College Football Props of the Week: Week 4
Walter Waddell
There might only be three games on Saturday’s NBA DFS slate, but two of them have spreads of at least 14 points. The one game that doesn’t have a large spread involves the Denver Nuggets, who are likely sitting out players anyways. Let’s talk about some players that can help our lineups climb the leaderboards Saturday.
1. The Utah Jazz are in the bottom five against primary ball handlers
The FTN Advanced DvP Tool has been a massive help throughout the season, Saturday included. The Denver Nuggets have listed their entire starting five as questionable and have sat their stars in the past week or so. They have nothing to play for since the West runs through Denver in the playoffs, but that opens up players we haven’t targeted this year. One of those players is Ish Smith, who was the backup point guard Thursday night. He logged just under 23 minutes but quickly generated over 25.0 DK points and took 12 shots. With the matchup against the Jazz in front of him, Smith could be a great value player –
2. Kris Dunn scores 1.34 points per minute for the Jazz in this scenario
Utah was eliminated from postseason contention within the past two days, effectively ending their season. They got a lot closer than most expected at the start of the year, but the Jazz have left the offense in the hands of Kris Dunn, who wasn’t in the NBA at the start of the year. He’s been very productive for fantasy in Utah and has a 23.8% usage rate and 34.0% assist rate in this scenario. Since he’s such an important player on what’s left of this team, he’s still appealing at this salary and should play for 32 minutes or more.
3. Norman Powell has a 29.5% usage rate without Paul George for the Clippers
With Eric Gordon back in the starting lineup, Powell should come off the bench as he did in the last game for the Clippers. That’s not a huge issue because we want talented scorers against this Portland team that is down to 27th in defensive rating on the year. Powell is scoring 1.16 points per minute and has cleared the 30-minute threshold in the past two games. The Clippers are 17-point favorites so it’s not crazy to see them protect a player like Kawhi Leonard, but the Clippers also need to win this game.
4. Karl-Anthony Towns had his best fantasy game since returning from an injury Tuesday
I’ve been chasing that first game for a week or so, and Towns scored 48.5 DK points against the Nets in just 31 minutes played. That’s more what we’ve been after and he racked up 22 points and 14 rebounds, something he can do again when he faces the Spurs. They are only 24th in rebounds allowed per game and without Naz Reid, Towns is scoring 1.30 points per minute. The matchup is wonderful, and the Wolves need this win in the worst way to fight for seeding in the West –
5. Julian Champagnie is averaging 25.1 minutes in the past five games for the Spurs
It’s not as though those minutes have guaranteed fantasy production. After all, there was a game with just 5.0 DK points scored but Champagnie also has games of over 36.0 and 37.0 DK points. He’s still under $5,000 on DK and the Spurs have shown a willingness to play him enough minutes to make him viable as he’s scoring 0.93 points per minute. We’ve seen Champagnie take double-digit shot attempts in three straight games and the matchup with the Wolves has the highest total on the slate.
