Prime-Time First TD Bets — Sunday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
Every morning on FTNDaily, we will have a comprehensive first look article at that day’s NBA DFS slate. This time, since we have no Christmas Eve games, we’re getting ahead and looking at Saturday’s Christmas slate. This will be your go-to destination for NBA game environments, fantasy-relevant situations to monitor, a quick look at the top-priced players across the industry, and some stats to get you started with the slate.
Looking for an edge in your NBA DFS contests? Our NBA package includes a state-of-the-art LineupEDGE Optimizer, advanced DvP and On/Off tools, player projection models, and more to consistently vault you to the top of the NBA leaderboards in your DFS contests.
We have five games on Saturday’s Christmas NBA DFS slate, so let’s dive in.
Consensus Vegas odds are derived from FTNBets Vegas Odds Board.
NBA Vegas Data for December 25 | NBA DFS First Look
Atlanta Hawks @ New York Knicks
NYK -4.5, total: 213.5
Pace: ATL (19th), NYK (26th)
Situations to monitor:
- Trae Young, Clint Capela, Kevin Huerter, Danilo Gallinari, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Lou Williams, Solomon Hill and De’Andre Hunter remain out. Cam Reddish and Delon Wright are listed as questionable for the Hawks.
- Derrick Rose, Immanuel Quickley, Nerlens Noel, Miles McBride and Kevin Knox remain out for the Knicks. RJ Barrett is listed as questionable.
Boston Celtics @ Milwaukee Bucks
MIL -3.5, total: 219.5
Pace: BOS (20th), MIL (9th)
Situations to monitor:
- Enes Freedom and Josh Richardson remain out for the Celtics while Al Horford and Grant Williams are listed as questionable.
- Bobby Portis, Brook Lopez and Donte DiVincenzo remain out for the Bucks. Giannis Antetokounmpo is still in the health and safety protocols but has the opportunity to test out given the passing of his 10-day window and could play if he returns consecutive negative tests.
Golden State Warriors @ Phoenix Suns
PHO -4.5, total: 218.0
Pace: GSW (10th), PHO (2nd)
Situations to monitor:
- Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins, Damion Lee, Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson and James Wiseman remain out for the Warriors.
- Frank Kaminsky and Abdel Nader remain out for the Suns.
Brooklyn Nets @ Los Angeles Lakers
LAL -1, total: 223.5
Pace: BKN (8th), LAL (1st)
Situations to monitor:
- Kyrie Irving, Cam Thomas, Kessler Edwards, David Duke, Joe Harris and Edmond Sumner remain out for the Nets. Kevin Durant, Bruce Brown, LaMarcus Aldridge, Blake Griffin and Nicolas Claxton are listed as questionable.
- Anthony Davis, Kent Bazemore, Malik Monk, Trevor Ariza, Avery Bradley, Kendrick Nunn and Austin Reaves are listed as out for the Lakers.
Dallas Mavericks @ Utah Jazz
UTA -11. Total: 216.5
Pace: DAL (30th), UTA (16th)
Situations to monitor:
- Luka Doncic, Tim Hardaway, Maxi Kleber, Trey Burke and Reggie Bullock are listed as out for the Mavs. Kristaps Porzingis is listed as questionable.
Stats to Know | NBA DFS First Look
Below are three noteworthy stats to assist you in starting your NBA DFS research for Christmas.
In two games without Kevin Durant this season, James Harden is averaging 30.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, and 8.0 assists
Harden has posted a 37% usage rate in these two games and has averaged north of 60 DraftKings points per game, giving us a glimpse of his days in Houston when he operated as the only star on the court. With Durant a good bet to miss the Christmas Day game in the health and safety protocols, Harden comes in as the best projected and most popular spend-up on the slate.
In his 10.3 minutes with all the absent Hawks off the court, Bogdan Bogdanovic posted 1.55 fantasy points per minute
Obviously, 10-minute sample sizes are not always advisable to use when diving into a player. In this scenario, however, it may be. If Cam Reddish and Delon Wright are unable to suit up for the Hawks on Christmas, Bogdanovic is likely their only source of offense. In those 10-ish minutes, he posted a 42.3% usage rate and 13.3% rebounding rate. Obviously, these rates will normalize, but with the expectation that they still sit at or above 30% usage, Bogdanovic makes for a no-brainer value piece.
DeMarcus Cousins is averaging 17.9 points, 12.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game on a per-36-minute basis.
He has yet to cross the 30-minute threshold, but the per-36-minute numbers help illustrate how effective Cousins has been on a per-minute basis. If Giannis Antetokounmpo is expected to sit out again due to the health and safety protocols, the Bucks will have no choice but to roll out another heavy dosage of Cousins against the Celtics, making him a smash value piece for under $5,000.
NBA Value Plays | NBA DFS First Look
Below are some of the top value plays on Saturday’s slate on DraftKings, pulled from the LineupEDGE optimizer at the time of writing (with their points per dollar included). For the rest of the preferred value plays, visit FTNDaily’s cheat sheets.
- Marquese Chriss (10.34x)
- Bogdan Bogdanovic (8.97x)
- James Ennis (7.8x)
- James Harden (7.56x)
- Paul Millsap (7.3x)
For the rest of the top value plays on the slate, check out the Cheat Sheets for our analysts’ exposures and the NBA Optimizer for the best point-per-dollar plays.
Quick Look at Saturday’s NBA Slate | NBA DFS First Look
The top-priced players on the NBA DFS slate at hand are listed below for DraftKings, FanDuel and SuperDraft. For SuperDraft, these are going to be the players without scoring multipliers (if any) or those with the lowest multipliers.
Top DraftKings NBA DFS Plays | NBA DFS First Look
- Kevin Durant ($11,600) — Questionable
- Giannis Antetokounmpo ($11,400) — Questionable
- Stephen Curry ($11,200)
- LeBron James ($10,800)
- James Harden ($10,700)
Top FanDuel NBA DFS Plays | NBA DFS First Look
- Kevin Durant ($11,700) — Questionable
- LeBron James ($10,900)
- Giannis Antetokounmpo ($10,800) — Questionable
- James Harden ($10,200)
- Stephen Curry ($10,000)
With Saturday’s slate covered, let’s take a look back at who had success on Thursday’s slate and how we can apply that to improve our process going forward.
Last Night’s GPP Performances | NBA DFS First Look
Below is a summary of how the slate last night went on FanDuel and DraftKings. One great feature of the FTNDaily NBA optimizer is the ability to backtest the slates and study the results to apply for future slates, exactly what we will do here. The highest overall scoring player from each site is bolded in the lineup.
DraftKings GPP Results | NBA DFS First Look
Below is the optimal lineup on DraftKings from Thursday:
- PG: Spencer Dinwiddie (53.75)
- SG: Malik Beasley (46.50)
- SF: LeBron James (61.75)
- PF: Keita Bates-Diop (41.75)
- C: Myles Turner (53.00)
- G: Caris LeVert: (59.5)
- F: Trey Lyles (50.5)
- UTIL: Kemba Walker (70.75)
Total: 437.5
FanDuel GPP Results | NBA DFS First Look
Below is the winning lineup from FanDuel’s $200k Shot ($40k to first) Thursday:
- PG: Spencer Dinwiddie (51.4)
- PG: Kemba Walker (66.8)
- SG: Devin Booker (55.9)
- SG: Caris LeVert (59.1)
- SF: Malik Beasley (42.7)
- SF: LeBron James (61.8)
- PF: Wendell Carter (50.9)
- PF: Trey Lyles (51.6)
- C: Myles Turner (52.5)
Total: 492.7
Thursday’s 11-game slate was arguably the highest scoring slate of the season, as GPP-winning lineups approached 500 on FanDuel and 450 on DraftKings. Led by Kemba Walker, who came in at under 30% owned on both sites, neither lineup had a player score less than 40 fantasy points. Malik Beasley was a low-owned gem, going for almost 10x at sub-10% ownership, while LeBron James was the most successful spend-up on a per-dollar basis, edging out the chalkier Nikola Jokic.
A lot of the chalk didn’t make the optimal lineups, as Cam Reddish and Delon Wright both exited the Hawks games with injuries, while Guillermo Hernangomez did enough to warrant the flames on DraftKings, but not enough to warrant a spot in the optimal lineups.
