3 Under-the-Radar Daily Fantasy Basketball Plays for 1/31/17
Ivica Zubac, C, Los Angeles Lakers
FanDuel Price: $3,900
Why He Will Go Overlooked:
Despite some decent games over the past couple weeks, Ivica Zubac is still a fairly unknown commodity to most NBA fans. Everyone is going to want to pay up for DeMarcus Cousins in a shootout against the Houston Rockets, especially with viable value plays at other positions. That will make it tough justifying rolling the dice on Zubac.
Why You Should Use Him:
Zubac has slowly been stealing minutes away from Timofey Mozgov and has now topped 20 minutes in three of his past five games. In said games, the 19-year-old big man has posted three double-doubles and averaged 31.2 FanDuel points. Since Julius Randle will be out with pneumonia, Zubac could get another extended look, as he has greatly outplayed his fellow big men in Mozgov and Tarik Black.
He will face a depleted Denver Nuggets frontcourt that will be without Nikola Jokic, which is forcing an injured Kenneth Faried into heavy minutes. The team has been solid against centers, but they appeared plenty vulnerable in their last game with Jokic out, allowing Tyson Chandler to post 15 points and 13 boards.
In 26 minutes of action against Denver two weeks ago, Zubac found success to the tune of a career-best 35.1 FanDuel points.
The potential is certainly there that Denver features a small-ball lineup in this one, as they did in their most recent game, which could cause Black to see a lot more minutes than Zubac. That makes him a risky tournament play, but he doesn't have to do much to reach value at his price tag, and has shown the potential to go for 10x value.
Given the fact that he also should carry low ownership, Zubac is one of the best tournament plays on the slate.