3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 2/4/19

Bradley Beal, SG, Washington Wizards

Price: $9,300

His price tag soared, and the Washington Wizards are a middling offensive team, so despite the increase in role with John Wall on the shelf, there hasn't been much reason to get excited about Bradley Beal lately.

A matchup with the Atlanta Hawks changes that.

The Hawks are the premier fantasy matchup at just about any position right now. They play at a faster pace than anyone in the NBA, while also sitting only 26th in defensive rating. They allow both the most points and assists per game to their opponents.

We're up to a 20-game sample without Wall this season, and Beal is playing a massive 39.1 minutes per game in those contests. He's turned that workload into 48.5 FanDuel points per game, and while that includes some overtime games, his fantasy points per minute are still up significantly, from 1.07 with Wall to 1.23 without.

That comes with a big bump in usage -- 26.3% to 31.1% -- and has happened over a long enough sample that we can be pretty confident that those numbers are going to hold up long term.

Bringing that combination of volume and efficiency into a matchup with the Hawks makes this an outstanding spot to target Beal.