March 1st Preview

Well it’s been a crazy last fee days on my end.  My day job has been crazy busy and even had to work the weekend.  Didn’t play much DFS over that period besides some PGA and a couple NBA lineups.  Cashed all of my PGA contests and hit a satellite for the WFBBC qualifier on the 10th.  Now with the storms rolling thru the Midwest, my internet has been knocked out.  Trying to do research off my phone isn’t the easiest thing.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to this daily now though.

Looking at the 10 game NBA slate tonight, we have 4 games with over/unders over 215 points.  That’s a lot of fantasy goodness.  Houston and the LA Clippers lead the charge with 232 o/u.  It’s one of the 2 late games tonight so it may be a good idea to have at least one player from this game.  I’ll be leaning the LA side with CP3 (9.7k FD) at point with Griffin (10k FD) and Jordan (7.7k) in the paint.  Houston will try to make the Clippers play up-tempo which will work against the Rockets.  Houston is terrible in the paint so I foresee Jordan with an easy double-double and Blake with a very solid night.  CP3 will get his buckets but his value comes from assists and steals.  I’d stack CP3 with one of the bigs and be set.  Houston is another story.  Harden is losing a couple minutes a game and isn’t taking quite as many shots now that Lou Williams (6.4k) is in town.  Harden (12.2k) is still the primary ball handler but Sweet Lou loves to shoot.  They’re the only two viable plays from Houston I can see.

With a 225 over/under, Denver on a back-to-back goes to Milwaukee.  Most of Denver is overpriced and has a terrible rotation. Nikola Jokic (9.8k) is a GPP play only in my eyes.  Milwaukee gives us good value playing in a up-tempo games compared to their typical tempo.  Malcolm Brogdon (5.1k), Middleton (5.1k) & the Greek Freak (11.1k) all get a big boost with Michael Beasley out tonight.  I think Brogdon may be sneaky for cash and GPP.

For other decent plays, look at the Brooklyn and Sacramento game.  Willie Cauley-Stein has been eating since Cousins got shipped out.  At 5.4k, he’s a top play for me as a PF on Fanduel.  Ben McLemore chucks up shots now and for 4.2k, he’s scoring dependent but Brooklyn sucks so he could go off.

LeBron is a top cash play at 10.6k.  He should dominate Boston tonight.  Dario Saric is been crazy lately and 7.6k isn’t a bad price.  Not a lot of upside at that price though.  Hassan Whiteside is 1B at center tonight at 8.8k against the 76ers.  Okafor won’t be able to handle him.  Orlando’s Terrence Ross gives good value at 4.4k because he launches up shots now that he’s a starter.  Kyle O’Quinn (4.7k) is starting with Hernangomez and Noah both out and should see over 30 minutes.  DeMar DeRozan at 10.2k isn’t bad since Lowry is out but he’s very scoring dependent.  Anthony Davis is interesting against Detroit for 11.6k due to Cousins being out for another technical suspension.  Patty Mills (3.8k) if Parker is officially out and Rodney Hood (4.1k) are my punt plays.  Super boom or bust punt is Dorian Finney-Smith at minimum price with Wes Matthews out and starting tonight.  He should get 5x but I could see a possible 8x night.

My favorite bets of the night are the Clippers to win and the over and Brooklyn/Sacramento.  I may even take the under on Cleveland/Boston.

Like always, I give credit for my plays and most of my research to www.fantasyguruelite.com.  Without them, I wouldn’t be doing this.
Joe 

February 24th Recap

An action packed day in the DFS world!  Lots of action from the NHL and NBA with plenty of money to go around.  The trade deadline in NBA made everything a little interesting in some games.  Some rotations were being tested out so we now have a little clarity on future plays.  NHL had some major action last night.

Looking back at my NHL lineup, I did hit in 50/50’s.  That is all I played last night only because I’m trying to get comfortable playing hockey.  Recapping the finals from last night:

• NYR 2 TOR 1
• NYI 3 MON 0
• CAL 3 TB 2
• NSH 4 COL 2
• CHI 6 ARI 3
• BOS 4 LA 1

As you can tell from my lineup, I went Ranger and Blackhawk stack last night.  Reason for the Rangers was the total O/U was hovering around 6.  Chicago did pay off scoring 6 goals with Kane picking up a hat trick.  Figuring on how bad Arizona is, Crawford was my top goalie option.  Best goalie of the night goes to Thomas Greiss from the Islanders facing 24 shots and getting the shutout.  Hendrik Lundqvist (NYR) wasn’t far behind facing 33 shots and only letting 1 slide thru.  Skater of the night is a tie between Patrick Kane and Filip Forsberg (NSH).  Both had hat tricks last night, Forsberg’s second in two games.  We had lots of great value with so many assists out there.  Six people had 2 assists and Dougie Hamilton (CAL) even had a goal to go with his two helpers.

NBA was back in full force with a solid 6 game slate.  With a lot of unknown, we had some idea on what was going to be chalky and what could be a risk.  I only played cash last night due to the deadline and didn’t have much time to research the entire slate.  To look back at some of the action:

• CHA 108 DET 104  Top performers: Kemba Walker 34 pts 7 r 6 a 2s, Kidd-Gilchrist 12 pts 14 r 2 a 2 s & 2 b, Caldwell-Pope 33 pts 9 r 3 a, Harris 25 pts 7 r 3 a 1 b & 1 to, Ish Smith 5 pts 16 a 6 r 1 s 1 b & 1 to
• POR 112 ORL 103  Top performers: Nurkic 12 pts 12 rb 5 a 3 s 2 b & 3 to, Lillard 33 pts 5 r 2 a 2 to, Vucevic 25 pts 9 r 2 a 1 b 3 to
• HOU 129 NO 99  Top performers: Williams (just traded from LAL) 27 pts, Capela 15 pts 8 r 3 b 2 to, Harden 13 pts 14 a 4 r 3 s & 4 to, Boogie (just traded from SAC) 27 pts 14 r 5 a 5 s & 4 b, Davis 29 pts 9 r 2 s 2 b 3 to & 1 a.
• CLE 119 NYK 104  Top performers: LBJ 18 pts 13 r 15 a 3 b & 6 to, Irving 23 pts 3 r 6 a 1 s 1 b & 2 to, Thompson 10 pts 14 rb 4 b 1 to, Korver 20 pts 2 r 3 a 1 s, Frye 14 pts 4 r 2 b 2 to, Melo 20 pts 5 r 5 a 5 to, Hernangomez 11 pts 10 r 4 a 2 b 1 to, Lee 25 pts 6 r 5 a 1 s 1 to.
• GSW 123 LAC 113  Top performers: Durant 25 pts 15 r 7 a 1 s 1 b & 1 to, Curry 35 pts 7 r 5 a 4 s 4 to, Jordan 17 pts 11 r 3 a 1 s 1 to, Rivers 19 pts 2 r 2 a 2 s 3 to, Griffin 12 pts 5 r 8 a 1 s 2 to, Felton 13 pts 3 r 5 a 3 s 2 to, Crawford 19 pts 1 r 4 a 1 s
• SAC 116 DEN 100  Top performers: Cauley-Stein 29 pts 10 r 1 b 3 to, Hield 16 pts 6 r 1 a 1 s, Collison 15 pts 10 a 4 r 2 s 1 b 1 to, Evans (recently traded from NO) 15 pts 4 r 3 a 1 s 4 to, Harris 23 pts 2 r 1 a 2 s 1 to, Chandler 18 pts 10 r 1 a 2 to, Nelson 12 pts 4 r 6 a 5 s 1 to, Gallinari 15 pts 6 r 4 a 1 s 2 to

Nikola Jokic and Jrue Holiday killed my lineup last night.  Not 100% sure what was going on with Jokic, but he was brutal.  Holiday doesn’t surprise as much due to having to cater to Boogie coming to New Orleans.  Holiday will probably become more of a GPP play now that he’s third in the pecking order.  E’Twaun Moore was a value play and got just under 5x .  Aaron Gordon was another value play since Serge Ibaka was sent to Toronto.  He moved back to a more natural position at Power Forward and Terrence Ross moved into Small Forward.  Gordon’s value was right over 5.5x which is great value for cash.  Obviously LeBron killed it with a triple-double.  Durant was a monster with 25 and 15 too.  Sneaky value was Wilson Chandler, Courtney Lee, Willie Cauley-Stein, Kyle Korver, Tristan Thompson, Lou Williams and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.  Kemba Walker, Damian Lillard, Stephen Curry, Demarcus Cousins, Jusuf Nurkic all had great nights too.

With a 10 game NBA slate tonight, there’s a lot of value and some fades too.  I’ll probably be targeting Washington/Philadelphia, Boston/Toronto, OKC, and Phoenix/Chicago.  A nice 4 game NHL slate gives us plenty to attack.  Edmonton/Washington, Calgary/Florida, and Arizona/Dallas are the games I’ll be looking at.

Let’s make some cash tonight!

Joe  @J_Champagne21

-For daily advice and up to the minute content, head over to fantasyguruelite.com.  The touts are great over there for every sport and even have some promotional packages going on!

February 22, 2017 Recap

Light DFS day with a 3 game hockey slate only.  Today starts the second half of the NBA season.  We also have the Honda Classic PGA Tournament teeing off, two NASCAR duels, and 6 NHL games.  What a packed day!  Three game slates are typically low entry nights for me.

With low Vegas lines, only two out of the three games stood out to me.  Edmonton versus Florida had an over/under of 5.5 goals trending towards the under with Florida being the money line favorite at -140.  Florida’s offense is typically a solid one to use on a regular basis.  Their top 2 lines are usually big go to’s for me.  I went with Vincent Trocheck and Reilly Smith up front and Aaron Ekblad on defense.  These three were pretty much the staple in my cash and GPP lineups.  Trocheck only put up one shot tonight while two others missed the goal.  Smith fired in four total shots and one missing wide.  Ekblad was my top player out of the three with an assist, four shots and a blocked shot.

Trying to go contrarian, I selected James Reimer as my GPP goalie.  Thinking that Reimer has been the better of the two Florida goalies lately, I locked him in turning out that he was fairly chalky.  Reimer gave up four goals on 35 shots.  Not a big surprise that Edmonton would score with them having a top half of the league offense.  Assuming with Reimer having around a 94% save percentage, mathematically he would give up two goals tonight.  The Oilers doubled that and pulled out the win by a score of 4-3.  Both Vegas lines were a tad off, but it does not surprise me that this game went over 5.5 goals.

The second game of the night that I was looking forward to was the Washington versus Philadelphia game.  The Capitals are towards of the top of the league on offense and Philadelphia has a pretty brutal defense.  The Flyers have a couple of mediocre goalies and the Caps goalie, Holtby, is pretty dominant.  I ran Holtby in my cash lineups with the face that he faces about 28 shots in a game per 60 minutes with shade under 94% save percentage.  Philly does have a decent offense that puts up shots, but they hardly capitalize.  Holtby faced 34 shots with only one sneaking through the pipes.

Skater wise, I ran Backstrom and Ovechkin in my cash lineup while going with Kuznetsov and Johansson in my GPP lineup all from Washington.  Backstrom and Ovechkin combined for four shots on goal, three assists and a goal.  Solid night overall from those two.  Kuznetsov had a great game with two goals, four shots and a blocked shot too.  Johansson didn’t even put up a shot on goal tonight.  I did put in Shane Gostisbehere for Philly in my GPP lineup along with his three blocked shots and two shots on goal.  Thinking behind Gostisbehere is that he’s one of their top ice guys and has the third highest Corsi For% on the team.  With Washington being a -150 favorite and the over/under being at over 5, close to 5.5, made me go play Washington players.  Only problem with playing Washington is the amount of shots to go around between lines on a given night can change.  The Caps won this handily 4-1.

The last game, Boston at Anaheim, didn’t appeal much to me except for some salary savers.  The Vegas lines were virtually a pick ’em with the over/under sitting barely over 5.  The most exposure I had was Zdeno Chara from Boston.  He did end up with a goal and two shots on goal.  David Krejci and Frank Vatrano were two plays I had a little exposure to.  Krejci had an assist, a blocked shot and one shot on goal.  He did have 5 missed shots though which could have made his night even better.  Vatrano ended with a goal, an assist, and four shots on goal.  Not a bad game overall.  Anaheim surprised me with putting up 5 goals tonight, granted the final goal was an empty netter.  Anaheim pulled out a 5-3 win at home.

Looking at today’s NHL slate, we’ve got plenty of action.  Starting off, the Rangers are at Toronto with an over/under of 6 sitting just at the under and Toronto being a slight favorite.  Montreal is at home against the Islanders with an over of 5 trending towards 5.5 and the Habs being the favorite.  Calgary travels to Tampa sitting at an under of 5.5 with the Lightning being a solid favorite in this matchup.  The lowly Avalanche head to Nashville as big underdogs with the Preds sitting at -250 and -115 under 5.5 goals.  Arizona goes up to the Windy City to take on Chicago.  Chicago is a dominant favorite opening at -238 with an under of 5.5 at -120.  Boston is coming off a back-to-back with Anaheim and travels to play the Kings.  It’s a good thing that they don’t leave the state.  The Kings are a -145 favorite with the over trending at 5 with a -140 line.

I’ll probably have some exposure to the Maple Leafs/Rangers, Islanders/Canadiens, Predators, and maybe some Chicago.  I get all of my analytical data for NHL from puckalytics.com if anyone wants to look further.  Tomorrow I’ll go over who I put in my lineups for NHL, PGA, and the NASCAR duels.

Thanks everyone.

Joe  @J_Champagne21

Welcome to JChampagne DFS!

I would personally like to thank and welcome you to the start of my new blog about Daily Fantasy Sports and my recap from the day that was!  I will go over results from the sporting world, Vegas lines and their movement, game theory, and my personal picks.  Together we can see where I struck gold or struck out on a player or contest.

To start, my name is Joe Champagne and have been playing DFS for about 2 years now.  I started off playing MLB on DraftKings, but have ventured into other sports and other sites.  With most of the DFS world worrying about NFL, MLB, and NBA, there isn’t too much coverage on the secondary DFS sports like PGA, NHL, MMA and NASCAR.  Everyday I am learning new things from people I follow on Twitter and articles I read from around the web.  Yes, the big 3 sports typically offer big contests with big prizes, but the secondary sports are ripe for the picking.

If you have any questions about myself or where I get my knowledge, follow me @J_Champagne21 on Twitter.  Also, go follow my guys over at www.fantasyguruelite.com or @GuruEliteDFS.  They are my starting point for everything and have amazing content.  I take what they provide to their members and do a little digging myself.

Thanks everyone and let’s make some money!

Joe

@J_Champagne21 – Twitter