NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 12/23/20

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Dec 23rd, 2020
It's a full slate of NBA games, so hitting the right studs is vital. Who should come through?

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-salaried 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 a heavy salary to roster someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, getting a dud from a stud is likely going to leave your lineup lacking.

Let's get right into it and look at which top players should be the focal points of your lineups today.

Luka Doncic, PG, Dallas Mavericks

FanDuel Salary: $11,400

We have enough value to get to Luka Doncic in our lineups because the slate is so massive, so at a certain point, there's opportunity cost in the event that Doncic just goes off for a monstrous debut. Last season, he averaged 1.57 FanDuel points per minute, trailing only Giannis Antetokounmpo's 1.86.

The matchup with the Phoenix Suns gets worse with Chris Paul at point guard (he was fifth in defensive real plus-minus last season), but Doncic is projected for 56.0 FanDuel points, regardless.

Ultimately what Doncic has in his favor is a huge 234.0-point total and a razor-thin 1.0-point spread, giving the Dallas Mavericks the fifth-highest implied total on the slate. It's third-highest if we remove the two 7.5-point favorites.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, SF, Milwaukee Bucks

FanDuel Salary: $11,500

I mentioned Antetokounmpo's league-leading 1.86-FanDuel-point-per-minute average last season, and he'll bring that into what should be a competitive game against the Boston Celtics. Antetokounmpo's Milwaukee Bucks are 4.0-point favorites and boast an implied total of 114.0 points.

Last season, the Celtics were the best small forward defense in the NBA based on opponent-level adjustments, but Giannis generally outplayed expectations in tough matchups last season, anyway. this is a similar discussion with Doncic: at a certain point, Antetokoumpo's ceiling becomes impossible to replace if he hits it. Plus, the floor is there. In only one of 46 games last season in which Antetokounmpo played at least 30 minutes did he fall shy of 40 FanDuel points.

Joel Embiid, C, Philadelphia 76ers

FanDuel Salary: $9,400

Joel Embiid draws a really soft matchup with the Washington Wizards, who ranked 27th in adjusted FanDuel points per minute allowed last season to centers. Embiid's 1.52 FanDuel points per minute actually ranked third last season, behind only Giannis, Luka, and James Harden (1.57). So we get a productive per-minute player up against a positive overall matchup.

The Philadelphia 76ers rate out with the highest implied team total of the slate (119.0) and are 7.5-point favorites, but that's not automatic blowout territory as we learn how the Wizards look with Russell Westbrook leading the charge. Embiid is numberFire's best per-dollar value among the studs above $8,500 for tonight.