DraftKings contributors Matt Meiselman and Nick Friar join The Sweat to give their favorite DraftKings value plays for tonight’s NBA slate.
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Video Transcript
Matt Meiselman:
So we have to look to the Toronto Raptors, because they have a bunch of injuries from over the weekend against the Sixers where they lost Gary Trent and Scottie Barnes and Thaddeus Young, and the guy who benefits the most there is probably Chris Boucher at $4400. And this could be a chalky play, but I’m actually not convinced that it is because Boucher didn’t do well in his limited playing time in Game 1, and I think people might be a little scared off of this.
Like maybe you just want to play Fred VanVleet and Pascal Siakam, who have to do more for this team with some of these other key guys out. So Boucher does scare some people at times, like he’s had a lot of really bad fantasy games over the course of the season, but that upside is there too and I think if he has one of his big games and you don’t have him at $4400, you basically have no chance. So the range of outcomes is wide, but I think Boucher has to play big minutes. This Raptors team is just too short-handed and he is one of the guys who can space the court on a team where all of a sudden a lot of their playmaking is gone.
Nick Friar:
I think Matt made some great points about Chris Boucher—definitely a guy who I was considering as my favorite play. OG Anunoby of course is another guy too, $5,800, going against the Sixers in this one. He gets the second biggest usage bump on the team with no Trent or Scottie Barnes on the floor and puts up like 1.08 DK fantasy points per minute in those scenarios.
But my favorite one is actually the guy who got booted in the first game—DeMarcus Cousins at $3.6K. Only played 10 minutes and almost provided five times that fantasy value, got 15 DK fantasy points, so not far off from that, and I know he’s played mixed amount of minutes over the course of this season, but this is a guy but who’s going to save you a ton of money if you can go and get him. And against the Warriors, he’s done pretty well, I think he’s provided right around five times value I think three of the four times that he’s seen them, not counting the other night. So this is a guy who can make the most of his time against the Warriors, he has done it multiple times.
Matt’s Pick: Chris Boucher ($4,400)
Nick’s Pick: DeMarcus Cousins ($3,600)
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