3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on 2/12/21

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-salaried 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 a heavy salary to roster someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, getting a dud from a stud is likely going to leave your lineup lacking.

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

Giannis Antetokounmpo, PF, Milwaukee Bucks

FanDuel Salary: $11,000

With 11 games on the board, we are going to have the ability to get enough value to spend up for our studs of preference. I usually like to look at positional scarcity and ease of replacement, but on larger slates, the attention should be turned more toward true, high-end ceiling. At a certain point, points-per-dollar value ratings don't matter if the value goes off, and it's the raw upside that should get us enticed from the studs.

Now, you might look at the matchup for Giannis Antetokounmpo against the Utah Jazz and get worried, and you'd be justified. They rank sixth in adjusted FanDuel points per minute allowed to opposing power forwards this season and are second in adjusted defensive rating. Giannis has averaged 1.43 FanDuel points per minute over 126 minutes against top-six adjusted defenses this year.

Further, the Milwaukee Bucks are actually 1.5-point underdogs, but the over/under is 232.5 points. That gives them an implied team total of 115.5, fifth-best on the 22-team slate. Milwaukee's average spread is -8.3, and their average over/under is 228.5 this season, so this is a better-than-usual environment for Giannis.

Kawhi Leonard, SF, Los Angeles Clippers

FanDuel Salary: $10,000

With Paul George out, we can be pretty all in on Kawhi Leonard. Leonard is fresh off a 57.1-FanDuel-point performance on Wednesday and had his necessary rest day, so we can assume that he will be a full go tonight.

Leonard, with George off the floor, has a 33.2% usage rate and a per-minute average of 1.41 FanDuel points, via RotoGrinders' CourtIQ tool. If we compared those to full-season ranks, that would rank him third and seventh, respectively, in the NBA. That's a workload well worth a $10,000 salary.

Leonard's Los Angeles Clippers are 6.5-point favorites on the Chicago Bulls, who do rank 6th against small forwards after adjusting for opponents but who are only 24th in adjusted defensive rating overall.

Further, the Clips have the third-best implied team total of the night (117.25) and are within a point of the best number on the slate. There's not as much blowout risk here without George, so we can consider Leonard a building block.

Russell Westbrook, PG, Washington Wizards

FanDuel Salary: $8,700

We have not yet seen Russell Westbrook in a game without Bradley Beal, but we will get that tonight when the Washington Wizards host the New York Knicks. New York is typically a team not worth targeting (they are 3rd in adjusted defensive rating and 30th in adjusted pace), but this is a bit of a different situation because of what Westbrook can do -- especially at a reasonable $8,700 salary.

First things first: pace isn't contagious, so we can expect the Wizards to proceed with a top-two adjusted pace.

And secondly, though we don't have any full games without Beal and with Westbrook, we can easily look at a 152-minute sample for Westbrook when Beal is off the court. His usage rate is 39.7%, and his per-minute FanDuel point output is 1.46. Those would rank first (easily) and sixth, respectively, on the full season. A large reason for that is because Beal leads the NBA in usage rate at 35.5%.

If Westbrook's salary was in the five-digit range, we could pump the brakes more easily in this matchup, but there's a strong floor here, and we know that Westbrook has a high ceiling relative to this salary.