Fantasy Spin November 17, 2015

As usual, we got a few things right on Monday, notably that Mario Chalmers is a great fit for the Grizzlies (29 PTS in 23 minutes) and that the Celtics are better than people think. I also predicted the Suns guards’ domination of the Lakers, but didn’t use Brandon Knight for his monster triple-double. Woulda, coulda, shoulda…

To cap a 7-game NBA Tuesday, Golden State and Stephen Curry $10700 host Toronto and Kyle Lowry $8200. The Warriors are 11-0 despite a slow start for Klay Thompson $6700, expected to return after sitting out one game with a sore back. Draymond Green $7400 (illness) also may not be 100%, but Andrew Bogut $4800 is healthy again and can handle Jonas Valanciunas $5900.

Don’t overlook Andre Iguodala $4800, a multi-category contributor off the bench. For the Raptors, Cory Joseph $4100 continues to be a bargain and DeMar DeRozan $7300 is capable of big numbers.

Milwaukee at Washington, Atlanta at Brooklyn and Cleveland at Detroit might be “typical” low-scoring Eastern Conference battles but the potential remains for individual breakouts. Charlotte at New York may have more DFS potential; Carmelo Anthony $8500 was great on Sunday but so were Nicolas Batum $6900 and Al Jefferson $6000.

Plays of the Day

The $350K Tipoff Special is just a $3 buy-in (FREE to new depositors at DK) that pays the top 30,140 finishers from up to 134,166 teams. First place wins $50,000. Enter before the 7:00 ET deadline; you can make unlimited lineup changes until each player’s game begins.

Dwyane Wade $6200 (personal) will be back as Miami takes on the visiting Timberwolves. Ricky Rubio $7400 (hamstring) has missed four games but sounds ready to return, which would hurt the value of Zach LaVine $5300 and ruin that of Andre Miller $3100. Chris Bosh $7300 and Hassan Whiteside $8100 present a tough challenge for rookie Karl-Anthony Towns $7500 and the other Minnesota bigs.

My daily process is to research first, then create the Short List (below) to narrow hundreds of possibilities down to 15 — three at each position, in various price ranges. Before filling in the supporting cast, we must decide which expensive superstars (if any) to employ. The sample lineup (left) surrounds two of them with potential value picks.

At PG, it’s either Curry, Lowry or Dennis Schroder $4600, who will start again for the Hawks with Jeff Teague (ankle) unavailable.

The choices are more limited at SG, where you could use DeRozan, Wade, or save even more with “The Thrill” — Will Barton $4700 has caught fire off the Denver bench.

LeBron James $10100 tops the SF list over Melo and Batum, but sometimes you have to compromise. The bargain play is Thabo Sefolosha $3500, whose leg has healed; he’s a probable starter with Kent Bazemore (ankle) ruled out.

Anthony Davis $10800 showed no signs of a hip injury on Sunday: 36 PTS, 11 REB, 4 BLK in 40 minutes. Unfortunately for the injury-riddled Pelicans (they lost) but fortunately for daily owners, he’s a one-man team. With Joffrey Lauvergne (back) out and Kenneth Faried $6300 (back) questionable, the Nuggets have nobody who can stop AD. Nikola Jokic $3000 and Randy Foye $3000 might be productive at those rock-bottom prices — in garbage time.

PF is a loaded position, with Greg Monroe $8100, Kevin Love $8000 and Bosh in the midrange and potential bargains like Kris Humphries $3900 — who hit five 3-pointers on Saturday — or shot-blocker John Henson $3900. I wish DK wasn’t so inflexible on position eligibility.

Andre Drummond $9900 excelled against the best of the West on a six-game road trip. The kid is terrific but the other Pistons looked exhausted on Sunday and may not be ready for Cleveland. Jefferson and Bogut are affordable alternatives at C, which is relatively thin.

Pos	Premium	Midrange	Bargain
PG	Stephen Curry $10800	Kyle Lowry $8200	Dennis Schroder $4600
SG	DeMar DeRozan $7300	Dwyane Wade $6200	Will Barton $4700
SF	LeBron James $10100	Nicolas Batum $6900	Thabo Sefolosha $3500
PF	Anthony Davis $10800	Chris Bosh $7300	Kris Humphries $3900
C	Andre Drummond $9900	Al Jefferson $6000	Andrew Bogut $4800