3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 2/21/20
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.
Anthony Davis, PF, Los Angeles Lakers ($10,600)
It can be hard to choose between Anthony Davis and LeBron James when the Los Angeles Lakers draw a favorable fantasy matchup, as they are neck-and-neck in fantasy production on the year. Davis ranks fourth in the NBA with 52.0 FanDuel points per game, while James is right at his heels in fifth with 51.7. For tonight, though, the Brow gets the edge.
numberFire's models project Davis for a slate-high 53.0 fantasy points, while James is third in the projections with 50.4. Part of this can likely be attributed to the fact that the Memphis Grizzlies have allowed the NBA's seventh-most fantasy points per game to opposing power forwards, where Davis is generally seeing a lot more minutes than James.
The Lakers also have the highest implied total on the slate, and while there's some blowout risk as 11-point favorites, Davis also has a slight edge in fantasy points per minute (1.50 to 1.48), which helps insulate him a bit more against the potential for reduced minutes if this one gets out of hand.
Luka Doncic, PG, Dallas Mavericks ($10,300)
Ranking third in the NBA with 52.7 FanDuel points per game, it should immediately catch your eye when you see Luka Doncic priced this low.
He was banged-up before the All-Star break, playing 25.2 minutes on January 28 before sitting until February 12, the final game before the break, when he was limited to 31.3 minutes in a blowout. Having had more than a week to recover, though, we should expect his workload to be back to normal tonight.
The six games before his final, short pre-injury game saw Doncic producing right at the level we're used to seeing, with 54.4 FanDuel points per game, and there's nothing to be concerned about now that he's back to full health.
Take advantage of this reduced price-tag while you can get it — Luka was priced above $11,000 for three of his final four games before the injury.
Domantas Sabonis, PF, Indiana Pacers ($7,700)
A much cheaper stud option than those first two, Domantas Sabonis carried some really interesting numbers into the All-Star break.
He played an average of 36.5 minutes per game in his last 10 contests, averaging 42.9 FanDuel points per game during that stretch. That's good for 5.6 points per $1,000 of salary tonight. Both his floor and ceiling were solid in that time as well, with at least 34.6 fantasy points in 9 of the 10 games, as well as more than 50 in three of them.
Don't expect him to cool down much against the New York Knicks, who rank 22nd in the NBA in defensive rating.
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.
