NBA

3 NBA DraftKings Value Plays to Target on 10/23/19

Al Horford is under $6K tonight and should the starting lineup versus his former team. Is he a top value play on this 11-game slate?

A major key to success in daily fantasy basketball is uncovering potential value plays. If you're looking to roster a stud or two, you need to consider squeezing one of these lower-priced options into your lineup.

Let's take a look at three players who can help fill in the gaps in your lineup on DraftKings tonight.

Markieff Morris, PF/C, Detroit Pistons

Christian Wood, PF/C, Detroit Pistons

Price: $3,600/$4,800
Projected DK Points: 25.1/21.7
Projected Value (DK Points/$1,000): 6.97/4.52

There will be value with one of the Detroit Pistons bigs tonight, but until we get more clarification about Markieff Morris' status, it's hard to determine whether he or Christian Wood will return more fake points per dollar tonight.

With Blake Griffin on the shelf until early November, Morris is the likely candidate to step in as the starting four for the Pistons. Unfortunately for him, he is also dealing with an injury and is questionable for tonight.

If Morris is able to take the court, it's going to be very enticing to use him. With a salary of just $3,600 and a history of averaging just about 0.9 DraftKings points per minute throughout his career, Morris would need just about 24 minutes to hit a value of 5.0 DraftKings points per $1,000.

He's scored more than 20 DraftKings points in each of the past eight contests against the Indiana Pacers in which he's received at least 20 minutes of run, which should easily be the case if he gets the starting nod.

If he doesn't, then Wood will do everything he can to carry over his electric preseason performances into the regular season. Wood, who costs $1,200 more than Morris tonight, could still easily be a value if Morris can't suit up.

The former UNLV player put up an average of 25.7 DraftKings points in just 17.0 minutes during five preseason contests. It's hard to predict him carrying over that fantasy efficiency into the regular season, but given regular run, he looks like he could be a walking double-double.

If Morris does suit up, we have him and Wood projected to score 25.1 and 21.7 DraftKings points, respectively. If Morris sits, then expect to see Wood's projections see a big jump.

Rudy Gay, SF/PF, San Antonio Spurs

Price: $4,700
Projected DK Points: 32.8
Projected Value (DK Points/$1,000): 6.98


It was hard not to root for Rudy Gay to have a bounce-back season in 2018-19. Finally fully healthy after recovering from a full rupture of his Achilles tendon, Gay went right back into being a reliable source of a little bit of everything on the court, and it was perhaps the most efficient season of his lengthy career.

Gay had always been a solid shooter from deep, but he took it to another level last year, watching 40.2% of his threes fall en route to a career best 55.4% effective field goal percentage (eFG%). His per-36 rebounding rate of 9.2 was a personal best, and his 14.7% assist percentage was his best mark since the 2014-15 season.

If his preseason stats are anything to go off of, he's not lost a step since last year. Gay hit 41.7% of his thees and put up an average of 19.1 DraftKings points in just 19.7 minutes. Barring an early blowout of the New York Knicks this evening (which isn't entirely unbelievable as the Spurs are 10-point favorites tonight), Gay should have no trouble seeing much closer to the 26.7 minutes he averaged last season.

We project Gay to see 30.4 minutes of run tonight, using the time to accumulate 16.2 points, 8.0 boards, 2.6 assists, a steal, and 32.8 DraftKings points. With a projected value of 6.98 DraftKings points per $1,000, Gay is our third-highest projected value on the slate.

Al Horford, PF/C, Philadelphia 76ers

Price: $5,600
Projected DK Points: 35.7
Projected Value (DK Points/$1,000): 6.38

It almost seems wrong to write about Al Horford in a Philadelphia 76ers uniform, but the NBA, like all sports, is at its core, a business, and Horford decided to take his well-rounded game to Philly for a cool $109 million over four years. He'll get to prove he's worth every penny as he faces his former teammates in Game 1 of the 2019-20 NBA season.

The Sixers will host the Boston Celtics in games that have been rather lopsided in favor of Boston in the recent past. Since Horford joined the Celtics in the 2016-17 season, the team was 13-4 against the Sixers. He'll look to reverse the trend when he joins his new teammates in the Wells Fargo Center tonight.

In the league since the 2007-08 season, Horford is still performing at a consistently high level, and he set a new career best in 2018-19 with a 58.6 eFG%. He's averaged more than 12 points, 4 assists, 6 boards, and a block for each of the past three seasons; he was one of just four players to do so last year, joining the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, and Marc Gasol.

Our models have him once again doing a little bit of everything tonight, en route to a projected 35.7 DraftKings points. Such a performance would give him a value of 6.38 DraftKings points per $1,000, the highest projected value for any player with a salary over $5,000.