NBA

5 NBA FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Monday 2/6/23

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.

Tim Hardaway Jr., SG/SF, Dallas Mavericks
Jaden Hardy, SG, Dallas Mavericks

Hardaway Jr.'s FanDuel Salary: $5,200
Hardy's FanDuel Salary: $3,800

The Dallas Mavericks are going to be the go-to spot for value on Monday's daily fantasy basketball slate.

The team completed a trade for All-Star guard Kyrie Irving and is thus without Spencer Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith (and Irving) for tonight's matchup.

But wait, there's more: Luka Doncic and Maxi Kleber are out, and Christian Wood is questionable.

That opens up a lot of opportunity for numerous names on this roster. Frankly, just two choices is a bit light, but I don't want this article to be about only Dallas.

With Doncic, Dinwiddie, and Finney-Smith off the floor (and there are more, but we don't want to nuke the entire sample), Jaden Hardy leads the team with a 34.4% usage rate with a per-minute average of 0.95 FanDuel points over a 92.3-minute sample, according to RotoGrinders' CourtIQ.

Tim Hardaway Jr. is an obvious candidate for a featured role and a ton of minutes. He is projected for 34.9 minutes and 29.5 FanDuel points. The floor should be high, and the ceiling is elevated, too, because of the expanded opportunity.

Among other value options for Dallas, we can consider Frank Ntilikina ($3,500) and Josh Green ($4,600), as well.

Edmond Sumner, PG/SG, Brooklyn Nets

FanDuel Salary: $5,300

Speaking of that trade, the Brooklyn Nets will be a bit thin, too. And in their case, as well, it's more than just the pieces involved in the deal that they'll be missing.

They list Kevin Durant as out -- along with Seth Curry. Plus, Ben Simmons is questionable.

With Durant, Irving, and Curry off the floor, we see a robust 22.4% usage rate and a per-minute output of 1.12 FanDuel points for Edmond Sumner over a nice 165.8-minute sample. It's hard to find fault with any of those numbers.

Sumner is projected for 33.5 minutes and 32.2 FanDuel points (6.07 per $1,000 in salary).

In 11 starts this season, Sumner has averaged 1.04 FanDuel points per minute. In his lone game with 30-plus minutes (which came on Saturday), he played 39.1 minutes and scored 39.9 FanDuel points.

Robert Williams, PF/C, Boston Celtics

FanDuel Salary: $5,200

Robert Williams has a strong minutes projection of 29.0 and is expected to turn that into 30.6 FanDuel points against the Detroit Pistons.

Detroit sits 29th in defensive rating, and in games against teams in the bottom 10 defensively, Williams has averaged 1.26 FanDuel points per minute across eight such games. I can probably stop there because we're getting elevated minutes for an elite per-minute producer, but I'll dig a tinge deeper.

Detroit is also in the bottom 10 in rebounds per game allowed. Against other weak rebounding teams (i.e. bottom-10 teams), Williams has averaged a line of 9.1 points and 8.6 rebounds in only 23.8 minutes per game

His projected minutes boost (again, 29.0) should lead him close to a double-double. He's projected for 9.7 points and 9.2 rebounds.

Jalen Duren, C, Detroit Pistons

FanDuel Salary: $5,600

Opposite Williams in that game is Jalen Duren, whose salary over the past six games has spiked to $6,500 (which would have taken him out of value territory for my cutoff) before dropping $900 down to his salary for tonight at $5,600.

He's coming off of a 13.7-FanDuel-point outing thanks to just 2 shot attempts in 27.7 minutes. Other than that, he had a mostly viable 6-rebound, 3-assist, 1-block output.

Across a recent six-game sample (coinciding with his role increase), Duren has averaged 28.4 minutes, 12.0 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.2 steals, and 1.5 blocks for 30.8 FanDuel points.

That includes a 53.5-fantasy-point outing against the Milwaukee Bucks, but even if we exclude that game, he's still averaging 26.2 FanDuel points over 27.9 minutes.

numberFire's model projects Duren for 5.60 FanDuel points per $1,000 -- a top-seven rate overall and a top-four rate excluding all Mavericks.