FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 1/14 – Harden, Davis and All That Jazz

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 1/14

Welcome back to the Monday edition of the FanDuel NBA Breakdown! I’m “Thunder Dan” and I love playing and writing about FanDuel NBA DFS. I hope you had a fun and relaxing weekend. I was able to watch some NFL playoffs and make some money playing NBA DFS and I’m ready to get back at it this week.

"The FanDuel NBA Breakdown is a first look article that is intended to be a starting point for your cash game or GPP research for FanDuel NBA DFS."

My goal when I revamped the Breakdown was to create an all-inclusive article that gives you a place to start your research for FanDuel NBA cash games and GPPs.  When making my cash and GPP picks I always take into account salary, Vegas trends, ownership, and match-up and I always do my best to give you a clear rationale for why I believe each player makes a great GPP or cash target.

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 maybe you play both – like me).  The smaller the slate, the less “cash-game friendly” it usually is, but that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t play cash games on small slates.

Tonight we have what a would call a “medium-sized” six-game slate on FanDuel.  We have two really expensive star players on the slate in James Harden and Anthony Davis and we might have to pick just one to use per lineup unless we get enough value to open up during the day to fit them both.

There will be information that comes out during the day that will likely push us onto certain plays or off others.  Sometimes there are players mentioned in this first look article who get ruled out during the day, or other players emerge as good plays when surprise injury news emerges.

My best advice is to never settle on a lineup too early in the day and be willing to be flexible enough to incorporate the new information that becomes available throughout the day. At the same time, don’t abandon your core plays unless the slate absolutely demands it!

Let’s take a closer look at what tonight’s NBA slate has to offer!

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Six-Game Slate

Injury Report

OUT: Chris Paul, Ricky Rubio, Raul Neto, Dante Exum, Eric Gordon, Allen Crabbe, Maurice Harkless, Thabo Sefolosha, Cody Zeller, Rudy Gay, Kyle Anderson, Aaron Baynes

Doubtful: Zaza Pachulia

Questionable: Kyrie Irving, Tony Parker, Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Nene

Probable: Ish Smith

The good news is the majority of the guys on the injury report are already out. There will likely be some others who pop up today, but the big news to watch here is the availability of Kyrie Irving. If he were to miss (and I could see Boston being cautious with him against Brooklyn) then we have chalk value in Terry Rozier and usage bumps for all the Boston role players.

Vegas Info

The highest total is an obscene 239 in the Clippers-Pelicans game! It’s three-point point spread, too. It should be a popular game to target, tonight.

The lowest total comes from the Houston-Memphis game, which opened at 204.

The tighest spread is in the Portland-Sacramento game, with the Kings being two-point favorites at home against the Blazers. That game has the second highest total at 227.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Cash Game Core

Welcome to the cash game core plays section of the Breakdown!  I’ve been giving you a GPP core in the past, so instead, I wanted to provide you with a solid trio of players to start building your cash game lineups with tonight. I highly recommend playing cash games on a nightly basis to keep your bankroll up, otherwise, a cold week in tournaments will have you running out of funds quickly.

James Harden (13300)

The Beard should be the first player you click on when building a cash game lineup. It doesn’t matter that it’s a pace down game against a good defensive team in Memphis. It doesn’t matter that the Rockets just played yesterday. It doesn’t matter than he’s over 13k today. As long as Chris Paul and Eric Gordon are out, Harden will continue to post monster stat totals on sheer volume alone. You simply can’t fade his floor in cash!

Donovan Mitchell (8800)

Mitchell is the next name I click into those cash builds. He’s been excellent since Utah lost all three of their point guards to injury. He’s averaged 53+ FD points in his last three games and has 33-34 actual points in each one. Some might think his price is too high, but he should still be able to hit 5-6x value tonight. He just went for 49.5 FD points against Detroit earlier this month and that was in a game where the Jazz guards were all healthy. Don’t overthink it, keep riding D-Mitch tonight.

Al Horford (6700)

Horford’s minute restriction is gone, hurray! Big Al has been playing really well but he’s been hard to roster because he was being limited to only 24 minutes a game. He played 30 minutes on Saturday and sure enough produced 42 FD points against Orlando.  Tonight he gets a matchup with Brooklyn, the ultimate matchup for centers. Horford just dropped 35 FD points against them last week and that was in only 24 minutes. If Kyrie were to sit tonight, then Horford becomes a near must-play in that scenario.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Top GPP Plays

For tournament plays, I’m looking for more than just 5x. I’m looking for 6-7x or more and we really want to chase those players with high ceilings, not just floors. We also want to take some risks on players that we think we can get at lower ownership than the chalkier cash game plays.

Anthony Davis (12700)

While James Harden provides an element of safety tonight that we can’t find anywhere else, Davis just might have the highest ceiling of any player on the slate. Consider that Harden will likely be 40-50% owned in GPPs and that Davis is 600 dollars cheaper in a game with a Vegas total that is 35 points higher than Harden’s.

We’ve all been tilted by the “Anthony Davis heads to the locker room” tweet, but he’s in a great spot tonight and I’ll absolutely be making some lineups with him in them and not Harden, as well as some lineup with both of them. He had a cool 62 FanDuel points against the Clippers in a game that hit 255 total points and he only shot the ball 18 times. His ceiling is massive tonight.

Jusuf Nurkic (8800)

Does anyone remember the last time that Nurk faced the Kings? I do because I had played him even though the center position was pretty loaded that New Year’s day and I got him at 9% ownership. If you’ve forgotten, he went 24-23-7 against the Kings with 5 blocks and 5 steals – a historic 5×5 game that netted him 88 FanDuel points. He might seem expensive here at this price, but just remember the type of ceiling he has in this spot.

Buddy Hield (6500)

With Mitchell and Harden being super popular choices at shooting guard tonight, many of the other options will be overlooked. Enter Buddy Hield, whose price has finally dropped down to where we can take a shot on him. His matchup here is excellent, as Portland has struggled against shooters this season and Buddy proved that in their last game by putting up a solid 27-5-4 line in that matchup. I want multiple pieces from this game and Hield is one of my favorite targets.

FanDuel NBA 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. This is very much the case tonight with both James Harden and Anthony Davis on the slate.

JaMychal Green (4900)

“Jay-Mike” should see a bump in minutes with Kyle Anderson out tonight for the Grizzlies. He’s been very productive for the Grizz in his current 6th man role, topping 32 FanDuel points in each of his last two contests. In the last Memphis-Houston game, he had a great night, scoring 32 FD points in only 19 minutes. He’s as solid FPPM guy and an easy play tonight in my opinion.

Marcus Morris (5100)

Ok, so is it cheating to include Morris here if he’s 100 dollars more than our cutoff? Marcus is humming right along and FanDuel has been slow to price him up. He’s gone well over 5x this price in each of his last three games and has a great matchup with Brooklyn tonight.

Davis Bertans (4400)

Bertans has played 25 and 30 minutes in his last two games while Rudy Gay has been out. He’s gone over 22 FD points in those contests and is a deadly three-point shooter who can do enough in other categories to get us 5x or more tonight against Charlotte – a team that plays very little defense.

Royce O’Neale (4900)

O’Neale has been great in his last two games since entering the starting lineup for Utah. His price has come up 1400 in salary, but he should still be able to pay off this tag based on the sheer volume of minutes that he’s playing (over 37 minutes per game in those last two.)

Shelvin Mack (3600)

Obviously, Terry Rozier is my punt point guard if Kyrie is ruled out, but if not then I’m looking at Mack who’s near min-priced and should eat up some of Kyle Anderson’s minutes and production. He played 28 minutes on Saturday and is usually a pretty solid FPPM contributor.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Game Stack of the Night

Portland (+2) @ Sacramento (228 total)

I think most of the attention will be on the Clippers-Pelicans game that has a total that is 11 points higher, but I really like this Blazers-Kings game as a pivot.

The Kings play fast and loose, and I really like targeting the Blazers when they get paced up like they are tonight. Portland guards Damian Lillard (9400) and C.J. McCollum (6900) are both in play here. As I mentioned early, it was Nurkic who had a massive game against the Kings in their last matchup but both of the Blazers guards are capable of having big nights.

Evan Turner (4500) is a nice value play to add to this stack as his minutes and production are trending up with Maurice Harkless out of the lineup.

For Sacramento, I already mentioned Buddy Hield but don’t forget about Bogdan Bogdanovic (6300) for a few hundred less. My main focus for the Kings will be on big men Marvin Bagley II (5700) and Willie Cauley Stein (7500). Bagley’s minutes are trending up after returning from a lengthy injury and he’s cheap enough to do some damage at that price. WCS has been on a roll lately, scoring 40+ FD points in four of his last 5 games. He’ll have his hands full with Nurk, but he’s still got a ton of potential at an affordable price.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Sample Lineup and Overview

As the title of this article implies, the top three plays for raw point tonight are likely James Harden, Anthony Davis, and Donovan Mitchell. I think it’s a good idea to have two of those three in every FanDuel lineup you build and I don’t think you’ll be able to fit all three in there. Harden belongs in your cash lineups and Davis in some GPP.

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I usually like punting one or two spots on FanDuel with this year’s new “drop score” rule. Playing a lineup of all 5-7k players just makes zero sense to me and you’ll find that the guys winning consistently on FanDuel are going “stars and scrubs” pretty frequently.

Today’s sample lineup is a CASH lineup. You’ll see my cash core plays in there mixed in with just enough of my value plays to make it work. There’s always a few spots left where I may pivot as we get injury news throughout the day, but I can’t imagine a scenario where I don’t have Mitchell and Harden in those shooting guard slots.

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 7:30 PM (oooh, later lock tonight) when lineups lock.

PG: Elfrid Payton (6200)
PG: Derrick White (5900)
SG: Donovan Mitchell (8800)
SG: James Harden (13300)
SF: Davis Bertans (4400)
SF: Evan Turner (4500)
PF: Marcus Morris (5100)
PF: JaMychal Green (4900)
C: Al Horford (6700)

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!