NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Tuesday 4/30/19

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 ($11,300): Having three players priced north of $11,000 is unusual for a three-game slate, and it really increases the opportunity cost of paying up. Often we've had a clear-cut top option who you can feel good about locking in, but there's a bit more nuance tonight. It's easy enough to rule out Kevin Durant ($11,400), who our models project for about 10 fantasy points fewer than the other two. It's much tighter between James Harden and Giannis, but with a slightly higher projection and $500 in savings, Giannis gets the edge. Blowout risk is small in both games (the Milwaukee Bucks are 7.5-point favorites over the Boston Celtics while the Houston Rockets are 5.5-point underdogs against the Golden State Warriors), and that gives the Bucks a slate-high 113.75-point implied total, compared to 107.5 for Houston. Giannis hasn't been producing like Harden has so far in the playoffs because he's been dealing with more blowouts, but he leads the NBA in FanDuel points per minute this season, at 1.72. Likely to finally find himself in a close game, a huge workload should finally accompany that elite efficiency, and we can expect the kind of performance that will send his price-tag back up closer to $12,000 for his next game.