Gross Bombs: NFL Props for Week 16
Josh Gross
Welcome to “5 Stats to Know.” This NBA DFS article will appear every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for the NBA regular season, coinciding with the larger slates of the week, provided by yours truly, to help you gain a quantitative edge on the rest of the field when identifying stands to make and angles to take in your GPP lineups.
The format of this article is simple. I will provide five stats that stuck out to me when diving into the day’s NBA slate, whether they be about an individual player or an overall team trend of note. These could be derived from FTN’s suite of tools (Advanced DvP, NBA On/Off Splits) or from the NBA’s extensive library of statistics.
Make sure to check out all of the great FTN NBA offerings and fantastic NBA Tools, including our FTN NBA Odds Tracker and daily FTN NBA DFS cheat sheets!
Now, onto the noteworthy numbers for the slate at hand.
NBA DFS Stats to Know for Friday, April 1
With both LeBron James and Anthony Davis active this season, the Lakers’ defensive rating improves by 12.53 points but still remains at a league-average rate of 110.77, per FTN’s On/Off Splits tool.
Anthony Davis is slated to make his return Friday for the Lakers, and LeBron James is reportedly “hopeful” to play. With James chasing the NBA scoring title and the Lakers needing to desperately straighten their arrow, it would be rather surprising to me to see James sit on the second leg of this back-to-back. At first glance, this may make an oft-targeted Lakers’ defense one that you could instinctively want to avoid with the addition of two two-way superstars, but that isn’t the case in Los Angeles. The Lakers’ defensive rating of 123.3 without James and Davis this season would be dead-last in the NBA by a 7.3-point margin, illustrating just how brutal they’ve been. With them active, their defensive rating of 110.77 would rank them 15th in the NBA, the definition of mediocrity. This makes this a targetable matchup even in their return, as they also run at a faster pace (102.3, an increase of three possessions per game), making CJ McCollum and Brandon Ingram two of my most intriguing GPP plays on the slate.
Over the last two games without Christian Wood, Dennis Schroder and Eric Gordon, Jalen Green has posted a team-high 28.9% usage rate.
Green’s production has fluctuated between extreme highs and extreme lows more than any other top-end rookie this season, but his progression over the latter portion of the season and, more particularly, the last two games have been head-turning. His usage rate has jumped over 5% (from his season-long rate of 23.1%) while he’s seen a significant jump in efficiency, posting a true shooting percentage of 64.5% (up from 53.8%) and an effective field goal percentage of 55.1% (up from 49.9%). He’s seen a massive increase in volume as well, taking at least 24 shots in back-to-back games. Getting a second consecutive matchup against the Kings, Green is in a great spot to produce Friday at a reasonable $6,800 on DraftKings.
In two games this season without Reggie Jackson, Paul George and Marcus Morris, Terance Mann has averaged 64.4% more DraftKings points per game.
The trio of Jackson, George and Morris have been ruled out for the Clippers’ game against the reigning champions Friday, as have Brandon Boston and Nicolas Batum. Mann has averaged 14.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists across these two games, posting a pair of well-rounded stat lines but nothing that really jumps off of the page. What does jump off the page, however, is the fact that he’s averaged over 40 minutes per game. Last game in this scenario, Boston was active and soaked up 21 minutes off the bench. With him also being ruled out, we could see an incremental few minutes land in Mann’s lap. The matchup is irrelevant when a player under $6,000 is presented with this level of volume, rendering Mann as a core play on DraftKings Friday.
No player on the Bucks has posted a higher usage rate (28.7%) or per-minute rate (1.30 DraftKings points per minute) with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez off the floor than Grayson Allen.
The masses will flock to Jordan Nwora and Bobby Portis, as these are the two DFS-friendly players who we’ve routinely used in these scenarios given their volume-heavy offensive approach in this scenario. While Allen may not have as high of a ceiling as Portis, statistically, he’s been the most productive without the four key players on the court. On a per-36-minute basis, he’s averaged 29.11 points, 6.47 rebounds, 1.85 assists and 46.91 DraftKings points in this scenario. While it will likely be necessary to get multiple Bucks into your lineups, Allen still stands out as one of the less popular options and that should not be the case.
The Wizards rank dead last (30th) in the NBA against primary ball-handlers, per advanced DvP.
The Wizards’ defensive unit has been one to exploit for seasons, but they’ve been particularly generous against opposing backcourts this season, as they also rank 18th against crafty finishers, 16th against scorers and 20th against superstars. Doncic’s recent play has been even more impressive than his full-season performance, posting the second-highest usage rate in the NBA (35.7%) while averaging 30.2 points (would be No. 1 in the NBA over the course of the full season), 9.3 rebounds and 7.4 assists on 48.8% shooting and nearly 40% from three over the last 15 games. A date with the Wizards is a cherry on top for the superstar guard and while blowout may be a concern given the 8.5-point spread and the Wizards ranked 27th in the NBA against the spread (31-43-2), their plus-minus against the spread instills hope. With the Wizards posting an average -1.6 plus-minute against the spread, we can reasonably expect the most statistically probable outcome to be roughly a 10-point game. This is well within a range where Doncic will get a full workload and absolutely smash.
