Saturday night's DraftKings classic slate is a two-game board: HOU @ PHX and SAS @ POR. Lock is Sat 11/7 at 9:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. PT), and the $50,000 salary cap leaves little room for error on a slate this small.
Victor Wembanyama (SAS) is the headliner at $11,400, with a ceiling of 75.9 and a DraftKings average of 55.2. He is the priciest player on the board and carries the highest ceiling among our top plays. Deni Avdija (POR) is close behind in upside, with a 73.8 ceiling at $8,700 and a DraftKings average of 43.0. Alperen Sengun (HOU) at $8,900 has a 59.3 ceiling and a 45.8 average, the steadier of the two Houston bigs in this group.
Value is where our model gets interesting. Oscar Tshiebwe (HOU) costs just $3,000 and carries a 34.1 ceiling, though his DraftKings average is only 4.1, so he is a pure upside swing that frees up a lot of cap. Jalen Green (PHX) at $6,100 has a 43.3 ceiling and a 28.9 average. Amen Thompson (HOU) at $6,900 has a 57.9 ceiling against a 30.9 average, a big gap between what he usually scores and what he can reach. Kevin Durant (HOU) at $7,400 sits at 46.3 with a 36.8 average.
Several rotation names carry OUT tags from DraftKings: Ja Morant (POR), Tobias Harris (SAS), Steven Adams (HOU), Mark Williams (PHX), Jordan Goodwin (PHX), Robert Williams (POR), Vit Krejci (POR) and Clint Capela (HOU). Those tags are worth checking before you finalize anything. We don't have ownership figures for this slate, so we can't say where the crowd will land.
Our model's top lineup is not available in the data for this slate, so we can't give you a total salary for it. What we can say is that the cheap Houston upside plays and the Wembanyama and Avdija ceilings are where the model sees the most separation.
Get your lineups set before lock at 9:00 p.m. ET.
Follow @numeric_dfs on X.