NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Thursday 10/20/22

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Oct 20th, 2022

One of the keys to finding success in daily fantasy basketball is uncovering potential value plays.

If you're looking to roster a stud player or two, you need to consider squeezing one of these lower-salaried options into your lineup.

Let's take a look at some players who can help fill in the gaps in your lineup on FanDuel tonight.

De'Anthony Melton, PG/SG, Philadelphia 76ers ($3,800)

The best value play of the night is shaping up to be De'Anthony Melton at $3,800.

The Philadelphia 76ers' guard is projected for 21.1 minutes and 21.2 FanDuel points against the Milwaukee Bucks, ranking him as the best value in our daily fantasy basketball projections model for tonight.

Melton played 20.6 minutes on opening night, yet the shot volume was not there: he had four field goal attempts and just five points. In total, he put up 8.0 FanDuel points.

That seems like a bit of an outlier situation.

Last season with the Memphis Grizzlies, Melton averaged 24.6 FanDuel points per game in 22.7 minutes (1.08 FanDuel points per minute). Our model projects Melton for 8.5 shot attempts in this spot, and the near-minimum salary for 20-plus minutes makes him a pretty ideal building block on Thursday's tiny slate.

Based on my slate simulations, Melton is 29.5% likely to be the best value of the night, the best odds of anyone -- and the only mark above 20.0%.

Grayson Allen, SG/SF, Milwaukee Bucks ($3,800)

Another sub-$4,000 player projected for 20-plus minutes: Grayson Allen.

Allen is actually slated for 27.0 minutes in the Milwaukee Bucks' opener. Last season, he averaged 19.7 FanDuel points per game over 27.3 minutes in his first season with the Bucks.

That's just a 0.72 FanDuel-point-per-minute rate for Allen, but his rate did bump up to 0.82 without Khris Middleton and Pat Connaughton on the floor a year ago, via RotoGrinders' CourtIQ. He also had a 2.9-point boost in his usage rate (up to 18.6%).

It's hard to turn down a clear path to minutes on a two-game slate, especially at $3,800.

Brook Lopez, C, Milwaukee Bucks ($4,900)

Both pieces of the Bucks' backcourt -- Brook Lopez ($4,900) and Bobby Portis ($5,800) -- are rating out as good value plays, but Lopez comes in at the lower salary of the two.

Because Joel Embiid is such a unique player to match up against, it's worth noting that Lopez managed 18.6 FanDuel points over 29.0 minutes in his lone game against the 76ers last season, doing so on 6-of-14 shooting, including a 4-of-9 night from beyond the arc.

Middleton and Connaughton played in that game, however, and Lopez maintained a 24.4% usage rate without them on the floor last year. That was a 3.7-point boost from when he shared the floor with them.