NBA

3 NBA FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Thursday 11/10/22

One of the keys to finding success in daily fantasy basketball is uncovering potential value plays.

If you're looking to roster a stud player or two, you need to consider squeezing one of these lower-salaried options into your lineup.

Let's take a look at some players who can help fill in the gaps in your lineup on FanDuel tonight, using numberFire's daily fantasy basketball projections as a guide.

De'Anthony Melton, PG/SG, Philadelphia 76ers

FanDuel Salary: $5,600

With James Harden out tonight, the opportunity exists for the Philadelphia 76ers to give us some value.

De'Anthony Melton should draw the start, and without Harden the past two games, Melton has played 30.3 and 33.8 minutes. In those, he put up 40.5 and 25.4 FanDuel points. The better outing came with 18 shot attempts (just four makes), and the volume scaled back to 7 in the last game.

Notably, Melton has gone 4 for 17 (23.5%) from three in that two-game stretch, so we could really have seen much better output from him with better shooting.

On a four-game slate, having access to value options with legitimate 15-plus-shot-attempt upside can go a long way. He's rating out a slate-best 24.0% to finish as the best value play of the night in my simulations.

Maxi Kleber, C/PF, Dallas Mavericks

FanDuel Salary: $3,700

The Dallas Mavericks will be without Christian Wood again tonight, thus boosting up Maxi Kleber projections and opportunity.

Last night without Wood, Kleber played 33.4 minutes but generated just 14.6 FanDuel points. Kleber's FanDuel points per minute rate (0.54) is currently a career-low and is down substantially from a 0.79 rate last year (which still isn't great -- but it works at 30-plus minutes and a $3,700 salary on a four-game slate).

Now, part of why the results are down are the shot attempts (0.15 attempts per minute, down from 0.24 last season), but he's also down in rebounds (0.15 from 0.24) and points (0.20 from 0.28).

DARKO thinks he should be generating 0.21 rebounds and 0.25 points per minute, so it's likely just small-sample misfortune for Kleber so far this season.

Dwight Powell ($3,600) drew the start last night but played just 18.8 minutes. He's viable, but Kleber was the one who closed out the game.

De'Andre Hunter, SF/PF, Atlanta Hawks

FanDuel Salary: $4,800

We always want access to a high ceiling in DFS, but De'Andre Hunter doesn't really have a slate-altering amount of upside. What he can offer, though, is a low salary and steady production.

Hunter has put up 24.7 FanDuel points or more in three of the past four games while playing 35.2, 39.3, 23.9, and 32.6 minutes. That outlier in minutes is when he didn't get to the 24.7 mark.

Hunter is projected to play 34.1 minutes tonight, the highest minutes projection of anyone below $6,000 -- and Hunter's salary is only $4,800.

We can also look to Clint Capela ($5,800) in the Hawks' frontcourt. He's center-only eligible but does offer that slate-changing potential.