3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 2/18/21
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.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, PF, Milwaukee Bucks
FanDuel Salary: $11,300
Did you think this piece was going to start with anyone else? Giannis Antetokounmpo is going to be rostered in a majority of lineups tonight, and keeping him out of your lineup builds could be extremely risky.
Let's get this nugget out there -- in 366.6 minutes without Jrue Holiday on the court this season, the Greek Freak is averaging 1.73 FanDuel points per minute, according to RotoGrinders. 1.73. In the five games Holiday has missed, Giannis has averaged 36.9 minutes per game. At a 1.73 clip, Giannis would total 63.8 fantasy points in 36.9 minutes. His game logs for his last four outings have looked pretty gaudy: 68.7, 65.0, 72.4, and 74.0 FanDuel points. Yeah, that'll play.
On the season, the Toronto Raptors rank 25th against power forwards, and they've been anything but an intimidating matchup for the two-time MVP. In four games against them over the last two seasons, Antetokounmpo is averaging 67.7 fantasy points.
There isn't much left to say here.
LeBron James, SF, Los Angeles Lakers
FanDuel Salary: $10,500
LeBron James isn't just our model's second-highest projected scorer (behind Giannis), he's also our fifth-best projected point-per-dollar value play (as of early Thursday afternoon).
The matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets is unlikely to have a shortage of scoring, as indicated by the 232.0 total, per numberFire's matchup heat map. Over their last 15 games, the Nets rank third-worst in defensive efficiency, and they've allowed an average of 121.8 points per game since acquiring James Harden.
With Anthony Davis out for the foreseeable future, most of the offensive responsibility will fall on LeBron. In his last seven outings, the King has topped 54 FanDuel points four times, and he has totaled fewer than 49.5 just once.
numberFire's algorithm projects LeBron to record 55.7 FanDuel points tonight, and while that's a more-than-solid output, there's no doubt that he can surpass that in a matchup like this if the game stays close.
Fred VanVleet, SG, Toronto Raptors
FanDuel Salary: $8,000
Kyle Lowry is questionable with an ankle injury tonight, and his absence would bolster both the floor and ceiling for Fred VanVleet.
With Lowry off the court this season, FVV has seen a team-high 3.5-percentage-point bump in usage while averaging an additional 0.08 FanDuel points per minute. The two games in which VanVleet has seen his highest usage rates of the season have come with Lowry sitting (January 8th) or banged-up (Tuesday's game with the Bucks).
The 26-year-old hasn't found Milwaukee to be a particularly menacing matchup -- he's dropped 50.0 and 50.3 FanDuel points against them in two bouts this season. Additionally, over their last seven games, only three teams are ceding more fantasy points to shooting guards than the Deer, according to FantasyPros.
VanVleet is a solid stud to pair with Giannis and LeBron, especially considering that his salary $3,000 less than that of fellow shooting guard James Harden ($11,000).
