NBA DFS Preview: Central Division

It’s a bit crazy to think about where we are today. While some may feel it’s been a long time since we had NBA action. The return of basketball doesn’t mean normalcy, but it’s a start, and it’s a pretty great feeling to be writing about it again.

This is the second of a six-part series where each member of the FTN NBA DFS staff will break down each team by division from a daily fantasy perspective. Let’s start with the Central Division.

Indiana Pacers

Coach: Nate McMillan
Record: 39-26; fifth in the East (Identical record to 76ers but ahead on tiebreakers)
Players not in bubble: Domantas Sabonis
Projected starters: Malcolm Brogdon, Victor Oladipo/Aaron Holiday, T.J. Warren, Justin Holiday/JaKarr Sampson, Myles Turner
Bench: Aaron Holiday, T.J. McConnell, Doug McDermott, T.J. Leaf, Edmond Sumner, Goga Bitadze, Brian Bowen II, Naz Mitrou-Long, Alize Johnson
Team pace: 24th, 99.05
Team defensive rating: 7th, 107.7
Team offensive rating: 17th, 109.7
Schedule breakdown: PHI, WAS, ORL, PHX, LAL, MIA, HOU. MIA

Indiana’s schedule is a mixed bag of appealing and difficult matchups, and especially with the number of injury situations we are currently monitoring, will have to be handled on a game-by-game basis.

The Pacers will represent a potential opportunity to be appraised on a daily basis depending on both their matchup and the available personnel. The team has played one scrimmage so far, a 40-minute contest they just squeaked out against the Trailblazers, 91-88. For that game, their three top Centers were all unavailable — Turner, Sabonis and Bitadze.

Indiana did a spectacular job of acquiring all the T.J.s in the NBA and has managed to keep those three relatively healthy, but otherwise nearly everyone on the team is dealing with a significant injury situation.
News came just Friday that Sabonis has left the bubble to get medical attention from a specialist on his troublesome left foot. There has been hope that rest would allow him to improve as it had previously this year, but clearly he wasn’t progressing and now will almost certainly miss the entire regular season, and perhaps some or all of the playoffs as well. Keep in mind that even if he does return to Orlando, he’ll need to be quarantined for at least four days before being available to play. The loss of Sabonis is difficult to overstate; he really came into his own as a player this year and made a well-deserved first all-star appearance.
Sampson started at center in the team’s only scrimmage so far, but Turner stands likely to be the greatest beneficiary of Sabonis’ absence. Especially if Bitadze is out, Turner should see significant time during the seeding games. The calf injury that kept him out of the first scrimmage is reportedly not serious.

The rest of Sabonis’ time will be divided up between a number of players — Leaf, Sampson and even Johnson will get some looks. McDermott and Holiday can play all the way down at the 4, and Warren would be looking at more time at both forward positions.

While Sabonis was the team’s best player this year, an ongoing storyline the entire year was the slow recovery and return of Oladipo from a ruptured quad tendon. After beginning to look more like himself in March, it was reported Oladipo would not play in Orlando, instead focusing on his long-term recovery. That stance softened and Oladipo even started the scrimmage against the Trail Blazers. But his continued presence and production can’t be counted on going forward.

Brogdon was dealing with a thigh and a hip issue before testing positive for COVID-19, but has been cleared and started the scrimmage, appearing to be well on his way towards a complete recovery.
And lastly while Jeremy Lamb is with the team, he won’t be playing while recovering from his ACL tear.

All told, this will be a difficult team to lock down for fantasy purposes. They are more of a defensive team with a tepid offense and pace, and what production comes from the team is distributed fairly evenly. Sabonis had blow-up potential, but he’s gone. Oladipo doesn’t seem ready yet to throw up a massive game. Looking at this first scrimmage, even with no Sabonis, the shot distribution for the team was 10/10/10/9/9/8/7 among the top seven players.
It will be worth keeping an eye on Warren in the two games against Miami due to his fireworks and confrontation with Jimmy Butler earlier this year. There could quite possibly be a first-round playoff series between these two teams as well.

Milwaukee Bucks

Coach: Mike Budenholzer
Record: 53-12, first in the East (by 6.5 games)
Players not in bubble: Pat Connaughton
Projected starters: Eric Bledsoe, Wesley Matthews, Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Brook Lopez
Bench: George Hill, Donte DiVincenzo, Marvin Williams, Kyle Korver, Sterling Brown, Robin Lopez, Ersan Ilyasova, Frank Mason, D.J. Wilson, Thanasis Antetokounmpo
Team pace: 1st, 105.36
Team defensive rating: 1st, 101.6
Team offensive rating: 6th, 112.3
Schedule breakdown: BOS, HOU, BKN, MIA, DAL, TOR, WAS, MEM

It seems a bit silly to start by mentioning the Bucks’ excellence in general, for it is both well-known and widely discussed, but as it is historically impressive, and informs how they will play during the bubble, here is a quick rundown.

While the Bucks have arguably the best player in the league, they have inarguably the best defense. Their defense — especially considering the pace at which they play — is absurdly good. The average team in the NBA gives up about 110 points per 100 possessions. The Lakers stingy D is third-best, giving up 105.5 points per 100. The Raptors land in second place, allowing 104.9 points per 100 possessions. 

The Bucks allow 101.6.

While sprinting up and down the court at the NBA’s quickest pace, while blowing teams out by so much that their starters play limited minutes — they are the league's best defense by leaps and bounds. 

A brief slide just before the suspension of the season knocked the Bucks all the way down to fifth when looking at the greatest average margin of victory in league history. The sit just fractions behind Michael Jordan’s 72-win Bulls team and the dominating 2016-2017 Warriors. They are in that class of historic excellence.
Despite this, I still — perhaps foolishly — have them a slight dog to either L.A. team in a seven-game series. While Giannis is a Shaq-in-his-prime level force, Middleton isn’t quite Kobe. I think if you can keep Giannis out of the paint — which both L.A. teams have excellent personnel to attempt — I think the Bucks can be beaten. But that’s likely a conversation for a couple months from now.
For now, for DFS purposes, they are too good. Motivation will be a huge concern for many teams in Orlando, and the Bucks have scarcely any. For all intents and purposes, they cannot lose the first seed in the Eastern Conference. Even if they could, the Magic/Nets or Wizards aren’t going to take down that 7-2 matchup. The truncated season means they no longer have Jordan’s Bulls and the recent Dubs teams’ records to assail. In fact, Budenholzer’s greatest challenge over the next month may be keeping a team engaged that has precious little to play for.

The squad is basically fully healthy. Bledsoe and Pat Connaughton tested positive for COVID-19, and while Connaughton is still absent, Bledsoe just arrived in Orlando and is expected to be ready for the team’s first real game. Not that starting DiVincenzo or Hill would make the team that much worse. But no one will be playing that many minutes for this team, even if they stop winning every game by 20.

The Bucks have played one scrimmage so far, in which they dismantled the Spurs. Aside from Bledsoe and Connaughton, the other 14 players on the team were all present and healthy, and all 14 played.
There will be some opportunity of course. On days with a lot of value, getting the 45 FP out of Giannis in his 24 minutes will be viable. When some of the starters inevitably sit, opportunity will open up for value, and for greater production from the other starters. Giannis will almost certainly not play all eight seeding games, and we quite likely will see a massively owned Ilyasova start (if it is announced enough ahead of time.) In that situation, I’m likely looking the other way depending on the opponent and exactly how absurd the ownership projects to be — he’ll be splitting those 48 minutes with Williams and Wilson — at least.
This will be a team to enjoy watching and an absolute wonder to behold. But as DFS plays, quite possibly their greatness as a team will stifle their value as individuals.