3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 11/27/19

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.

Anthony Davis, PF, Los Angeles Lakers ($11,100)

You don't have to buy into the narrative of a homecoming or revenge game for this to be a dreamy spot to play Anthony Davis.

His former team, the New Orleans Pelicans, check in at 27th in defensive rating and 24th in rebound rate through 17 games this season, and they're playing at the fifth-fastest pace in the NBA. Combining those terrible rate stats with a high pace has them allowing the most points (120.4) and seventh-most rebounds (46.7) per game to opponents.

Davis hasn't shown the absurd ceiling he used to offer in New Orleans this year, but his fantasy production has been great regardless. He's scored over 52 FanDuel points in six of his last eight games, and he ranks fifth in the NBA with an average of 52.2 per game on the year.

Andre Drummond, C, Detroit Pistons ($9,400)

Andre Drummond has three of the five highest single-game fantasy scores among all centers to start the year, including the second-best (81.6) and third-best (78.0) marks. The only score higher was from Karl-Anthony Towns, and it happened to come against the Charlotte Hornets — Drummond's opponent for tonight.

No team is grabbing a lower percentage of available rebounds than the Hornets (47.6%), and they also come in at only 25th in defensive rating. Those defensive struggles are especially pronounced in the paint, as they're allowing the second-highest field goal percentage (64.7%) on shots within five feet of the basket and a league-high 66.8% in the restricted area.

Those weaknesses play right into Drummond's strengths. His 28.3% total rebound rate is the highest in the NBA, and we've seen him lead the Association in that category in three of the last six seasons, so that's not a fluky ranking, either. On the offensive end, he's one of only two players in the NBA averaging double-digit field goal attempts per game from within five feet, and his 6.1 makes per game in the restricted area rank third.

This matchup is all but custom-made from Drummond to dominate.

Russell Westbrook, PG, Houston Rockets ($8,600)

Playing for the Houston Rockets has seriously downgraded Russell Westbrook's floor for fantasy production, and he's posted fantasy points in the mid-30s for four of his last five His ceiling is still elite, though, as he showed with a 62.6-point explosion in the other game in that time.

He's also seen his price tag fall farther than it should, as $8,600 leaves his season average of 43.0 FanDuel points per game, representing 5.0 per $1,000 of salary. That's not the kind of value you're usually going to find among high-priced players, even in the lower tier of the studs.

Tonight's matchup is a tough one, as the Miami Heat own a top-three defensive rating, but Westbrook's floor is still reasonable at this price point, and even in a tough matchup, he continues to offer the kind of ceiling that you're not often going to find at this salary.

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.