NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 12/30/19

Jason Schandl  —  @JasonSchandl Dec 30th, 2019
Damian Lillard has looked good as of late and in a spot to continue that versus the Suns. With a very high over/under in this game, is he is the stud to target tonight?

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.

Andre Drummond, C, Detroit Pistons ($9,600)

With injuries ravaging most of the top-priced options on today's slate, there's not a ton of opportunity cost in paying up for Andre Drummond.

A matchup with the Utah Jazz certainly dings his value, but a sub-$10k price-tag more than makes up for the fact that he'll be facing off with Rudy Gobert.

Drummond's last 11 games have seen him top 50 FanDuel points seven times, with three of those seven (including his last outing) being 60-plus fantasy point performances. Outside of Giannis Antetokounmpo and Karl-Anthony Towns, who are both questionable to return from injury absences tonight, Drummond is our top-projected fantasy scorer for Monday night.

Damian Lillard, PG, Portland Trail Blazers ($8,900)

Tonight's matchup between the Portland Trail Blazers and Phoenix Suns has a slate-high 231-point over/under and just a 4.5-point spread, suggesting this could be a shootout full of fantasy goodness.

The Suns are playing at a top-10 pace while checking in at 19th in defensive rating this year, and that has them surrendering above-average fantasy efficiency at the point.

Damian Lillard is averaging a career-best 44.6 FanDuel points per game on the year, and he's averaged an especially solid 47.8 per game over his last six. Don't expect the Suns to slow his roll too much tonight.

Jimmy Butler, SG, Miami Heat ($8,700)

Jimmy Butler's minutes have really picked up lately, and he's averaging 37.5 per game in the month of December. He's not a hyper-efficient fantasy producer, but that workload has still translated to a solid 45.2 FanDuel points per game — good for an average of 5.2 per $1,000 of salary today.

That already makes this an eye-catching price-tag, and things get even better when we factor in his matchup.

The Washington Wizards combine the second-highest pace and the lowest defensive rating in the NBA, giving up the NBA's most points and second-most assists per game to opponents. They're also surrendering top-five fantasy production to shooting guards, and Butler should thrive 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.