FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Thursday, 1/31 – Eastern Conference Showdown

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Thursday, 1/31

Welcome back to the Thursday edition of the FanDuel NBA Breakdown! I’m “Thunder Dan” and I love playing and writing about FanDuel NBA DFS. I’m ready to help you get your research started for tonight’s NBA DFS slate on FanDuel.

Tonight we have a 6-game main slate that locks at 7:00 PM.  I absolutely love when we get this many games on a Thursday night and the distribution of games this week has been just awesome. It was bad there for a while when we were getting 10-12 game slates on Mon/Wed and then several 2-3 game slates on Tues/Thurs.

"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.

This is where I remind you that in order to win in NBA DFS you have to be flexible with your roster construction and sometimes take things down to the wire before lock with late-breaking injury information. At the same time, I always warn against totally scrapping your original first look build, as sometimes the plays that you were on the night before or that morning end up still being the best plays on the slate.

As always, let’s take a quick look at our injury situation and Vegas data to get us moving in the right direction.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: First Look

INJURY REPORT

OUT: Ish Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie, Lonzo Ball, LeBron James, Allen Crabbe, Tyreke Evans, Danilo Gallinari

DOUBTFUL: NONE

QUESTIONABLE: Avery Bradley, Reggie Bullock, Jonathan Simmons, Kyle Kuzma, Jonah Bolden

PROBABLE: Sterling Brown, Eric Bledsoe, Malcolm Brogdon, DeMar DeRozan

I don’t want to get my hopes up, or yours, but this is one of the least injury-riddled slates we’ve had in some time. There’s really only a few guys who are questionable/probable who matter all that much and it’s Kyle Kuzma for the Lakers and DeMar DeRozan for the Spurs. All the Bucks guards seem likely to play.

VEGAS INFO

The Pacers and Mavericks are the only teams that played yesterday and no teams are on the front end of back to backs.

The Clippers and Raptors both get the biggest bumps in pace tonight in their respective matchups with the Lakers and Bucks.

The highest game total tonight is the Sixers-Warriors at 240, while the second highest total is in the Raptors-Bucks game which carries only a 2.5 point spread.

We don’t have the Lakers-Clippers line yet but I would suspect the Clippers will be favored at home and that total should be somewhere in the 225-230 range.

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 help build that bankroll.

Brandon Ingram (7100)

Small forward is absolutely loaded today and I’d like to pay up for at least one of the high dollar guys, but I think Ingram could be the best point-per-dollar play at the position. He’s finally emerged as the Lakers top offensive option while LeBron/Lonzo/Kuzma have been out and he’s got a great individual matchup against the Clippers who are playing small ball without Gallinari in the lineup. Even if Kuzma returns tonight, I still like Ingram a good bit and I think he’s got a nice floor for cash games.

Pascal Siakam (6500)

I’m always a sucker for Siakam, but I really like him in pace up spots like the Raptors have tonight against the Bucks. His ability to run the floor, finish on the offensive end and then get steals/blocks in transition at the other end make him an elite play in this game environment. He scored 30 actual points against Milwaukee in their last matchup on his way to 45 FD points and I love his chances of doing something similar tonight.

Shabazz Napier (5700)

Use a guy who’s only playing 27 minutes a game off the bench in cash games? You bet! Napier is absolutely killing it in his new role (formerly occupied by Spencer Dinwiddie) and has a ridiculous 31% usage rate in his last three games since sliding into this larger role. He’s averaging 21 actual points in those three games and he should be able to get us 25-30 FD points with the volume of shots he’s putting up with the second unit.

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.

Giannis Antetokounmpo (11500)

I’m not including my “game-stack of the night” in today’s breakdown because I’m going to cover it right here. I really love this Bucks-Raptors game as it has everything we want – a high total, tight spread, and several players that should account for major chunks of their teams’ fantasy output. Giannis put up 67 in this spot against the Raptors in their first matchup this season which included 43 actual points. Not even Kawhi can slow him down and he should have a rebounding advantage over everyone on the floor as the Raptors are playing small with Siakam and Ibaka inside.

Kawhi Leonard (10100)

NBA fans can hate on Leonard all they want, but when the guy has played this season, he’s played well and at times carried this Raptors team. After missing four straight games, he returned last week and promptly scored 32 and 33 actual points in his first two games back. If we look at that first game between these teams again, we’ll see that Kawhi had 60 FD points in that one and he usually thrives in these types of up-tempo games.

Lou Williams (7300)

Lou-Will revenge night, right!  Wrong! How about just we just play the “target Lou-Will in pace-up spots against bad defensive teams” narrative tonight? All snarkiness aside, I love Lou tonight in this spot. If you saw any of that Lakers-Sixers debacle the other night, it was pretty obvious that the Lakers have a turnover problem without Lebron + Lonzo and their transition defense was pathetic. Lou should thrive in that type of setting and already crushed in this same spot earlier this season going for 36-7-3 against the Lakers in 30 minutes.

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.

Patty Mills (4200)

Mills is a notoriously streaky player who happens to be on a nice little hot streak right now. DeMar DeRozan returning to the lineup is likely going to hurt some of these Spurs guards a bit, but it’s quite possible his minutes are limited and I expect these cheap Spurs to still get plenty of run against a bad defensive Brooklyn bench unit.

Marco Belinelli (4400)

How many slates in a row that the Spurs have been on have I written up Bello do you think? I’m going to sound like a broken record but this guy is super steady and continues to get better as the season goes along. His season average is only 12-2-2, but over his last 10 games he’s been good for 16-2.5-2.5 and I’ll take that any day for 4.4k.

Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (4500)

RHJ has regained his spot in the Brooklyn rotation and reclaimed 22-26 minutes off the bench. He’s a stat stuffer who can make value at this price in those limited minutes and his price is only slowly creeping up so we still have a game or two that we can profit on him at this price.

JaVale McGee (4700)

While everyone was chasing Zubac on Tuesday, I was actually on McGee as I thought Zubac would struggle with Embiid and get into foul trouble. McGee stepped in and played with 17-14 in 26 minutes and reminded us of the per-minute upside that he flashed earlier in the season. I like him again tonight for 500 less than Zubac with comparable upside.

Luke Kennard (3900)

This play is contingent on Reggie Bullock‘s status. If Bullock misses tonight’s game then I like Kennard as he should pick up some of those minutes on the wing. He’s coming off a 27 FD point outing and has been hot a few times already this season when getting minutes.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Sample Lineup and Overview

If you’re not familiar with how I wrap up the Breakdown, this is where I give you my thoughts on roster construction and briefly discuss my strategy for how I want to attack the slate.

More from FanSided

• Caesars and PointsBet Promo Codes: $1,750 Bonus For ANY World Cup or MLB Game!
• Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
• NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
• 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
• Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse

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 GPP lineup. I have some major correlation going on in today’s lineup with a 2-2 stack of the Milwaukee-Toronto game with both studs, Kawhi and Giannis and my favorite role players from each squad in Bro-Lo and Siakam.

There’s also another 2-2 stack from the Brooklyn-Nets game with two bench players from each team. Since Mills and Bello play together a lot with the second unit they should correlate well and the same goes for Napier and RHJ. Lou Williams in my “one-off” play from the Lakers-Clippers game.

You’ll notice that I’m totally unexposed to the Philly-Warriors game because I think it will be pretty popular and its way too hard to stack with the way that players from those two teams are priced in my opinion.

Remember, the sample lineup is for illustrative purposes and is not necessarily a “plug-and-play” lineup. This time of year so much can change in the course of 10-12 hours from when you begin to research a slate to when it actually locks.

PG: Patty Mills (4200)
PG: Shabazz Napier (5700)
SG: Lou Williams (7300)
SG: Marco Belinelli (4400)
SF: Giannis Antetokounmpo (11500)
SF: Kawhi Leonard (10100)
PF: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (4500)
PF: Pascal Siakam (6500)
C: Brook Lopez (5700)

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!