What’s up, everyone — it’s Lindy! This article will walk you through the important parts of the main NBA DFS slate on Monday, Jan. 22. Keep in mind that news could impact the dynamics, so take this as a guideline rather than the be-all end-all. I’ll pinpoint crucial decision points for tonight’s slate to help you anticipate developments and refine your lineups. Let’s dive into the NBA DFS lineup tips for today! For more NBA DFS advice, check out our NBA DFS lineup generator or industry-leading NBA DFS simulation tools.
NBA DFS Lineup Questions: Key Decisions for Today
NBA DFS Lineup Advice: Debating $11,000 Options
One of the things that should naturally happen as more value gets added to any specific NBA DFS slate is more of the expensive, highest-projected players of the night showing up in lineups for you. And as soon as Mike Conley was ruled out for rest this afternoon to open up Nickeil Alexander–Walker ($3,500 DraftKings/$4,400 FanDuel) for the potential spot start, differentiating between Joel Embiid, Luka Doncic and Giannis Antetokounmpo became a whole lot more important. That led me straight to the Sims tool to test if my hypothesis was correct, which led me to some interesting findings we should talk about.
But first, here are my DraftKings exposures to those three $11,000-plus plays and the corresponding leverage I have to each:
As you can see, I’m basically at the field on both Embiid and Antetokounmpo, while Doncic is by far the piece I’m getting to the most relative to the field despite a lower projection to Embiid and more limited positional eligibility than Giannis — PF/C compared to Doncic’s PG only. That’s where the Stokastic Sims tool does its best work, though: Taking 10,000 simulations of a specific slate and telling you in a date-driven way, “hey, there’s a lot more centers and power forwards to rotate through than point guards” and leading you to more Doncic. He’s also the only one of the three whose team isn’t a huge favorite this evening — 2-point dogs against the Celtics, in fact. Compare that with the 76ers as 13.5-point home favorites versus the Spurs and the Bucks favored by 12.5 against the pitiful Pistons, and there are a number of outcomes in those spots where the more competitive game environment for Doncic has him performing better in the Sims.
Still, this was a run of lineups more than four hours before lock, and there’s are still a number of dominos to drop that could change that ratio among the top of the board. Specifically, Anthony Edwards sitting (currently questionable) would send us into a Timberwolves feeding frenzy and probably puts us all in a position to get easy access to two of those three studs in nearly every lineup. So stay vigilant with news, but if somehow nothing dramatic changes from here on out, Doncic looks to be the stud I’ll be most overweight to come lock.
NBA DFS Lineup Advice: Nuke of the Night
We’re a couple weeks into this new-look Raptors squad, and the results have brutal, to say the least. They’ve been losers in six of their past seven, but they haven’t even been favored once in any of those matchups. They’re now 7-point favorites at home against an injury-ridden Memphis squad, and something tells me this is the spot we see peak Scottie Barnes in the post-Pascal Siakam era.
In the week since the Siakam trade, the Barnes results haven’t exactly been ideal (on/off court numbers courtesy of AddMoreFunds.com):
But these 1.25 DraftKings points per minute have to improve, as here’s where his baseline has been for the entire season:
That’s 1.27 DraftKings points per minute in 1,506 minutes of court time this season. Now, removing O.G. Anunoby and Siakam but adding Immanuel Quickley and R.J. Barrett could end up closer to a wash for his rates than anticipated. Still, I see no way Barnes doesn’t resoundingly lead this team in usage by season’s end, so I’ll buy the dip heavily considering the PG/SF eligibility and sublime $8,200 price tag on DraftKings. After all, we were paying $9,400 for him just over a month ago, and I’d be surprised if we weren’t paying that for him again a month from now.
