FanDuel NBA Sim Sports Picks for 3/18/20

During this downtime in the sports calendar, FanDuel has been innovating a lot of different ways to get some daily fantasy sports action.

One of those includes NBA Sim Sports, a format that looks pretty much identical to the usual FanDuel offering. The only twist is that the games won't be played live. Players will instead be assigned a random game from their 2019-20 season.

Matchups don't come into play, and late-scratches and other games missed by players won't come into effect. Scores roll out throughout the night for a bit of a sweat.

It's free to enter, and here are some potential standout picks.

Finding Value

A rule of thumb in NBA DFS is finding certain value thresholds. For example, seeking players who can score 5.0 FanDuel points per $1,000 in salary. This is known as "five-times value" or "5x." The reason for that is if you max out your $60,000 budget and every player in your lineup scores exactly 5.0 points per $1,000, you'll total 300.0 FanDuel points. That's a good starting point.

Of course, for bigger totals, you'll want to shoot for 6x or higher, and for safety, 4x is a fine mark to uncover. What you will typically find is that the more expensive players hit 4x value often (because their roles are secure but their prices are high enough that they really need a huge game to pay off big price tags) and cheaper players hit 6x more frequently (because their bigger games are less about 50-point triple-doubles and more about a simple double-double at a cheaper price).

Value Leaders

These tables include the top-eight performers at each position based on how many times this season they had games that hit our three different value thresholds when compared to their current price for today's contest.

In parenthesis, you can see how often a player hit the given threshold. For example, Zion Williamson returned 4x value in 86% of his games and 5x value in 57% of his games.

4x Value Leaders

5x Value Leaders

6x Value Leaders