NBA

FantasyScore Daily Fantasy Basketball Primer: Tuesday 2/24/15

Greg Monroe looks to stay hot in a great matchup against Kevin Love and the Cavaliers.

If you're into fantasy basketball and your season-long league team just isn't working out, why not change things up and play daily fantasy basketball? More specifically, why not play over at FantasyScore.com?

FantasyScore has tons of games to choose from and compete in for real cash prizes. And the best part is that you have zero season-long commitments -- you can draft a new team tomorrow if you want.

With a small four-game slate tonight in the NBA, it's a perfect time to try it out. And to help you, we're giving out our FantasyScore optimized lineup, which you can find below.

PlayerPositionProjected FPCostValue
LeBron JamesF43.959100.004.83
Russell WestbrookG50.99000.005.66
John WallG41.088500.004.83
Greg MonroeC32.836500.005.05
Monta EllisG33.036300.005.24
George HillG30.434600.006.62
James JohnsonF21.533200.006.73
Al-Farouq AminuF21.132800.007.55

In the NBA, the month of February has belonged to Russell Westbrook this season. The Thunder star has averaged a ridiculous 30.6 points, 10.1 assists and 7.9 rebounds during this month, and that doesn't even count his historic 41 points in the All-Star game -- a game in which he won MVP. With Kevin Durant still sidelined with a foot injury, the Thunder will be forced to once again lean heavily on their star point guard, who already leads the league with a 37.3% usage rate. Westbrook is our number one overall projected player on the board tonight.

While he hasn't been quite as good as Westbrook as of late, LeBron James looks to make his own MVP push down the stretch. King James has averaged 25.8 points, 7.3 assists, 5.6 boards and 1.5 steals per game through the first 47 games of his return to Cleveland, and draws a plus matchup against a Pistons squad who has allowed the 12th most fantasy points per game to opposing small forwards this season. On a night with a small, four-game slate, don't hesitate to pay up for both Westbrook and James who should both have little trouble reaching value tonight.

As far as big men go, few have been as productive as Greg Monroe of late. Since the calendar has flipped to 2015, Monroe has posted 16.6 points, 12.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, and gets a spectacular matchup against Kevin Love and the Cavaliers who have allowed the third most fantasy points per game to opposing power forwards over the past three weeks. The Pistons' big man should dominate Cleveland's front court and is an absolute steal at just $6,500.

With all of these stars in your lineup, you will be forced to take a few value plays as well. With this in mind, our algorithms recommend you go with a pair of inexpensive forwards -- Al-Farouq Aminu and James Johnson -- to offset the expensive price tags of Westbrook, James and Monroe.

Aminu and Johnson should both see a boost in playing time tonight as both men will be thrust into larger roles due to injuries to their teammates. Chandler Parsons will miss his third consecutive game with an ankle injury, which means Aminu should see close to 30 minutes of action tonight. The Mavericks' forward has been very productive when on the floor -- averaging 11.6 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.6 steals per-36 minutes of action -- and should reach value easily at just $2,800.

Similarly, Johnson is coming off of two huge games while in Toronto's starting lineup, averaging 21 points, 5 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and 2 steals over that span. The Raptors' forward should see another heavy workload with Patrick Patterson sidelined and could take advantage of a solid matchup against the smaller Aminu. Although he is not quite as cheap as the aforementioned Aminu, Johnson makes an excellent value play in all formats tonight at just $3,200.