DraftKings Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Thursday 1/28/21

With four games to choose from on Thursday's slate -- which locks at 7:30 p.m. EST -- let's look at the top options across all five positions for NBA DFS.

Be sure to check out our projections, which are updated throughout the day as news breaks, and our other DFS tools such as advanced stats and a matchup heat map.

Here are some of the top plays on today's DraftKings slate. As always, good luck.

Point Guard

Damian Lillard ($10,600) -- Tonight's game between the Portland Trail Blazers and Houston Rockets carries a bunch of intrigue for DFS purposes. Not only are the Blazers dealing with injuries to C.J. McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic, and Robert Covington, but the point guard showdown should be fun. Lillard enters the head-to-head with John Wall averaging 48.1 DraftKings points per game and 54.8 in his last four alone, using 31.6% of Portland's offensive possessions. He now gets a Houston team that ranks ninth-worst against the center position, according to FantasyPros.

John Wall ($7,300) -- On the other side, Wall draws an even better matchup by way of defense-versus-position numbers. Portland allows 30.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, 7.8 assists for a total of 54.7 DK points a game to point guards. Meanwhile, Wall is working his way back from an injury-related absence, but he racked up 24 points and 35 DK points in 24 minutes his last time out. If he's in there for 30-plus minutes, we can expect him to flirt with 35 to 40 DK points. His average output is up to 40.6 DK points in games he's played 30 or more minutes.

Shooting Guard

Kendrick Nunn ($5,900) -- In case you have been living under rock, Nunn has been killing it of late for the shorthanded Miami Heat. His shot was completely off in his 5-for-17 showing against Brooklyn, but prior to that he had hit 56% of his shots over a four-game stretch, yielding 21.5 points and 38.5 DK points a night. His salary is down $200, so if Tyler Herro and Jimmy Butler are again ruled out, he should be looking at a high usage rate as the top guard option. At face value, the Los Angeles Clippers are not an appealing opponent, yet they will be without the services of Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Patrick Beverley, which should amount to a more favorable fantasy outlook for Nunn.

Terance Mann ($5,400) -- Speaking of the Clippers' key absences, Mann was one of the players asked to step up in the first go-around with all three sidelined. The second-year wing rose to the occasion in his first start of the year, as he converted 34 minutes into 10 points, 9 rebounds, 4 steals, and 31.25 DK points. It marks the second time this year that he has surpassed 30 DK points and 30 minutes in the same game, and there's no reason to think he won't do the same versus Miami.

Small Forward

LeBron James ($10,400) -- We all know LeBron fills up the box score. In fact, this year he's been uber-consistent, having scored fewer than 20 points just 4 times with no fewer than 5 assists or 5 rebounds in any one game. His usage rate and true shooting percentage are both up from a year ago, which should come as no surprise even 17 years into his stellar NBA career. However, for all the big fantasy nights James has put up, it's worth noting that the Lakers are playing on the second night of a road back-to-back and face the Detroit Pistons. Detroit is in the bottom of the East, so even if James plays the blowout risk is there. Proceed with caution, and limit James to tournament lineups in the hopes of a close game.

Jae Crowder ($5,500) -- Devin Booker has sat out each of the Phoenix Suns' last two games, including Wednesday's, and without a report otherwise, we could expect him to sit again Thursday. That opens up minutes and shots for others across the board, and none more so than Crowder. Without Booker, Crowder fed off of Chris Paul and Deandre Ayton, and he proceeded to rack up 21 points on 6-of-13 shooting from three, which combined with his peripherals for 38.25 DK points. He'll look to do more of the same against a Warriors team that averages more than six extra possessions per game compared to the home Suns.

Power Forward

Carmelo Anthony ($5,600) -- Facing one of his former teams, the wily veteran is primed to pick up where he left off in his last game. Over his 35 minutes, Anthony turned 21 shots into 22 points and 37.5 DK points. With that, he is posting 1.04 points per minute over the last three, a stretch that's seen him get his first consistent playing time on a game-to-game basis, including his first start of the season. He should get the start again, and with Portland hurting for shot-makers he should be in line for some elevated usage.

Kyle Kuzma ($4,300) -- As we alluded to, the Lakers will be playing on tired legs after playing in Philadelphia a night ago. There's a chance that Anthony Davis gets a maintenance day, especially after he appeared to tweak a knee at some point on Wednesday. His absence or lack of minutes would result in more opportunities for Kuzma, who has averaged 24.4 minutes overall and a valuable 30.0 in the four he has started. His 24.6 DK points in those four would be enough to return better than five-times value at this salary.

Center

Bam Adebayo ($9,200) -- It's somewhat odd to see Adebayo's name atop the salary charts at center, particularly on a night where Anthony Davis is also playing. However, the big man has been going huge in the absence of Herro and Butler, averaging 47.4 DK points a game and increasing his usage rate to 27.8% in the six-game stretch without either of his playmaking guards. He has 67 points, 15 rebounds and 14 assists in his last two games alone, so why not use a big chunk of your cap on him against a banged-up Clippers squad.

Deandre Ayton ($7,800) - Ayton has improved from last year to this year, and while the exact consistency he has brought to the table doesn't show in the stats, everything else does. Although his scoring is down in a similar number of minutes (likely due to Paul's arrival), he has increased his rebounds per game to 12.2 and has shot nearly 5% better from the floor. And while his usage has fallen from 23.1% to 18.9%, NBA Wowy tells us that he's upped that to 21.4% in the 128 minutes he's played without Booker. He should have the chance to turn more looks into fantasy points against James Wiseman and the Warriors.

Brett Oswalt is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Brett Oswalt also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username BRO14THEKID. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her 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.