3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 10/16/18

Stephen Curry, PG, Golden State Warriors

Price: $9,600

A short two-game slate like opening night's needs to be approached a bit differently than most NBA slates. The lack of depth at just about every position means fewer value options, and the fact that we don't have many important injury situations heading into the first day of the season means that we don't get any slam-dunk punt plays.

A complete lack of cheap value means that we're forced to be more price-sensitive with our top-end options than we usually are. It would be nice to jam in Russell Westbrook at point guard (if he plays), but unless you can find some value you love, saving almost $3,000 with Stephen Curry is easy to like.

The Golden State Warriors, as we're likely to see for much of the season, have the slate's highest implied total (117.25). They also draw one of the more favorable defensive matchups.

The Oklahoma City Thunder ranked ninth in defensive rating last season, which is the third-lowest ranking among the four teams in action tonight. If we just look at their stats from January 2018 on, when they lost Andre Roberson, their defensive rating inflated to 108.5, which is 1.3 higher than their 107.2 mark for the year and nearly a point-per-possession worse than the Warriors' season-long rating.

The Thunder also allowed opponents to shoot the 6th-most three-point attempts per game with the 12th-highest three-point percentage last season, translating to the 7th-most makes per game. That spells some obvious trouble against Curry, whose 9.8 attempted threes per game were the second-most in the NBA last year.

The two games Curry played against the Thunder without Roberson saw him average 42.7 FanDuel points despite shooting only 33.3% from downtown (compared to a 42.3% season average). That suggests that his ceiling was far higher than his actual production.

Our models project Curry for the day's second-highest fantasy score, while he's only the slate's fifth-most expensive player.