NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 1/24/20

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.

James Harden, SG, Houston Rockets ($10,800)

This is the first time all season that James Harden's salary has fallen below $11,000, and that is something to take advantage of.

A low price tag has almost always made him a steal this year. He's been priced at $11.1k or $11k on six occasions, averaging 62.2 FanDuel points per game in those contests. He failed to return at least 5.0 fantasy points per $1,000 of salary in only one of those games.

Being inexpensive doesn't make him produce better, obviously, but that track record is a good indicator that the dips in production that have led to decreased salaries haven't been something to worry about. This is still the guy averaging the most fantasy points per game in the NBA (58.1) and getting him for $10,800 is an absolute steal.

Kawhi Leonard, PF, Los Angeles Clippers ($9,800)

Kawhi Leonard is not on the injury report, while Paul George is once again being ruled out for the Los Angeles Clippers, giving Kawhi a nice boost in value.

His splits with and without PG paint a clear picture this season.

On a game level, he has a 37.4% usage rate in 16 contests without George, compared to 31.7% when George plays. This volume plays a big part in the jump from 43.2 FanDuel points per game with to 53.6 per game without.

If that's not enough of a sample for you, we see similar trends in all of Kawhi's minutes with George on the floor (32.2% usage and 1.33 fantasy points per minute in 460 minutes) and off this year (38.6% usage and 1.64 per minute in 631 minutes).

Clint Capela, C, Houston Rockets ($7,900)

Going back to the Rockets, they have a slate-high 119.5-point implied total, which comes in a game with Friday's highest over/under (234.0) and a modest 5.0-point spread, suggesting we've got some shootout potential here.

Like Harden, Clint Capela is going through a bit of a slump, but he's shown that he still has no shortage of upside, with 59.4 and 60.3 FanDuel points in back to back games earlier this month. Also like Harden, reduced price tags while he's slumping tend to be great opportunities to get his upside on the cheap. Both of those huge games earlier this month came with him priced at $7,600 (his cheapest of the season), and he's returning an average of 4.8 fantasy points per $1,000 of salary when priced below $8k this year. At $8,000 or more that drops to 4.6.

The Minnesota Timberwolves also make for a good matchup, allowing above-average fantasy efficiency to centers while checking in at just 24th in the NBA in total rebound rate.


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.