March 17th: NBA DFS DraftKings Showdown: Lakers v. Knicks Edition

Welcome back reader of FantasyCPR, we have a game starting at noon eastern time for Sunday, unfortunately it is a one-game slate. For those of you out there that play showdown slates know that there is not nearly enough content on these contest.

DraftKings is offering a $10 paying $5,000 to first place. Definitely smaller prize pools, but it’s enough to draw me into playing this slate. The Lakers will travel to New York to take on the Knicks in a game with a 220-over/under and the Lakers are favored by 4.5 points.

Let’s dive into the plays:

Captain:

LeBron James ($19,200) 

LeBron is going to play tomorrow, given the data that the Lakers are favored by 4.5 points on the road. Coming off a day off, even in “limited’ minutes, LeBron is far and away the highest raw scorer on the slate. Depending on the slate, you can get away from the highest scoring option on the slate, but today you cannot. Lock LeBron into the captain spot and figure out the rest.

Fill-in Options:

Rajon Rondo ($9,000) 

Rondo and LeBron are a lock in this raw points format. Honestly, price doesn’t even matter for those two. We know for sure that Rondo and LeBron are going to run the offense and both post near triple doubles. Rondo has been playing over 30 minutes each of the last 7 games and he should do so again in what is a favorable matchup.

DeAndre Jordan ($8,400) 

Lakers have been really bad against big guys. They really struggle at defending anywhere within 5-feet of the basket. DeAndre Jordan lives within 5-feet of the basket. For whatever reason, the Lakers aren’t a team that DeAndre has been able to dominate this season, but this is for a different at a different point of the season. I building a lot of LeBron, Rondo, DJ lineups tomorrow.

JaVale McGee ($6,200) 

McGee is in play on the short slate, I do not expect the 40-plus point fantasy point game again but I can see McGee hovering around 30 DraftKings points, posting another double double. McGee would get a bump up for me with Tyson Chandler being ruled out tonight as well.

Alex Caruso ($3,200) 

Caruso has been really solid posting 10x fantasy return in two of the last four and at least 5x fantasy points in three of the last four. Caruso will see a bump up in fantasy production and minutes if both Josh Hart and Lance Stephenson are ruled out so pay attention to the news. If either play, he’s a viable punt option but if both are out he becomes an absolute lock.

Best of luck to the readers of FantasyCPR!