NBA

NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on Tuesday 3/15/22

Austin Swaim  —  @ASwaim3 Mar 15th, 2022
Bam Adebayo's ability to stuff multiple stat categories makes him a safe option on Tuesday. Who else is worth spending up for?

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 up for someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, paying up and getting a dud is likely going to leave your lineup drawing pretty close to dead.

Which top players should be the focal points of your lineups today?

Kyrie Irving, PG/SG, Brooklyn Nets ($10,000)

With so much dust to be settled at guard on Tuesday, Kyrie Irving is the only one above $8,000 that -- currently -- is a lock for my player pool.

Ja Morant, Malcolm Brogdon, and C.J. McCollum have yet-to-be-finalized statuses that could wildly shift the pecking order at point guard. Irving -- at the very least -- is the key target from the Brooklyn Nets as they travel to Orlando.

Irving and Kevin Durant now have a three-game sample of working together since Durant returned from injury. When they share the floor together, Durant (26.7% usage rate) has a slight usage advantage over Kyrie (23.7%), but Kyrie actually averages more FanDuel points per minute (1.21) than K.D. (1.15) because of his role as a facilitator.

The two are close in a vacuum, but this decision isn't one in a vacuum. Irving is $1,200 less in salary, and there are more alternatives at forward like Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Buddy Hield than there are currently at guard.

There are some blowout concerns (9.5-point spread), but beggars can't be choosers on a four-game slate, and the 232.5-point total in O-Town is still pretty sweet.

Bam Adebayo, PF/C, Miami Heat ($9,200)

Speaking of large spreads, the Miami Heat face one at home Tuesday.

They're a 12.5-point favorite over the lowly Pistons, but Bam Adebayo is a stat-stuffing machine who could potentially even pay off in three quarters. Across a variety of floor situations, Adebayo has averaged a team-best 1.23 FanDuel points per minute since returning from his thumb issue in January.

Since just February 15th, Adebayo has scored 30-plus points three times, contributed double-digit boards nine times, dished out five-plus assists four times, and had either three blocks or steals on eight different occasions. He is a legitimate candidate to stuff any category on any night, and the Pistons are bottom-10 in all of those categories allowed to centers.

Jimmy Butler is a favorite of numberFire's model on Tuesday, but Butler's impact and upside comes from scoring. His inconsistency comes from the fact Kyle Lowry and Tyler Herro can also do plenty of that. Adebayo can contribute 45-plus FanDuel points without even doing a ton offensively -- though his 25.4% usage rate this season shows he'll do his fair share there, too.

With a blowout on the horizon, Bam's security in multiple categories makes him a solid target.