THE CORE
1) Spencer Dinwiddie, Brooklyn Nets
FanDuel: $7,500, SG DraftKings: $7,600, PG/SG Yahoo: $29, PG FantasyDraft: $14,000, G
This price has still not increased enough for Mr. Dinwiddie considering Kyrie Irving and Caris LeVert continue to be on the sidelines. It is pretty easy to see why too when we lay it all out.
Season: 28.6% usage rate, 29.3% assist rate, 1.1 FD / 1.13 DK points per minute
160 minutes on the court without Kyrie or LeVert: 35.4% usage rate, 39% assist rate, 1.18 FD / 1.25 DK points per minute
Perhaps even better than those rate bumps though are the minutes he is in line for in these situations. On the season, he has only averaged 27.6 minutes per game. Remember, he still came off of the bench when Kyrie was playing and LeVert was out.
But we have really seen the minutes upside for him in these last three games that Kyrie has been out and Dinwiddie has started. They really have no choice but to play him a ton.
In that first game on November 16th at Chicago, the box score says otherwise (he only finished with 30.5 minutes). However, he lost about 2.5 minutes in the second quarter when he picked up his third foul, and then he lost approximately another five minutes in the third quarter when he picked up his fourth foul at the 8:41 mark.
And we know from Wednesday’s article that he lost six minutes in the fourth quarter due to a blowout in that game Monday against the Pacers. And then in Wednesday’s game, he ended up playing just a hair under 37 minutes when everything seemingly went according to plan.
As such, I think 36-37 minutes is a very reasonable projection. At those minutes and the above FPPM rates, a mid $7k price tag on FD and DK remains flat out too cheap.
(Tournament pivot: You obviously want to get confirmation he is playing (listed as questionable) before deploying him, but Bogdan Bogdanovic makes a ton of sense on the other side of this game as a tournament pivot (or pairing in game stacks). The masses might be scared off of these price tags now that they are north of $7,000, but the reality is that his ceiling is much higher now that De’Aaron Fox is out injured. We have already seen it twice in those four games, as he went for 50+ fantasy points against the Blazers and then again Tuesday against Suns. It required a silly level of efficiency shooting the ball on Tuesday, and then he got there with huge usage and assist rates in the game against the Blazers. This is a guy everyone loves playing when he is in the $5k range. I don’t think they will feel that way with him now in the $7k range, even coming off of that monster game on Tuesday.)
2) Langston Galloway, Detroit Pistons
FanDuel: $4,000, SG DraftKings: $4,500, PG/SG Yahoo: $11, SG FantasyDraft: $8,400, G
Wait, what? I am guessing I might have to sell you on this one!
Okay, so the reason we like Galloway tonight is strictly because of the minutes he has been getting with Tony Snell sidelined. Snell left their game early last Friday; Galloway played 37.5 minutes. Snell was out for their game on Tuesday; Galloway started and played 40 minutes.
Now Galloway has never been a big per-minute guy. In his three seasons with the Pistons, his FPPM rate has been at 0.76 FD / 0.78 DK, 0.64 FD / 0.66 DK, and 0.76 FD / 0.79 DK. He is a very, very scoring-dependent player. For proof of that, you can look no further than these past two games and the inherent volatility. 32 real life points in that first game = 35.9 FD / 39.5 DK. 13 real life points in the second game = 15.1 FD / 18.25 DK. It basically comes down to whether or not he is hitting his threes.
I think this matchup against Atlanta is going to be a good one for him though. For starters, they are a bad defensive team, ranking 27th in defensive rating. And secondly, they are allowing three-point shots at the fifth most frequent rate according to NBA Stats, and those three’s are being converted at the second highest rate (36.4%) in the league. So he should be able to get up plenty of trey-balls tonight. The only question is: will he hit enough of them to pay off this salary? With no other stand-out cheap plays on this slate (as it stands right now at least), I am certainly willing to find out in cash games.
The price tag really stands out on FD, where it looks like we have our shooting guard duo locked and loaded. I’d really like something else to emerge on DK/FDRFT/Y, but he gets the Core Play tag there for the time being.
(Tournament pivot: Spending way up at shooting guard very well might be contrarian on this slate. And who better to spend on than James Harden? I could give two you-know-whats about the defenders they might throw at him. They could allow seven Clippers out on the floor, let Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Patrick Beverley triple-team him, and he still might find a way to hit a step-back three over them. The ceiling for Harden is unquestioned, and the price tag has dipped down a bit over the last week or two. I really do think ownership will be depressed on him tonight because of the depth of the position. That should be something that is taken advantage of in tournament formats.)