3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 2/1/18

James Harden, SG, Houston Rockets

Price: $11,500

James Harden isn't exactly flying under the radar tonight, coming off the league's first ever 60-point triple-double on Tuesday and notching the second-highest FanDuel score in the site's history. He played nearly every minute of that game, which isn't likely to be the case today, but he still finds himself in an incredibly favorable spot.

The Houston Rockets are banged up right now, with Trevor Ariza (hamstring) out and both Chris Paul (groin) and Eric Gordon (back) questionable. Even if both Paul and Gordon suit up, there's no guarantee either can handle a full workload (on Tuesday, Paul sat out and Gordon played only a couple minutes before back tightness forced him out of the game), which would give Harden's role a big boost.

The Beard is never going to be hurting for minutes even when the back-court is at full strength as he's averaging a touch better than 36 minutes per game since returning to a full workload after he missed a few games at the beginning of the month. He ranks first in the NBA (minimum 10 minutes played) in FanDuel points per minute on the season.

A matchup with the San Antonio Spurs isn't ideal as they don't tend to give up much fantasy production to guards, but Harden is priced to reflect that, not sitting in the $12,000 range as he often does, meaning he still makes for a strong play here.

Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.