3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 1/27/21

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.

Bradley Beal, SG, Washington Wizards

FanDuel Salary: $10,300

The Washington Wizards are on the second night of a back-to-back, so we should get Bradley Beal unleashed without Russell Westbrook tonight.

Over 211 minutes on the season, Beal has an absurd 40.7% usage rate without Westbrook. That's four points higher than his already league-leading rate. Speaking of full-season rates, Beal is averaging 1.41 FanDuel points per minute this season. Without Westbrook, that bumps up to 1.55, which would tie Giannis Antetokounmpo for fourth among qualified players.

So, yeah, there's a lot to like about Beal in this game already. Now throw in the matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans, which has the second-highest combined adjusted pace on the slate.

The Pelicans are also outside the top 20 in player-level adjusted FanDuel points per minute allowed to both guard positions. Everything points to Beal being chalky, even on a 12-game slate. It should be worth it.

Brandon Ingram, SF, New Orleans Pelicans

FanDuel Salary: $7,500

So, I'm going to stick with Beal's game and look at the other side. It's really weird to look at a player who is $7,500 on a 12-game slate and call him a stud, but just stick with me. While Brandon Ingram isn't your typical stud at your typical stud salary, there's a lot to like about his situation in that Pelicans/Wizards game. Firstly, the over/under is a strong 227.0 points, though the Pels are 7.5-point favorites. That means there's some blowout risk, which Beal knows about all too well.

But Ingram works in a lot of ways: the floor has been high (no fewer than 28.1 FanDuel points in any game), and he has had ceiling games (three with 50-plus FanDuel points, which is elite at this salary). That's what we want with a stud: a floor of points and a way to demolish a value-based ceiling. He also pairs with Zion Williamson ($7,800) for a salary-friendly three-stud game stack with Beal to bring it back. Ingram has put up 15, 19, 18, 14, and 20 shot attempts in his past five games, and scoring in bunches can lead to an elite fantasy game.

numberFire's model simply loves Ingram in this spot and projects him for 5.67 FanDuel points per $1,000 in salary (or a value rating of 5.67). That's 42.6 FanDuel points overall. Williamson's value projection is lower at 4.55 (35.5 FanDuel points in total).

Giannis Antetokounmpo, PF, Milwaukee Bucks

FanDuel Salary: $11,300

Okay, let's get back to the real superstars here. Giannis Antetokounmpo draws the Toronto Raptors, who rank 20th in adjusted defensive rating this season and 16th in raw defensive rating. Their estimated defensive rating is seventh-best, though, meaning the underlying data suggests they should be better than the actual stats show. That doesn't particularly matter because Antetokounmpo has played well even in tougher spots overall.

Even against top-10 opponents in adjusted FanDuel points per minute allowed to power forwards (which the Raptors aren't; they're 25th), he's averaging 1.46 FanDuel points per minute, a stout number. His full-season rate this year is 1.55 FanDuel points per minute, down from a league-leading 1.86 last season.

The 6.0-point spread is on the higher end but certainly not locked-in blowout territory, and we've seen Giannis get 35-plus minutes in three straight (with FanDuel totals of 63.9, 37.9 [against the Los Angeles Lakers], and 53.8).

In total, we project Antetokounmpo for a slate-best 54.5 FanDuel points over 33.1 minutes (1.65 per minute) and a value rating of 4.83. He's projected to outscore the third-best power forward by 11.3 points, the highest differential across all positions tonight.