It’s been quite a—boring—ride but we’re almost there, folks. Starting July 30, the NBA will enter a vortex of daily action that will get us back to our couches to indulge as much basketball as we can with games coming left and right. With such a short time between now and the restart (and with the four months we have endured without any NBA hoops around) it makes sense to go through the 22 teams that made it to Disney’s bubble to review what they did during the first months of the 2019-20 season and what we can expect from them going forward. Consider this a primer on who to target, who to avoid, and a know-it-all reviewing exercise of what will be there when NBA DFS contests come back in less than 14 days time.
As has always been the case, I will be using data from both the official NBA website paired with information from DFS contests held on DraftKings through the first months of the season. Every chart uses the same scale (salaries from 3K to 10K except when they don’t fit, fantasy points from 0 to 65) so they can be easily compared between teams to see where each player ranks league-wide.
Regular Season Stats
- Record: 41-24 (.631)
- Offensive Rating: 112.7 (6th)
- Defensive Rating: 109.4 (12th)
- Net Rating: 3.3 (8th)
When Miami acquired Jimmy Butler last offseason there were doubts about how good this team was going to be with him in tow but not many more proven options surrounding him. Well, turns out the Heat weathered the storm quite nicely. The shortened regular season saw Miami win more than three games each five contests, which had you asked me back in October I would have put in doubt. It makes sense these days knowing how the team found gold in point guard Kendrick Nunn, nurtured Duncan Robinson to become a serial killer from the three-point line, and built Bam Adebayo into a do-it-all bully after ditching Hassan Whiteside entering this year.
And that is falling short of everything Miami has on its roster to toy with through the bubble. The Heat added Iguodala leading up to the hiatus, Goran Dragic was reborn from the bench, and rookie Tyler Herro has been another hit and is already a fan-favorite. If you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll find hard to believe Miami is currently the fourth seed in the East two games above Philadelphia. The Sixers will probably end with the fifth seed if Indiana can’t keep up with them, which means we’d have a Heat vs. 76ers first-round playoffs matchup. Can’t get much better.
Team Leaders (per game)
- MIN: Bam Adebayo (34.4)
- PTS: Jimmy Butler (20.2)
- 3PM: Duncan Robinson (3.7)
- REB: Bam Adebayo (10.5)
- AST: Jimmy Butler (6.1)
- STL: Jimmy Butler (1.7)
- BLK: Bam Adebayo (1.3)
- TOV: Bam Adebayo (2.8)
- USG%: Jimmy Butler (24.8%)
- DKFP: Jimmy Butler (41.8)
Fantasy Profile
- Players Acquired: None
- Players Lost: None
It might sound ridiculous but given the current situation with the COVID-19 pandemic for Miami to have a healthy and fully-available roster is great news. While Kendrick Nunn and Bam Adebayo have yet to report to Orlando—at the time of this writing—for undisclosed reasons, they are expected to make it there sooner rather than later rounding Miami’s full trove of players.
There is no surprise at the top of the lineup when it comes to fantasy prowess: Jimmy Butler is a beast, leads the team in price and fantasy points per game, and is just a lock to go off the charts any given night. The more surprising thing, though, is to find Bam Bam so close to Jimmer. The big man is virtually averaging the same price and DKFP nightly and has turned into a very sweet DFS play. Given his slight discount compared to Butler, Adebayo has a better ROI (Price/DKFP) making him the true no. 1 target from the Heat for DFS contests on DraftKings.
Other than those two, Dragic finds himself sandwiched between them in terms of ROI. He’s a more than profitable option averaging almost 30 DKFP per game while only priced at around $5.5K nightly. Dragic is one of just four players at or below that price averaging such amount of DKFP per game. Not much more value in Miami, though, with the next most-valuable player being Jae Crowder although with much lower averages.