3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 1/22/20

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.

Nikola Jokic, C, Denver Nuggets ($10,400)

The Denver Nuggets are likely to be missing a ton of players tonight. The injury report has Paul Millsap, Jamal Murray and Mason Plumlee out, with Gary Harris also doubtful.

When Denver is thin on bigs, Nikola Jokic's work on the glass picks up. He has an 18.9% total rebound rate across 541 minutes with Plumlee and Millsap both off the floor this season, compared to 17.4% with Plumlee on and 16.7% with Millsap on.

The offense also runs through him much more when Murray is off the court, posting a 30.8% usage rate in 241 such minutes, which is up from 27.1% with Murray on.

Millsap is always a triple-double threat, but that's especially true tonight with the Nuggets playing short-handed.

Bam Adebayo, PF, Miami Heat ($8,600)

To stat with, Bam Adebayo's salary relative to his recent production is already solid. He's scored over 46.0 FanDuel points (5.3 per $1,000 of salary today) in three of his last six games. He's played an average of 35.7 minutes per game in that stretch, playing over 37 in two of the last five.

He's seen a significant uptick in offensive volume since the season started, having averaged 7.6 and 8.8 field goal attempts per game in October and November, but 12.5 in December and 10.5 in January. His efficiency hasn't taken a hit with the increased volume, and he's even sporting a terrific .676 effective field goal percentage in January.

That's due for some regression considering he's got a season average of .591, but a matchup with the Washington Wizards should keep his efficiency high tonight, as the Wiz have allowed the NBA's highest EFG% on the year.

Ranking dead-last in both defensive rating and total rebound rate for the season, bigs like Bam who can both score and rebound tend to feast against Washington.

Lou Williams, SG, Los Angeles Clippers ($6,900)

A sub-$7k salary isn't quite "stud" range, but with Kawhi Leonard expected to rest and Paul George not yet announced as active for tonight's game, Lou Williams is positioned for a legitimate stud night against the Atlanta Hawks.

Lou Will has played a team-high 540 minutes with Kawhi and PG both off the floor this season. In that sample, he boasts a massive 35.9% usage rate and averages 1.46 FanDuel points per minute. For context, that usage rate would rank fourth among qualifying players, and the fantasy average would rank ninth among players with at least 500 minutes played on the season. Those are stud numbers, not $6,900 numbers.

Being against the Hawks is just icing on the cake, as Atlanta allows the NBA's most fantasy points per minute to opposing shooting guards.

If George ($9,200) does play, Williams will still offer some big upside, but PG would instead be the top Clippers fantasy target.

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.