NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Monday 5/14/18

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 in our new Single Game Boost format for the Conference Finals.

For these contests, you'll fill out a five-man roster with a $60,000 salary cap. Those five players include an MVP, a Star, a Pro, and two utility players. The MVP will have his FanDuel points doubled. The Star will have his fantasy points multiplied by 1.5. The Pro gets a multiplier of 1.2. The two utility players will return the standard FanDuel points.

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

Let's take a look at who you should target on today's one-game slate.

James Harden (FanDuel Price: $18,000)

James Harden has been slumping a bit lately, with fantasy outputs of fewer than 40 FanDuel points in each of his last two games. Those came in a nightmare matchup with the Jazz, though, and Utah allowed the league's second-fewest fantasy points per game to opposing shooting guards in the regular season.

This is still the James Harden who ranked in the top-five with 53.0 FanDuel points per game and second with 1.50 fantasy points per minute in the regular season. He also saw a terrific workload in his two regular season games against the Warriors, boasting a 29.5% usage rate while leading the team in both field goal attempts (19.5) and assists (9.5) per game.

As both the most efficient and top-scoring fantasy producer on today's slate and with a date with a Warriors team that allowed above-average fantasy numbers to opposing two-guards, Harden is in an outstanding spot. With his huge floor and ceiling, he's a top pick for your MVP slot.