3 NBA FanDuel Studs to Target on Tuesday 4/27/21
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.
All injury updates are via the NBA's official injury report or numberFire's player news.
Karl-Anthony Towns, C, Minnesota Timberwolves
FanDuel Salary: $9,700
Karl-Anthony Towns pretty easily separates from the pack at center in terms of sheer upside potential. Our floor/ceiling tool shows a ceiling for him that is 13.5 points higher than any other center's tonight. Just as importantly, realizing that ceiling potential is firmly within reach, given the matchup.
Towns and the Minnesota Timberwolves are facing the Houston Rockets, who rank as the worst center defense in the NBA after adjusting for opponents faced (i.e. individual players faced). They allow 1.23 FanDuel points per minute to the position after adjustments.
Towns himself averages 1.52 FanDuel points per minute when he faces bottom-10 center defenses, and it ticks up even higher to 1.55 against bottom-five opponents.
Further, Towns has come through in two games against the Rockets with FanDuel point totals of 58.2 and 53.0 in two contests in late March (with an average of 1.63 FanDuel points per minute). That has stemmed from a per-game line of 28.0 points, 15.5 rebounds, 6.0 assists, and 2.0 combined steals and blocks against the Rockets.
Jaylen Brown, SF, Boston Celtics
FanDuel Salary: $8,100
Though Jaylen Brown isn't listed at a usual no-brainer stud salary, he becomes an on-court stud when he plays without Kemba Walker and Jayson Tatum, both of whom are listed as out tonight.
Overall, Brown averages 40.9 FanDuel points in two games without Walker and Tatum, according to FantasyLabs' on/off tool -- but 45.1 per 36 minutes.
In that split without Walker and Tatum, Brown's usage rate spikes to 37.7%, a bump of 7.9 percentage points, according to RotoGrinders' CourtIQ tool. Among players with at least 15.0 minutes per game, Joel Embiid leads the NBA with a usage rate of 35.5%. So take that for context.
The per-minute FanDuel output in that sample (1.28) isn't quite as elite, but we're getting Brown in a great matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Oklahoma City ranks 30th against opposing small forwards when adjusted for opponents faced.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, PF, Milwaukee Bucks
FanDuel Salary: $11,000
I'm mostly landing on Giannis Antetokounmpo as the third stud because it's hard to narrow point guard down to a single stud (though it'd be Stephen Curry [$9,700] for me), and shooting guard doesn't really have any studs.
That's okay, though, because there's a lot to like about Giannis tonight against the Charlotte Hornets, who are 28th in adjusted FanDuel points per minute allowed to opposing power forwards.
Antetokounmpo's full-season FanDuel-point-per-minute rate is 1.63, and it jumps to 1.70 against bottom-five defenses and to 1.74 against bottom-three defenses against power forwards.
There is some blowout risk, but it's actually less here for the Milwaukee Bucks (-9.0) than for the Boston Celtics (-12.5), for what that's worth.
In 27 games with a spread of at least -8.0 for the Bucks, Giannis averages 1.72 FanDuel points per minute, 32.1 minutes, and 55.3 FanDuel points per game. There's not a whole lot to be worried about for him tonight.
