3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 1/29/20
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.
Damian Lillard, PG, Portland Trail Blazers ($9,800)
Thanks to a recent scoring tear, Damian Lillard's salary shot up to $9,700 in his last outing. That didn't stop him from returning huge fantasy value, though, as he went off for 78.7 FanDuel points.
Dame now has at least 64.2 in each of his last three games, averaging an absurd 75.8 per game in that stretch. He's not been afraid to get his shot up during this hot streak, either, averaging 29.3 field goal attempts (including 15.7 from deep) per game over those three.
We obviously shouldn't bet on him to continue shooting 53.4% from the field or 57.4% from three-point range, but the inflated offensive volume he's getting on this streak still gives him huge upside against the Houston Rockets, who are allowing the NBA's eighth-most points and fifth-most made field goals per game.
DeMar DeRozan, SG, San Antonio Spurs ($7,900)
Even in a tough matchup against the Utah Jazz, this salary doesn't make a ton of sense for DeMar DeRozan. He does have a couple of poor showings (29.7 and 29.5 FanDuel points) over the last week, but outside of those two, he's scored at least 43.2 (5.5 per $1,000 of salary tonight) in the other 9 of his last 11 games. In that stretch (including the duds), he's averaged 45.1 per game — something we'd expect out of someone priced about $1,000 north of where DeMar is.
The Jazz are as tough a matchup as advertised, allowing the NBA's fewest FanDuel points per minute to opposing shooting guards, but even a matchup like this doesn't warrant being priced $1,000 below where he should be and $900 below where he was before that first dud last week.
Donovan Mitchell, SG, Utah Jazz ($7,600)
On the other side of that game, the San Antonio Spurs enter with a 22nd-ranked defensive rating while playing at an above average pace.
Donovan Mitchell isn't as egregiously underpriced as DeRozan, and we have seen that his floor is a fair bit lower, falling below 35 fantasy points in 7 of his last 15 games. He still brings a ton of upside, though, and he's topped 50 twice in his last six contests, averaging 42.3 per game in that stretch and 38.0 per game over his last 15 — exactly 5-times value on this salary.
Mitchell's fantasy production tends to rely on big scoring numbers, averaging 25.5 points, 4.7 assists and 3.7 boards per game over those last 15, so he should be in for a nice boost against a Spurs team that allows the NBA's seventh-most points per game.
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.
