FanDuel Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Monday 12/27/21

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 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 bunch of other great resources to help give you an edge.

Daily fantasy basketball is very reliant on a player's opportunity, so you'll need to make sure that you're up-to-date with key injuries. Our projections update up until tip-off to reflect current news, we have player news updates, and the FanDuel Scout app will send push notifications for pressing updates regarding your players.

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

Let's break down today's main slate on FanDuel.

The Slate

Guards

James Harden ($11,000) headlines the broader guard position as one of three players with a salary of at least $9,000.

My slate simulation model sees him leading all guards in FanDuel points at a stellar 44.0% clip and finishing top five at an 81.2% probability against the Los Angeles Clippers. numberFire projects Harden for 38.6 minutes and 56.5 FanDuel points, making it hard to get away from Harden among the studs.

LaMelo Ball ($9,400) and Damian Lillard ($9,000) are 11.7% and 16.6%, respectively, to lead all guards in FanDuel scoring for context. There's a drop-off after the top three tonight for sure when it comes to high-end output.

Value definitely exists, though, among guards.

John Konchar is my top adjusted salary play and is 15.2% likely to net the best FanDuel value rating (FanDuel points per $1,000 in salary) on the slate at the position. Konchar played 28.1 minutes in a start yesterday. He posted a line of 11 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks on a weak 12.2% usage rate.

Other standout salary-savers include Eric Bledsoe ($5,500), Jordan Clarkson ($5,200), Anfernee Simons ($4,000), Skylar Mays ($4,300), Patrick Beverley ($5,800), Bruce Brown Jr. ($5,000), and Marcus Smart ($5,900).

That's a pretty lengthy list. That does call into question the opportunity cost of Harden, Ball, and Lillard, but don't forget about their ceilings just to save salary for your guards.

More on that as we transition into the rest of the slate.

Forwards

We don't have a Harden-level play among forward picks.

Jaylen Brown ($8,000) and DeMar DeRozan ($8,900) rate as 23.1% and 16.8%, respectively, to lead forwards in FanDuel points across my simulated slates. It's just a flatter position than we have at guard (or big).

Also, no value play is better than 9.0% likely to be the leader in FanDuel value (that's Cam Reddish [$5,300] at 9.0%).

So, yes, guard has a lot of viable plays in the low salary range; however, the true upside is less prevalent at forward, which makes Harden an even stronger building block.

With plenty of value at forward -- my model sees the best values as Reddish, Malik Beasley ($6,000), Norman Powell ($6,100), Bogdan Bogdanovic ($5,800), and Joe Ingles ($4,200) -- we can save here and risk less in terms of true, raw FanDuel point upside.

Bigs

We'll probably want to use some guard savings and a lot of forward savings to spend up at the big position as a primary play.

That starts with true centers (i.e. center-only options) Clint Capela ($8,000), Rudy Gobert ($9,100), Jakob Poeltl ($7,200), and Nikola Vucevic ($8,300). There's some flexibility with a PF/C play in Christian Wood ($7,900) at the high end, as well.

My model's top value is pretty easily Nathan Knight ($3,800). Knight, just a PF-eligible play, is projected for 28.0 minutes and 27.9 FanDuel points while the Minnesota Timberwolves are thin. Karl-Anthony Towns, D'Angelo Russell, and Anthony Edwards are out. Knight is 30.5% likely to post the best value rating among all big-eligible players and is 59.6% likely to finish top five among them in value. We also can pair him with one of the aforementioned studs at center due to his position.

Mason Plumlee ($4,600) and Gorgui Dieng ($3,900) also rate out as elite value plays for the lineups where we want to build around Harden plus any of Ball, Lillard, DeRozan, and Brown.

Range-of-Outcome Projections

I calculated each player's projected floor (Low) and ceiling (High) (i.e.one standard deviation above and below his fantasy projection) for the slate, based on numberFire's median projections. The position groups are guard (G), forward (F), and big (B) in the table.