Best lineup strategy for Cavaliers vs. Heat NBA simulation Showdown

The featured simulated basketball contest on DraftKings for Wednesday afternoon is between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Miami Heat. Here, we’ll go over how to approach lineup construction for the fantasy basketball contest.

Captain’s Picks

It’s easy to identify the captain plays for this Showdown contest. Starting with some of the studs, Jimmy Butler ($17,100), Bam Adebayo ($15,300), Andre Drummond ($14,100) and Kevin Love ($13,500) are the best options. The two in the middle — Bam and Drumm — are the safer plays. Drummond has the majority of his box scores starting for the Pistons. He’s got over 10 games with 20 and 20. Adebayo has triple-double upside and is much cheaper than Butler, who I feel is a bit overpriced.

Collin Sexton ($15,600) is the second-highest priced Captain’s pick. This is a mistake. Sexton shouldn’t be priced this high and I wouldn’t want to use him as my Captain for this much. Really all Sexton does is score and most of the time he isn’t breaking 30-40 FPTs. That isn’t the ceiling we’re looking for at Captain.

FLEX Options

There’s a big drop off from Love ($9,000) to Kendrick Nunn ($7,600). I think there’s a lot of value in the mid-range in this contest. Nunn has had plenty of box scores better than Love this season and is much cheaper. The same can be said about Tristan Thompson ($6,200), who is even cheaper. The plays get better and better as we go down the line.

Cedi Osman ($4,400) may not be the sexiest play but when we look at his box scores, things get a little hot. He was averaging nearly 30 minutes per game in the starting lineup for 65 games this season. The numbers aren’t exactly there but they were coming along toward the time when the League went on break. Larry Nance Jr. ($3,600) also seems extremely underpriced. He’s had spot starts throughout the season and generally plays 20+ minutes coming off the bench.