The NBA has eight games on Sunday, but two are early, leaving six games for the main DFS fantasy basketball contests. Get your team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.
The NBA has a split schedule on Sunday, with two games (Suns at Bucks, Spurs at Lakers) at 3:30 PM ET, 1.5 hours before any other game tips. While FanDuel does have some “early” game options featuring these two games, the majority of the games begin at 5:00 PM and thus will be the main focus of this article. A quick look at the early games, though, has some solid value plays in the Suns’ frontcourt (T.J. Warren for $5,200, possibly Marquese Chris for $4700 with both seeming to benefit from the trade of P.J. Tucker in their last game) as well as on the Lakers, despite their tough match-up against the Spurs (D’Angelo Russell, Jordan Clarkson and Nick Young are worth a look in the backcourt with Lou Williams now in Houston).
The main action tips at 5:00 PM ET, with the Jazz at the Wizards and the Grizzlies at the Nuggets. Two more games tip at 6:00, with the Trail Blazers at the Raptors and the Celtics at the Pistons. The Pelicans go to Oklahoma City at 7:00, and the night cap is the Hornets at the Clippers at 9:30.
The most must-see-TV game on Sunday pits the new-look Anthony Davis/DeMarcus Cousins front line against Russell Westbrook and the Thunder. When I looked at their playing styles, I said that Davis should concentrate more on defense with Cousins leading the O for the Pelicans. Instead, Davis took as many shots on Saturday (34) as the rest of the Pelicans starting line-up combined, with Cousins only getting nine shots. In other action, we get another chance to see if Nikola Jokic’s post-break funk is real or a temporary blip against Marc Gasol and the tough Grizzlies defense. Former Nugget center, Jusuf Nurkic, gets to try to follow-up on what was a strong first start with the Trail Blazers. And we get to see if Chris Paul is back to full-speed, or still working the rust off, when the Clippers take the court Sunday night.
My favorite plays of the day can be found on the following slides in FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks. Each day in order to offer a variety of price points at each position, you can find two slides for each position–one for high-salary options and one for high-value options. Each pick is ranked on a scale of 1-5 stars to indicate the confidence in the pick. The final slide of this post has more detail on what each level means, but in short, more stars means more confidence in the selection on a points-per-dollar basis.
Important note, every day the goal of this post is not to give you a copy-and-paste lineup. Instead, each selection is given while highlighting the factors you need to consider when building a customized lineup for yourself. If you want to see an example lineup, you can find it on the final slide of the post, but I suggest you adjust your lineup to fit your personal taste.
To keep up with all of FanSided’s DFS NBA coverage head over to the fantasy basketball hub where each day you can find a post like this tailored for FanDuel as well as one specifically designed for usage on DraftKings. In this post, all salary and “fantasy points” references are to FanDuel scoring system and salaries. If you have any additional questions or thoughts or are looking for updates as we approach tipoff, follow @FanSidedFantasy on Twitter or you can follow my account @ProfessorDrz or find me on my home turf of The Hoops Lab.
Let’s take a look at your best options for both studs and value players at each position.