NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Thursday 4/25/19

If you're new to daily fantasy basketball -- maybe you started your DFS journey during the MLB or NFL seasons, or maybe basketball is your sport and this will be your first year giving it a shot -- you're in for a treat. The NBA scene changes hugely on a week-to-week, day-to-day, and -- depending on injury news -- even a minute-to-minute basis, making every slate a unique one that requires an ever-changing approach.

With so much changing so quickly, we're here with plenty of tools to help you out. We have daily projections, a matchup heat map, a lineup optimizer, and a ton of other great resources to help give you an edge.

We'll also be coming at you with this primer every day, breaking down a few of the day's top plays at each price point.

Let's take a look at who you should target on today's one-game slate, which follows a different format than typical NBA contests on FanDuel. Your lineup consists of five position-less slots, with one designated "MVP" having their fantasy score multiplied by 2.0, a "STAR" multiplied by 1.5 and a "PRO" multiplied by 1.2, as well as two utility slots receiving their usual points.

Nikola Jokic ($16,500)

At first glance, $16,500 looks shocking, but remember, this is a different format. With only five players in your lineup, Jokic is priced at 1.4 times what you can afford on average per player, which is equivalent to a sub-$10,000 price-tag on a typical slate.

Granted, he's the night's most expensive player by a big margin ($1,500 more than anyone else), but he's well worth it. His 49.2 FanDuel points per game in this series are more than 10 more than anyone else in today's player pool has averaged. He's topped 50 FanDuel points three times while not posting fewer than 41.1 in any of the five games.

We've seen his minutes way up from where they were in the regular season, averaging 36.0 per game, and that's a recipe for massive fantasy value for Jokic, who ranked sixth in the NBA in FanDuel points per minute (1.50) in the regular season.

With so much more upside than anyone else on the slate (as well as the best floor available), he's something of a no-brainer to plug into your MVP slot tonight, where you can maximize the likely gap in scoring between him and everyone else in action.