NBA FanDuel Top 5 Plays For March 17th

NBA FanDuel Top 5 Plays for March 17th

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all of you!  I decided to wait a little longer to get this out today so my article doesn’t get derailed by any news as it comes out during the day.  Yesterday, I had a ton of LeBron before the news broke that Kevin Love was playing so I quickly made a bad decision and turned to Steph Curry, I hope not too many of you saw me recommending that on Twitter.  If you did, you know that Steph scored 43.7 FDP’s and LeBron scored 54.  Had Kevin Love not played I’m sure LBJ would have scored over 60 FDP’s which is what I expected from him.  The rest of my picks were underwhelming!  Draymond Green scored 34.2 as my cash game lock, Jamal Crawford totally stunk scoring 13.6, and Nikola Vucevic scored a measly 27.6.  Those guys obviously didn’t get it done, but I’m ready to get back to winning on a nice 8 game slate.

The highest total we have going tonight is the 229.5 between Houston and New Orleans.  I like a lot of players in this one.  Next up we have the 220 total of Orlando at Phoenix, and the 215 of the Celtics at Nets.  The other two games over 210 have the Milwaukee Bucks at the Los Angeles Lakers at 213, and the Chicago Bulls at the Washington Wizards at 212.5.  All other games are below 210.  Let’s kick off the St. Patty’s Day Weekend right and get back to some winning combinations.

NBA FanDuel – GPP Spend and Fade

James Harden – $11,800

If we get a full run out of Harden in this game he could end up being the highest fantasy point producer on the night.  He is always a threat to score over 70 FDP’s, he just hasn’t needed to of late.  This game has the highest total of the night and with the Rockets only a 4.5 point favorite on the road in New Orleans, we could see Harden play well into the 4th quarter.  I think most will be paying up for Cousins or Davis in this game, so there is a small chance Harden goes overlooked.  I really like him in this spot as the Rockets have a 117 implied team total.  Harden should have a nice game to pay off that price tag tonight.

Bradley Beal – $8,500

Beal is in a very nice spot tonight, but this price seems to have taken most of his upside away for me to roster him in GPP’s.  For him to get to 6x, he would need to score 51 FDP’s, which is something he has done only once in his last 16 games.  He could be a cash game option, but I’m not using him in GPP’s.  If Wall plays a full game as expected, the Wizards should blow the Bulls out and we could end up seeing less out of Beal and Wall than we would want.  There is plenty of value out there tonight that you can afford to pay up at shooting guard and get Harden or Giannis. That could be the contrarian move of the day.

NBA FanDuel – Cash Game Lock and GPP Value 

Rajon Rondo $5,800/Tyler Ulis $5,400

Rondo has been ballin’ over his last two games scoring 36.4 and 40.2 FDP’s.  Dwayne Wade has been ruled out for the remainder of the season, Cameron Payne is out for this one, and Jerian Grant has been demoted.  Rondo will continue to crush this price if he gets the minutes.  I think that does continue here unless the Bulls totally start tanking.  They have a legit shot at making the playoffs though which is hopefully where their mind is.  Rondo will be my main PG today in cash games, Tyler Ulis is likely going to be my other one.  He has been given the rains of the Phoenix offense with Eric Bledsoe shut down for the remainder of the season.  Bledsoe is so far gone he isn’t listed an an option on FanDuel anymore.  Ulis has proven he can be a nice fantasy point producer when given the minutes.  I like his match-up against the Orlando Magic and think pairing these two up in cash games to start your lineups opens up a ton of possibilities.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson – $$4,400

RHJ is an enigma.  I can rarely figure him out, some nights he does extremely well, some nights he makes me realize why I had that queezy feeling when I hit the submit button.  Looking at his last 5 game logs will surely let you know what I mean.  In his last 5 games he has scored 12.9, 11, 28.2, 18.3, and 33 FDP’s.  He (and pretty much all the Nets) drives me crazy!  Today though I think we can count on him to have a nice game.  The Nets have already ruled out Trevor Booker and Sean Kilpatrick, which should get RHJ a few more guaranteed minutes.  This game has a decent total, and with him getting the minutes he should pay that price off.  Even though all that makes sense, I would not be surprised if he scored below 15 FDP’s today just to troll me.

NBA FanDuel – Top PayMaker

Giannis Antetokounmpo – $10,500

This is a tremendous spot for him today.  The Lakers have no one that can guard him, his team is playing at a higher pace than normal, and his price is in range that he can have a 6x type of game. He has definitely been below average lately which makes rostering him even more enticing to me. I like taking good players when they are in a slump and their price has dropped.  Once Jabari Parker went down Giannis has not played up to the level we were seeing him play early in the season.  He has moved down to play more of the power forward spot, which has translated to less ball handling responsibilities.  He has also played less minutes of late for some reason (insert Jason Kidd joke here).  I think we see a minutes boost tonight and with the match-up Giannis should dominate this game.

I will be playing about 10% of my bankroll tonight and using 75% of that in cash and 25% in GPP’s. After a couple down nights I will hopefully get back on track tonight.  As the NBA season gets into it’s final few weeks I will be trimming back on my cash game exposure and gear more towards GPP’s to get ready for the playoffs.  Because of the scheduling, I pretty much play 100% GPP’s in the playoffs and will be using MLB to play cash games to keep that bankroll on a steady rise.  Good Luck tonight, have a safe St. Patricks Day, and like always…….

Let’s Get It!