RADIO
NBA DFS Premium Cheat Sheet for 12/25
CORE PLAYS MARKED IN GREEN ABOVE
The Best of the Rest
It's a star-studded slate and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there will be some other players in my pool beyond the 15 on the sheet today. I really wanted to add some value plays, too, since a lot of the players on the sheet are mid-tier or upper-tier guys in pricing.
Kyrie Irving - He and KD have massive upside in this game against the Celtics.
Goran Dragic - Too cheap on both sites for his role as the scorer off the bench and it's a nice matchup.
Jeff Teague - More of a DK play for me at only 4.2k. He had a very Dragic-like role for Boston with Kemba out.
Paul George - Looked great against the Lakers, his price didn't adjust at all either.
Dennis Schroder - Even starting with LeBron and AD, he flirted with a triple-double and played solid minutes. Still too cheap for his role with new team.
Will Barton - Was great in his return to his sixth-man role for Denver. I love guys like him who come off the bench and lead the second units.
Dorian Finney-Smith - I have a soft spot for DFS. He's always underpriced and is a solid rebounder and defender that plays heavy minutes for Dallas.
Paul Millsap - The old man looks like he still has it, and more importantly he played 36 minutes which shows that Denver wants him on the floor more this season.
DeAndre Jordan - DJ was very productive on a per-minute basis but only played 19 minutes because of the blowout. He should be very effective against Thompson and Theis inside.
Game of the Day
Brooklyn (-3.5) vs. Boston (227.5 total)
Man, all five games today should be great, but this might be my favorite for fantasy purposes. We have a solid total and one of the tightest spreads on the board here. We have a Kyrie revenge narrative and a scrappy Boston team that just beat the Bucks on opening night. It has all the makings of a great game.
Most importantly, we have some condensed usage on both sides. Durant and Irving are going to get up most of the shots for Brooklyn and we've both of them be very effective and efficient in the preseason and their tune-up against the Warriors on Tuesday. Boston isn't a very good defensive team, despite their reputation as blue-collar guys. The Milwaukee game hit 243 total points and I think we could see this one also trend towards the over, too.
The Celtics usage is also condensed as Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum took the vast majority of shots for Boston in their win on Wednesday. Tatum is a tad pricy for my liking but there's no reason you can't play him in your game stacks. Brown, meanwhile, is quite affordable and a core play for me on this slate.
Both teams have a second-unit usage guy we can use here, too, in LeVert and Jeff Teague. It's very tempting to run some four or even five-man game stacks here and hope this game goes off.
Fade of the Day
It worked on Tuesday so I am going back to the well here and fading the Lakers' studs LeBron James and Anthony Davis. It could easily bite me, but I still think there is a bit of a hangover for these guys after they played so late into the fall and neither of them played much in the preseason. Heck, the Lakers didn't even put them back into the game on Tuesday to try to bring them back in the fourth quarter. I know LeBron likes to put on a show for national TV games and I expect both of them to be better than they were in the opener, but I still think we can safely target the other studs on this slate and wait for a better day to fire up the Lakers.
FanDuel Sample Lineup
DraftKings Sample Lineup
Please note that these are sample lineups we provide as a tool for you to use. They are designed to give you building-block options as you go about choosing your own lineups, but in no way can we guarantee success. Be sure to examine the latest injury updates, Las Vegas projected game totals, and late scratches before finalizing your lineups to ensure the players you are choosing are active on game day.
