What’s up gang? Are you excited for Tiers Tuesday? Cause I sure am. I won’t even do much preamble I’m just too excited to jump into some tiers. Lets have a look!
(Ok - some additional, but skippable, preamble. First let’s talk about how tiers works a little bit. Tiers is what you could call a “pick-em” game, where you have fixed lists of players available for each slot. This slotting system is significantly simpler than traditional salary cap based NBA DFS. You don’t have to concern yourself with endless combinations, or digging up 1% sleepers to gain an edge on the field.
The limited player pool also means you don’t have to keep an eye on your lineups as much after lock. When late or post-lock injury news comes up in a traditional contest, there is almost certainly going to be an effect on your lineup. Tiers makes this significantly less likely. Tiers also doesn’t have the monster prize pools the regular contests have, and therefore is not quite as sharp, meaning our informed asses have a leg up!
I also want to add that the pOwn (projected ownership) you see in the charts below refers to the main slate pOwn which can, and should, vary quite a bit from where the tiers ownership will be. I do my best to project how I think tiers will play out, but frankly without the help of the major outlets, ownership here is hard for me to predict. I encourage you to apply your own game theory thoughts to each tier. If you think differently than me, please please please say so in the comments or the daily thread so we can discuss! And I can roast your ass tomorrow! Haha jk, unless I win.)
Tier 1
If you read this newsletter, you know my thoughts on Nikola Jokic. The reigning MVP is playing like he wants to repeat, and is matching that MVP level in fantasy as well. His floor and ceiling is well above these other two.
Paul George is having himself an excellent season as well, picking up the slack left by Kawhi Leonard’s absence nicely. If you do choose him, I would avoid pairing him with Reggie Jackson or Eric Bledsoe. He will need to squeeze out every point possible. And to that end, I’d also want to pair PG with one of the Dallas guys from the lower tiers: Porzingis is in T3, Jalen Brunson is in T4, and Hardaway Jr. is in T5.
LeBron James is suspended tonight leaving AD to guide the ship with Captain THT, and first mate Russell Westbrook. I actually think its best to not pair AD with any Knicks. If he beats Jokic tonight, it’s probably with lots of rebounds and blocks, and we don’t want to play the guys missing all the shots. Avoid Russ with him, but THT: Basketball God is compatible with all builds.
Tier 2
This tier is a bit more of a pick-em for me, and I would really just focus on picking the appropriate complementary players for these three.
If we play Jimmy Buckets: Skip Lowry and Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and any of the Detroit guys are fine for me.
If Russ is Russ, AD, and probably THT are both not going to succeed. But we have three Knicks in lower tiers who should benefit from him running wild, not to mention one of his paths to success includes Randle failing. Kemba, D-Rose, and RJ Barrett all make fine runbacks, and probably in that order.
Julius Randle can get there in a variety of ways - He scores, rebounds, and gets assists. Don’t hesitate to pair him with anyone from the LAL-NYK game down the tiers.
Tier 3
First, not to be rude to a fellow Philadelphian, but Kyle Lowry does not belong in this tier. Theres a non-zero chance he wins it of course, but that chance is also near-zero.
Dame Lillard is easily the class of this tier. No, he is not scoring 30 points a game at the moment, but he is still the lead-dog for the Blazers, and is probably a more appropriate fit up in T2.
Bam could certainly have a field day against a very short-handed Pistons team, emphasis on short. They are not very good, and will miss tons of shots (rebounds for Bam), and defensively will allow the Heat to do pretty much whatever (points/assists for the creative big-man)
The Zinger looks to keep it rolling in Luka’s absence tonight. He has scored 20+ in 7 of his last 8 games, and is always a double-double threat, with three-point range and a good shot blocking rate. There’s a reason he has the second highest ceiling of this group.
I did some digging this morning on how CJ and Dame have performed in the same game since the start of the 2020-2021 season. I was surprised to find that A - they have both only played 30+ mins in the same game 46 times, and B - CJ has outscored Dame 16 times. My assumption is that CJ’s ownership will lag far behind the rest of this tier because his more prolific teammate is right there as an alternative. But we’ve seen him outscore the top player from this tier 33% of the time…
Tier 4
I really think once you get down here, it becomes a matter of correlation to your higher tier players, ie - who fits with the picks I have already made? I will say I don’t think Aaron Gordon is worth rostering if Jokic is healthy. He just doesn’t possess the same juice as these other guys.
My expectation here is that Cade and Jalen run away with the ownership. The Piston’s rookie has been awesome recently, and (rightly so) the perception is that he will just keep getting better as a young player. But all growth isn’t linear. There will be bumps. Jalen has also performed well in Luka’s absence the past few games, and with him out tonight, people will get tunnel vision on his previous performances. Jerami Grant provides an excellent leverage opportunity down here. He stands to benefit from Isaiah Stewart’s absence, and is a multi-category contributor. Herro and Barton are both scoring dependent players making their success a little more fragile, but I just have a hard time believing they will be owned anywhere near efficiently.
Tier 5
This their is much the same as T4. Pick your players based on how they correlate with your other selections. You see above THT has the top ceiling, and you’d expect that from one of the greatest to ever lace em up. With LeBron out, I am very interested in Talen’s talents.
Its curious that Reggie Jackson and Eric Bledsoe are in the same tier. The gulf between the two right now is larger than Dame and CJ. One plays in the mid-30’s in minutes, one plays in the mid-20’s. If I play 100 lineups tonight, I may not have a single Bledsoe share.
Tier 6
This tier has a wildly disparate group of players. Marcus Morris Sr, another Philly guy, doesn’t belong in any percent of your lineups. He’s been hurt, so I don’t know why he is here… Zubac is the only one who I’d play uncorrelated, but my guess is he will be very owned here. Keep looking to correlate here. That will help amp up the leverage you get from playing the non-Zubac’s.
That’s all I have for today. Be sure to check out the thread and leave some questions and comments. Find it by clicking this:
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