NBA Summer League DFS Plays (Friday 7/19)

NBA Summer League rolls on! Even though we’re nearing the end of the tournament, I’ll still include my warnings about how these games work. First, the rules are different. For our purposes, the three most important rule changes are that the games are 40 minutes instead of 48, players get 10 personal fouls instead of six, and it takes 10 team fouls in one quarter for a team to reach the bonus rather than five.

Secondly, and most important for any potential newbies, information regarding inactive players and starting lineups is going to be a lot less readily available than you’re used to during NBA DFS. Of course, there isn’t as much beat writer coverage for Summer League (although it’s increasing year over year), but the AAU style schedule is really what complicates things. This tournament takes place in two gyms in Las Vegas and with so many games each day, most games after the first two of each slate will tip off well after that game’s scheduled lock time. The later in a slate a game is scheduled, the less likely it is that we will be able to find starting lineups. On the flip side, when that news does come, we can gain an incredible advantage.

The last thing I will caution against before we dive into the seventh main slate of the event is that you will get burned by late news if you play DFS and props throughout the tournament. We’ve already seen a number of high-profile players shut down for some of these teams. We will have to be extra vigilant and shout out to all the FTN subscribers who have been contributing to our news search in the Discord over the past week. There has not been a Summer League where at least one of my main slate builds was tarnished by late news. But if we continue stay vigilant as a group in the discord and comb Twitter for those sweet, sweet news morsels, we will have a productive tournament! Keep that in mind as we move through the ups and downs of these glorious 10 days.

Summer League Notes – Day 8

New York Knicks

We’re to the point of the tournament where most of these team breakdowns involve are almost exclusively if/then approaches. All but five teams are eliminated from title game contention, meaning that most of the first team assets that began the event have been “shut down” for the remainder. We saw the field take many significant zeroes Thursday, including a 15% rostered Tristan da Silva from Orlando. Proceed with extreme caution!

There aren’t a ton of spend-up options that I feel like we can trust fully to play, but Tyler Kolek ($7.7k) feels like one of them. He exploded last time out with 41.5 DK points and while I don’t think he’ll replicate that type of performance, he’s going to have the ball a ton and is a very high-floor option. Duane Washington Jr. ($6.1k) is a high-upside mid-range option at guard.

Both center options from this team are in play as secondary values. Ariel Hukporti ($5.1k) has been the starter throughout the week but Dmytro Skapintsev ($4.7k) is the more exciting fantasy asset. If Skapintsev drew a start, he’d be a priority value. If Damion Baugh ($4.4k) gets another start then he’s in play as a strong value option near the minimum. Rokas Jokubaitis ($4.3k) would also fall into that category if he starts.