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NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Monday 2/4/19

A matchup with the Kings should cure DeMar DeRozan's recent shooting woes. Who else should you target on tonight's six-game slate?

If you're new to daily fantasy basketball -- maybe you started your DFS journey during the MLB or NFL seasons, or maybe basketball is your sport and this will be your first year giving it a shot -- you're in for a treat. The NBA scene changes hugely on a week-to-week, day-to-day, and -- depending on injury news -- even a minute-to-minute basis, making every slate a unique one that requires an ever-changing approach.

With so much changing so quickly, we're here with plenty of tools to help you out. We have daily projections, a matchup heat map, a lineup optimizer, and a ton of other great resources to help give you an edge.

We'll also be coming at you with this primer every day, breaking down a few of the day's top plays at each price point.

Let's take a look at who you should target on today's main slate.

Best of the Best

Giannis Antetokounmpo ($11,600): Third in the NBA with 55.1 FanDuel points per game, Giannis gives you $2,200 in savings over James Harden, who has finally started to look human again, with fewer than 55 fantasy points in three of his last seven games, and who's value takes a hit with Chris Paul likely back in action tonight. Giannis has been massively consistent lately, not posting fewer than 46 FanDuel points in any of his last 15 games. You have to go back 19 games to find one where he didn't post at least 44.1. In those last 18, he's averaging 56.8 per -- up from his 55.1 per game on the season. The Brooklyn Nets limit opponents to some ugly fantasy efficiency at both wing positions, but give up above-average numbers to power forwards, centers and point guards. It's tough to nail Giannis down to one position, and the fact that he can contribute in all five areas for fantasy scoring (27.2 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.8 steals, 1.4 blocks per game over those last 18) makes the matchup a relatively soft one, despite it looking tough if you consider his designation as a small forward.

Bradley Beal ($9,300): Guards against the Atlanta Hawks are basically always in play at this point. Atlanta allows both the league's most points and assists per game to their opponents, giving up the most fantasy points per minute to both point guards and shooting guards. Whichever position you want to consider Beal as playing, you won't find a better matchup than the Hawks. With John Wall out of action, now a solid 20-game sample to look at, Beal's numbers have been incredibly encouraging. In a ridiculous 39.1 minutes per game, he has averaged 48.5 FanDuel points per game on 31.1% usage. Even if you don't like his minutes to stay at such lofty heights, the 1.23 FanDuel points per minute he's averaging sans Wall are up from 1.07 in games with Wall active. Bringing that into a matchup with the Hawks makes him an elite play in all formats tonight.

Kenneth Faried ($8,000): It's crazy how fast values can change in NBA DFS. Faried has spent most of the season as a minimum-salary player that rarely cracked the rotation. But since arriving in Houston to fill in for the injury Clint Capela, things have changed in a big way. He played only 23.1 minutes off the bench in his debut with the Rockets, but since then has started six straight games, averaging 36.5 FanDuel points in 30.2 minutes per game. That's despite his last game being a 27-point blowout in which he played only 20.2 minutes and posted 30.4 fantasy points -- his fewest as a starter. Tonight, he's up against a Phoenix Suns team that allows the league's most FanDuel points per game to opposing centers, and even matching his highest price tag of the season, he's a terrific play.

Mid-Range Options

DeMar DeRozan ($7,800): DeRozan's recent numbers haven't been anything to write home about, hitting 5-times value on today's salary (39 fantasy points) only once in his last seven games. He's also been a serious high-upside producer though, topping 7-times value in 3 of his last 13. His dip in production is especially un-concerning when we take a deeper look into his numbers. He's still averaging 15.4 field goal attempts in 34.8 minutes per game over those seven, but shooting only a .407 effective field goal percentage. With a .465 mark on the season and .468 career-average, we can expect his numbers to bounce back. Tonight's matchup is a great spot for that to happen, taking on a Sacramento Kings team that allows opponents to shoot the NBA's 10th-highest effective field goal percentage.

Otto Porter ($6,600): Back to the Wizards, Porter has stepped into the starting lineup with Markieff Morris dealing with a neck injury. His two starts since Kieff went down were very different. In the first, he dropped only 16.8 fantasy points in 15.6 minutes. In the second he upped that to a strong 40.4 in 34.5 minutes. That down game was a blowout win in which only one of the Wizards' starters (Beal) played at all in the fourth quarter, so we shouldn't be too worried. The likelihood that he gets minutes into the 30s again in a matchup with a Hawks team that allows top-five fantasy efficiency to power forwards makes him a terrific option.

Tomas Satoransky ($6,500): In case you haven't figured it out, I can't get enough of the Wizards today. Satoransky has been a high-variance producer, topping 40 FanDuel points three times in his last 10, but also failing to hit 25 three times in that stretch. Overall this year he's averaging 30.0 FanDuel points in 33.3 minutes per game sans Wall, which is very solid for this price point, just 2.5 points below 5-times value. With, as I mentioned, the best fantasy matchup a guard could ask for on tap tonight, he should have no trouble putting up above-average numbers and showing off some of that upside he has showed us recently.

Basement Ballers

Kenrich Williams ($4,900): The New Orleans Pelicans are playing absurdly thin in the frontcourt right now, with Anthony Davis, Nikola Mirotic, Julius Randle and E'Twaun Moore all out. Williams has stepped up and played at least 29.8 minutes in each of the last three games, averaging 32.6 minutes, 9.3 field goal attempts, 10.7 rebounds and 31.6 FanDuel points. He's hit at least 25 FanDuel points in each of the three, with at least 30 in two of them, and his price tag just hasn't caught up with that production yet. It's a rough matchup for him tonight against the Indiana Pacers, but averaging better than 6-times value on today's salary so far, even a stiff drop in efficiency should leave him offering some solid value at this price-point.

Malik Beasley ($4,900): The Denver Nuggets are another team playing thin, and Gary Harris has already been ruled out for tonight. Jamal Murray is questionable to return, so keep an eye on that situation, but if he sits then Beasley should continue to offer some solid value. With both Murray and Harris out over the last two games, Beasley dropped 42.9 and 29.4 fantasy points. His price-tag remaining this low is a bit of a head-scratcher, because his four games before that stretch included performances of 25.6, 29.1 and 28.9 fantasy points. This game has an ugly 210.0-point over/under, but like Williams, Beasley is just too cheap relative to the way he's been producing to ignore tonight.

Patty Mills ($4,100): Like DeRozan, Mills is in a great spot tonight against the Kings, who allow top-three fantasy efficiency to opposing point guards. Mills isn't any sort of a high-upside play, only topping 30 FanDuel points twice this season, but he's also posted more than 20.5 (5-times value today) in four of his last six, and he's averaging 21.8 in 24.0 minutes per game over his last 15. With tonight's slate not offering any sort of exciting value, there's not a lot of opportunity cost when it comes to Mills' low upside, so getting that solid floor in a plus matchup is a solid move.



Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.

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