NBA DFS bubble preview: Philadelphia 76ers

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: 39-26 (.600)
• Offensive Rating: 110.4 (17th)
• Defensive Rating: 108.2 (6th)
• Net Rating: 2.2 (12th)

For much that I want to think of the 76ers as a contender these days, I just can’t. I don’t really know where the Sixers are, where they’re going, and what we’ll be talking about regarding the team in just a few weeks/months time. The Process has so many potential ramifications going forward that it’d be absolutely insane to put money on any probable outcome. See, Philly has won almost 40 games already this season and its .600 winning percentage and 12th net rating in the NBA are both top-half marks this season. That is cool and all, but the Sixers still look a little messy to my eyes.

The defense is stiffing but the offense is just not entirely there. The go-to players and franchise cornerstones are clear, yet they don’t seem to fully click when put together. Embiid and Simmons, Simmons and Embiid. What a weird tandem that is. The good thing for us fantasy nuts is that the 76ers will be playing for everything from day one, including the seeding games left in the regular season. They are battling Indiana for the sixth seed and would also like—although in the bubble shouldn’t matter that much—to snatch the fourth spot from Miami, so Philly will need to ramp up its game quickly. The team is the same as the last time we saw it on a court, so that’s also good for future projections. It’s only a matter of making it fully work now, as this squad’s floor should be a bit higher than what these players have shown to this point.

Team Leaders (per game):

MIN: Ben Simmons (35.7)

PTS: Joel Embiid (23.4)

3PM: Tobias Harris (1.8)

REB: Joel Embiid (11.8)

AST: Ben Simmons (8.2)

STL: Ben Simmons (2.1)

BLK: Joel Embiid (1.3)

TOV: Ben Simmons (3.6)

USG%: Joel Embiid (31.3%)

DKFP: Joel Embiid (47.5)

Fantasy Profile

• Players Acquired: Ryan Broekhoff
• Players Lost: Ryan Broekhoff (until Aug. 15)

Even with the multi-year, mega-dollar deal, they signed Tobias Harris and Al Horford to last summer, there are no doubts who the head honchos of Philly are. Such is the case, though, that Embiid—while racking up the highest DKFP-average this season for the team—has been wildly overpriced all year long in DFS contests. That’s why JoJo’s ROI (Price/DKFP) is atrocious and just the 83rd-best of all players to take part in Orlando’s bubble games.

Ben Simmons’ ROI, on the other hand, sits at the total opposite end of the spectrum. He’s got a top-25 ROI in the NBA entering the restart and his more than 43 DKFP per game actually come cheap all things considered. Simmons is second in DKFP per game only to Domantas Sabonis among players valued at under $8.5K, making him a pretty nice DFS play to build lineups around.

Tobias Harris himself comes out as a better play than Embiid when taking both salary and DKFP into consideration, and he should be a good mid-cost option no matter the matchup. Horford doesn’t have the lowest ROI in the league but he’s on par with Embiid and his situation and role are a bit shaky as to put him in your DFS squads. As for low-maintenance guys, Alec Burks has the best ROI among all Sixers, though he shouldn’t be more than a lineup-filler flier. Also, avoid Josh Richardson at all costs.