back to back set. Add in the slight pace boost for the Pacers and I can get on board with paying slightly more for Brogdon in hopes of gaining a massive edge on the field. I’m not saying you cannot use Wall along with Brogdon, I’m merely trying to give you more leverage on the field.
Nerlens Noel (C – $3,900)
Excellent. Everything is going as planned. Kudos those that can name the movie reference. Now that we’ve eliminated half of the tournament field, we can look to Nerlens Noel to take us even further up the leaderboard. Noel is projected to be in around 12-14% of tournament lineups. This puts him in around 7,728 lineups in our NBA DFS contest. That’s already in the money if he can muster up a good game against Boogie Cousins and his tired feet. If we take the projected ownership of Brogdon and Noel and multiply them together, it gives us 3.4%. In theory, only 2,021 lineups in our contest have a possibility of rostering both Noel and Brogdon. This is exactly the leverage we are looking for on the field.
Jimmy Butler (SF – $8,300)
Jimmy Butler is on an absolute tear lately. He has been averaging over eleven free throw attempts per game. This helps strengthen his floor and shows us that he has been very aggressive with the basketball. In his past eight games, Butler has averaged 23 points, 8.8 rebounds, 8.6 assists, and 1.5 steals. Jimmy comes in at 2% lower projected ownership than Wall. In theory, this is the two percent that can make all the difference on the leaderboard. I’ll have Butler in all of my lineups tonight.
Jordan Clarkson (PG/SG – $5,400)
Jordan Clarkson is coming off a 40-point fantasy output against the Bucks last night. While I am not big on recency bias, Clarkson should still get some open looks from deep. Add in DraftKings’ bonus for hitting from downtown and he’s a perfect steady floor and high upside guy. Miami is 19th in the league in opponent 3-point percentage so the looks will be there. Projected to be around 25% owned, Clarkson fits nicely in our core of lower owned players on a short slate. He’s virtually blowout proof so you’ve got all ingredients for another high production night.
If you use this core of NBA DFS players, it will give you an average of $6,225 per player for your remaining roster spots. It should give you enough wiggle room to go in almost any direction in the mid-tier.
If you have not followed me on Twitter yet, please do so. My handle is @NickSteigDFS. As a disclaimer, FlurrySports nor myself are responsible for your NBA DFS lineups. This article is just to give you insight on where I will be starting my DraftKings NBA tournament lineups. As you know, news can hit hard in the NBA so please feel free to blow up my twitter inbox with questions. Stay warm and may the DFS Gods rule in your favor!
