3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 11/13/19

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.

LeBron James, SF, Los Angeles Lakers ($11,800)

With Anthony Davis banged up and unlikely to play, LeBron James becomes a virtual lock in tonight's matchup with the Golden State Warriors.

The King already ranks seventh in the NBA with an average of 52.1 FanDuel points per game on the year, and we can count on him to build on that tonight. In 104 minutes with Davis off the floor this season, James has posted a massive 38.1% usage rate, averaging 1.71 FanDuel points per minute. That's up from 1.37 per minute on 28.0% usage in 249 minutes with Davis on. For context, Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only player with at least 100 minutes played to average of 1.71 per minute this season.

A matchup with the Warriors makes this an especially good spot for LeBron, as the Dubs have by far the league's worst defensive rating (116.8) as well as the eighth-worst total rebound rate (49.0%) on the year.

Missing Davis also reduces the blowout risk in this game, increasing the chances that we see James play a full complement of minutes in this prime spot.

Pascal Siakam, SF, Toronto Raptors ($9,700)

The Toronto Raptors have leaned incredibly heavily on Pascal Siakam with Kyle Lowry hurt.

Siakam played 39.0 minutes when Lowry went down last Friday, then played 42.2 and 43.6 minutes in a back-to-back set over the weekend. He averaged 23.3 field goal attempts per game over those three, which he converted into 49.7 FanDuel points per game.

His usage rate has eclipsed 31.0% in 6 of 10 games this season (including two of his last three), and while it did dip in the second half of the weekend's back-to-back, we can expect a resurgence now that he's rested for tonight's game.

With a good chance to lead the slate in minutes played while also seeing huge usage, Siakam is a tough fade despite the Raps' middling 107.75-point implied total as 3.0-point underdogs.

Kemba Walker, PG, Boston Celtics ($9,000)

With betting odds on the other side of the spectrum, the Boston Celtics carry some blowout risk as 95-point favorites, but their slate-high 117.75-point implied total also gives them some serious offensive upside tonight.

Kemba Walker should play a big role in that upside, leading the C's with a 29.1% usage rate and averaging a career-high 26.7 points per 36 minutes to open the season.

We've seen him become more and more of a three-point shooter over the past few seasons, and that has really picked up in Boston. It's only a nine-game sample, but 53.4% of his field goal attempts have come from three-point range, which is a full 10 percentage points higher than last year's career-high mark.

The Washington Wizards have the NBA's third-worst defensive rating so far, and this matchup lines up well for Kemba, as the Wiz have allowed top-10 marks in both three-point percentage and made threes per 100 possessions.

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.