5 Stats to Know: NBA DFS March 2

Welcome to “5 Stats to Know.” This article will come every day, Monday through Friday, provided by yours truly, to help you gain a quantitative edge on the rest of the field when identifying core NBA DFS plays.

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. 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.

James Harden, PG/SG, Philadelphia 76ers (vs NYK)

When sharing the court with Joel Embiid (52.8 minutes), Harden has posted a 54.8% assist rate

The offense clearly still flows through Joel Embiid when the two superstars share the court, as evidenced by Embiid’s 40.7% usage rate compared to Harden’s 17.4%, but the correlation between the two is as strong as ever. Harden has operated as the primary facilitator and playmaker with his 54.8% assist rate, converting this into 28 total assists in his first two games with the Sixers. Seeing that they’ve only shared the court for 52.8 minutes together, Doc Rivers has clearly shown the willingness to stagger minutes, which is another advantage to Harden on tonight’s slate. Despite still averaging over 1.7 DK points per minute with Embiid on the court, that already-elite number balloons to 2.06 DK points per minute with a 35.7% usage rate when Embiid is off the floor. At what should be lower-than-deserving ownership, Harden is a preferred spend-up for me in a matchup with a disappointing defensive unit.

Jarrett Allen, C, Cleveland Cavaliers (vs. CHA)

No team in the NBA is allowing more rebounds per game (57.0) than the Charlotte Hornets