FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Friday January 4th
By Dan Palyo
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Friday 1/4
Welcome back to the Friday edition of the FanDuel NBA Breakdown! I’m “Thunder Dan” and I love writing about FanDuel NBA DFS. Today I’m making some changes to the Breakdown that I hope you’ll like as I’ll be giving you a place to start for cash games and GPPs.
The goal of this article is going to be giving you a starting point for your own personal research. The GPP Breakdown was getting to be massive every day and it was becoming difficult to deliver that amount of content in a first look article. I hope that you like the new format today and please don’t hesitate to give me some feedback.
When making my cash and GPP picks I always take into account salary, ownership, and match-up and I always do my best to give you a clear rationale for why I believe each player is an elite cash or GPP target. Tonight we have a full 10-game slate with a ton of potential for cash games and GPPs.
If you’ve read this article before you’ll still recognize some of the same sections like my “value plays” and “core plays” and I also will still include a sample lineup at the end.
I’m trying to take a big picture look at the slate and give you a place to start your research, whether you’re a cash game player, GPP player or both (like me, I play both just about every night!)
There will be information that comes out during the day that will likely push us onto certain plays or off others.
My best advice is to never settle on a lineup too early in the day, and this particular slate has a lot of questions that need to be answered before we have a really clear picture of who we want to roster. Let’s take a closer look at what tonight’s NBA slate has to offer!
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: 9 Game Slate
Injury Report
OUT: Kyrie Irving, Rajon Rondo, Goran Dragic, Kent Bazemore, Allen Crabbe, LeBron James, Robert Covington, Markieff Morris, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Ante Zizic, Aaron Baynes
Most of these guys have already missed several games in a row. The biggest names on this that matter the most for this slate are Kyrie Irving and LeBron James.
Doubtful: Derrick Rose, Bobby Portis
Questionable: Mike Conley, Ricky Rubio, Jeff Teague, Dwayne Wade, Taurean Prince, Marcus Morris, Kyle Kuzma, Ersan Ilyasova, Robert Williams, Mitchell Robinson, Myles Turner
Wow, that’s a lot of injury news that we are going to need to monitor today. Some of the most important news I’ll be watching for is the status of Teague, Kuzma, and Conley.
Vegas Info
We are still missing totals for a few games, but two games stand out above all the rest as the Hawks-Bucks game is coming in at 230.5 and the Suns-Clippers at 231. The big difference here is that the Bucks are 14 points favorites, while the Clippers are only 4 point favorites in their game.
The closest spread comes from the “late night hammer” game on the west coast where Oklahoma City is a one-point favorite on the road against the Portland Trailblazers.
The Bulls and Pacers have the honor of playing the lowest total game at only 202.
***With ten games on the slate and a ton of injuries to monitor I’m going to try to key in on three players with which to start your cash game and GPP builds.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Cash Game Core
Welcome to the new cash game core plays section of the Breakdown! I’ve been giving you core plays now for a few weeks, but today I want to give you a solid trio of players to start building your cash game lineups with. If you’re not playing cash games on a nightly basis to keep your bankroll up, then you run the risk of running out of funds to use for those more exciting GPP contests.
Terry Rozier (6100)
It’s “Scary Terry” chalk again today as Kyrie Irving has already been ruled out. Rozier is a no-brainer here in a great matchup against Dallas. He scored 43 FanDuel points in only 32 minutes in a spot start on Wednesday and he’s still relatively underpriced for the floor that he gives us in cash. Don’t overthink this one, just plug Rozier in and move on.
***Also consider Tomas Satoranksy and Tyus Jones as your second point guard…
Paul George (10200)
PG13 is an easy play for me tonight in all formats. He’s having an incredible season and putting up 50 FanDuel points with regularity. I love the matchup tonight against the Blazers who struggle against wings and I expect George to have another big game.
Why pay 2300 more for Giannis when the Bucks should easily blow out the Hawks, while George and the Thunder should play all four quarters in a close game with the Blazers?
Thomas Bryant (6900)
FanDuel has done a pretty good job of pricing up some of the value plays pretty quickly, and some might scoff at this price for a guy who wasn’t even relevant a week ago.
But Bryant is locked into huge minutes as the only big man on the entire roster besides Ian Mahinmi (who’s been a healthy DNP-CD the last two games). Bryant is averaging 41.2 FD points over his last three games and still isn’t priced high enough for the amount of minutes he’s playing and his level of production.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: GPP Plays
Karl Anthony-Towns (10600)
KAT has had to put the T-Wolves on his back lately with Teague, Rose, and Covington all missing time. In his last 5 games, he’s averaging 28-17-6 and broke the slate a few times with 69, 70, and 90 FD points in that stretch. He has an elite match-up tonight against the soft defense of Nikola Vucevic and Minnesota will be without Covington and Rose for sure, and possibly Teague again (questionable). Get some GPP exposure to KAT in case he goes nuclear again!
Brandon Ingram (6900)
Ingram has come on strong for the Lakers sans LeBron, scoring 49 and 36 FanDuel points in his last two games. Not only will the Lakers miss their star James tonight, but they could also be without Kyle Kuzma, which would shift even more of the scoring burden on Ingram.
The spot couldn’t be better, as the Lakers get the Knicks at home. New York ranks in the bottom five in the league against small forwards and their entire defense is…well, terrible.
Lou Williams (6800)
Lou-Will has been really good for the Clippers lately, scoring between 28 and 48 FanDuel points in his last 5 games. He’s been the most reliable scorer for the Clips and gets a great matchup tonight against the Suns. This game has a huge total and a tight spread, and I definitely want a few pieces from it in cash and GPPs. Williams is cheaper than Tobias Harris, Montrez Harrell, and Danilo Gallinari and offers the same upside.
FanDuel NBA GPP Breakdown: Value Plays
For our purposes here at the Breakdown, we classify players priced at 5000 or less as “value plays.” Identifying value has been crucial this year on FanDuel as the new “drop score” rule has forced us into playing a lot of “stars and scrubs” rosters in both cash and GPP formats.
Daniel Theis (3700)
With Baynes out and Morris and Williams being questionable, Theis could be forced to play big minutes for the Celtics tonight. He’s filled in admirably in the past and even dropped 50 FanDuel points in a spot start against the Bulls earlier this year.
Ed Davis (4400)
Davis is always a solid FPPM player and should be asked to play a few more minutes than usual tonight with the Nets missing Hollis-Jefferson again. Brooklyn will have to match the size of the Grizzlies, meaning we could get 20+ minutes out of big Ed which would give him a chance to top 30 FanDuel points again.
Mo Bamba (4200)
Bamba isn’t getting a ton of run of the bench, but he’s making the most of it. He’s scored 25 and 23 FanDuel points in his last two games while playing 18 minutes. His elite rebounding and shot-blocking make him a nice GPP play.
Alec Burks (4500)
It’s Burks revenge night! I don’t do narratives, but I could see why Burks would be mad that the Jazz gave up on him and shipped him to the NBA hell that is the Cleveland Cavs. He’s pretty cheap again tonight and has been solid for the Cavs despite his dud in his last game against Miami.
Dante Exum (3900)
Ricky Rubio could miss tonight, which would bump Exum into the starting lineup and he would immediately become cash-game chalk. But even if Rubio plays, I’m interested in Exum as he’s been solid even in his 20-minute bench role. If Utah blows the Cavs out, then Exum could smash this price in garbage time.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Sample Lineup and Overview
This is a pretty straightforward slate for cash games. I’m looking to plug in the obvious values and then take the guys with the best floor at each position with my remaining salary cap. The key for cash games is locking in raw points and rostering reliable players who are going to get enough minutes and usage to pay off their price tags.
This is also a great GPP slate because the obvious chalk game plays will also carry ownership in tournaments. That makes it pretty easy to make a unique GPP lineup by pivoting off the chalk to some lower owned plays.
It’s pretty simple – if everyone is paying DOWN at a certain position, then you should pay UP instead. For example, if Thomas Bryant is the chalk play at center, then pay up to Karl-Anthony Towns for a chance at a slate-breaker at lower ownership.
Today’s sample lineup is a CASH GAME lineup. You’ll find my cash game core in here as well as some players that I wrote up for GPPs, too. Remember, the sample lineup is for illustrative purposes and is not necessarily a “plug-and-play” lineup. There’s still a lot of injury information we need before lock.
PG: Terry Rozier (6100)
PG: Tomas Satoransky (6400)
SG: Josh Hart (6500)
SG: Lou Williams (6800)
SF: Paul George (10200)
PF: Ed Davis (4400)
PF: Kevin Knox (5800)
C: Thomas Bryant (6900)
dark. Next. DraftKings NBA Jan 4th 2019
Ok, that wraps it up! I hope you enjoyed my slate breakdown and I appreciate you taking the time to read my article. Be sure to share it with friends and fellow DFS players, leave comments or hit me with other feedback or questions on Twitter. And keep coming back to FantasyCPR for the best free content in the industry! Good luck in your contests!