3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 11/11/19
Basketball is the most consistent sport for daily fantasy purposes.
A top slugger in baseball will have his fair share of 0-for-4 days, and an elite fantasy football player is at risk of having games where his team's offense as a whole is shut down. A high-priced NBA stud is generally going to get his, though. With so many possessions in a game providing opportunities to produce, top fantasy basketball options will be posting high scores just about every night.
While this consistency puts us in a good position to identify top plays, it also means you can't afford to miss when you're paying up for someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, paying up and getting a dud is likely going to leave your lineup drawing pretty close to dead.
Let's get right into it and look at which top players should be the focal points of your lineups tonight.
James Harden, SG, Houston Rockets ($12,000)
Quickly squashing any concerns about how Russell Westbrook would affect his offensive workload, James Harden has opened the 2019-20 season on pace for a career-high 41.0% usage rate. His 1.59 FanDuel points per minute are right in line with last year's 1.60 (also a career-best), and he's second in the NBA with 56.3 FanDuel points per game.
Harden's production has been especially strong recently, topping 67 fantasy points in each of his last three games, scoring 40-plus real-world points twice in that time.
Tonight's matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans shouldn't slow him down at all. The Pels and the Houston Rockets both rank top-four in pace to open the year, and this contest has an absurdly high 242.5-point over/under, with only a 4.5-point spread, suggesting we're likely to be treated to an offensive shootout here.
Pascal Siakam, SF, Toronto Raptors ($9,700)
Already sporting the highest usage rate of his career, Pascal Siakam gets a slight bump with Kyle Lowry on the shelf.
Spicy P is sporting a 32.3% usage rate, while average 1.38 FanDuel points per minute in 109 minutes with Lowry off the court this season, compared to 29.6% usage and 1.21 FanDuel points per minute with Lowry on.
Siakam is a risky play on the second half of a back-to-back after playing 42.2 minutes on Sunday night. Still, even if his playing time drops some, this huge efficiency he's showing off as the focal point in the Toronto Raptors' offense gives him some great upside.
D'Angelo Russell, SG, Golden State Warriors ($8,900)
Benefiting from injuries even more than Siakam is, D'Angelo Russell has very little competition for touches in the Golden State Warriors offense right now.
He's played two games since returning from an injury of his own, dropping 52 and 30 real-world points, which has translated to 82.3 and 46.1 fantasy points, respectively. With Stephen Curry injured, Russell has posted a 39.2% usage rate in those last two contests.
This production isn't entirely new, either, as he's topped five-times value on his salary in each of his last three games, with 40-plus fantasy points in four of his last five.
The Utah Jazz make for a tough matchup but pushing 40% usage while playing significant minutes (34.2 per game over the last five) gives Russell a ton of upside regardless of the matchup. His price-tag isn't going to stay below $9,000 for long, so you'll want to take advantage of Russell being hugely under-priced while it lasts.
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.
