The NBA starts off the week with a slate of nine games in Monday’s DFS fantasy basketball competitions. Get your team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.
The NBA starts off the work week with a bang — there are nine games of action in tonight’s main DFS fantasy basketball contests. Lineups lock at 7:00 p.m. ET with the Pacers at the 76ers. Thirty minutes later, two games tip: the Nets at the Celtics and the Cavaliers at the Heat. Three games begin at 8:00 p.m. ET: the Hornets at the Bucks, the Magic at the Bulls and the Wizards at the Pistons. After a two-hour gap, the Spurs are at the Trail Blazers. Finally, the Jazz at the Warriors, and the Rockets at the Clippers begin at 10:30 p.m. ET.
The games are very difficult to predict a day in advance, because so much can changed based upon the resting patterns of players that either are preparing for the playoffs, or are being preserved by coaches for next season. The safest thing to look at is teams that still have something to play for.
The Pacers, Celtics, Heat, Bulls, Jazz and Clippers clearly have goals to play for regarding making the playoffs or home court advantage. The Cavaliers and Bucks could have some seeding concerns to play for, but it’s unclear if those pulls are still a priority. Other than that, all bets are off. On the other side of the spectrum, teams that have long settled into the lottery and have young players to display also seem to be the next safest bets. The 76ers, the Nets and the Magic seem to fit this category. The Warriors have a desire for their starters to get some experience playing next to Kevin Durant, so they may play their guys to some purpose. But the Pistons, the Hornets, the Spurs, the Trail Blazers and the Rockets are teams I will want to get the most recent coaches confirmation before I will trust their veteran stars are playing on Monday.
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: 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.