NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 11/8/19

With Giannis Antetokounmpo racking up the fantasy points to start the season, we shouldn't let a difficult matchup against the Utah Jazz deter us from rostering him tonight.

Basketball is the most consistent sport for daily fantasy purposes.

A top slugger in baseball will have his fair share of 0-for-4 days, and an elite fantasy football player is at risk of having games where his team's offense as a whole is shut down. A high-priced NBA stud is generally going to get his, though. With so many possessions in a game providing opportunities to produce, top fantasy basketball options will be posting high scores just about every night.

While this consistency puts us in a good position to identify top plays, it also means you can't afford to miss when you're paying up for someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, paying up and getting a dud is likely going to leave your lineup drawing pretty close to dead.

Let's get right into it and look at which top players should be the focal points of your lineups tonight.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, SF, Milwaukee Bucks ($11,700)

Giannis Antetokounmpo dropped a season-high 79.7 FanDuel points on Wednesday, just two games after scoring 78.0 last Saturday. Despite this, he's seen a $300 drop in salary, leaving him offering some serious fantasy appeal tonight, even in a tough matchup with the Utah Jazz.

The Greek Freak now has two of the six highest single-game fantasy scores for any player this season, and he's the only one to top 65 FanDuel points four times. Unsurprisingly, he's also leading the NBA in FanDuel points per game, with a massive 62.2.

His efficiency will likely cool off some, but with the Milwaukee Bucks sitting as modest 3.0-point favorites tonight, Giannis is a safe bet to play minutes into the mid-30s, which is not something he's done consistently this year, thanks to a few early-season blowouts. That gives him both the highest floor and ceiling on the slate, making him well worth paying all the way up for.

Nikola Jokic, C, Denver Nuggets ($8,500)

This has been a brutal start to the year for Nikola Jokic's fantasy value, but it's not time to panic.

He was averaging 16.4 points, 9.6 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game through the end of November last season, which isn't hugely better than this year's 14.9 points, 9.7 boards and 5.9 assists. And this year's struggles are only over a seven-game sample. His minutes have been inconsistent, but his upside is clearly still there, with two triple-doubles, including one in which he notched 61.8 FanDuel points.

Yes, his floor is brutal, but $8,500 is far too cheap for a guy who averaged 46.9 FanDuel points per game last year and 43.7 the year before — both of which represent more than 5.0 fantasy points per $1,000 here.

Our models also have him as a steal here, projecting the Joker as the best point-per-dollar value of anyone priced north of $6k on Friday.

Luka Doncic, PG, Dallas Mavericks ($10,500)

Luka Doncic is coming off a down game, dropping just 39.9 FanDuel points in his last outing, but he also eclipsed 60 in three of his previous four before that one.

So far this season, Doncic is the only player in the NBA averaging more than 100 touches per game, and he's been a nightly triple-double threat, averaging 26.7 points, 9.9 boards and 9.1 assists in 35.9 minutes per game.

His price tag had finally spiked to $11,000 in his last game, reflecting the recent run of dominance, but one mediocre game has send that salary crashing, and he continues to offer a ton of value after recording at least 5.5 fantasy points per $1,000 of salary in four of his last six games.

He also draws a good matchup tonight against the New York Knicks. This Knicks squad doesn't seem to be any better than we've seen in years past, and they've opened the season ranking 24th in defensive rating while allowing the 7th-most fantasy points per minute to opposing point guards.


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.