FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Saturday, 2/9 – Young Bull Making His Mark

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Saturday, 2/9

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

Tonight we have an 8-game slate on tap that locks at 7:00. In an attempt to keep this article shorter and provide you with more picks, I’m going to skip the injury report and Vegas data section today. I really like this slate and I’m going to add some bonus picks today since there are a lot of guys I really like tonight.

Last night was a good night! Jabari Parker went for 10x as a value play, Jamal Murray for 7x as one of GPP plays and the cash core of Wiggins-Markannen-Giannis combined for a whopping 160 FD points at a cost of 26.1k, which was good for almost 7x value.

"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.

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.

Today let’s jump right into the cash game core and see if we can keep the hot streak going!

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Cash Game Core

Welcome to the cash game core 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.

Before we jump in, we have a $50 Free Roll for you NBA DFS lovers from Fantasy CPR and our friends over at FantasyDraft – jump in now before it fills!

Dennis Smith Jr. (6500)

DFS sites have been slow to price up DSJ even though he’s tearing it up with his new team in NYC. The talented second-year player is finally breaking out this season after being traded to the Knicks, averaging 23-3-6 in his first three games for New York. He’s sporting a 32% usage rate and while the Knicks are going to be heavy underdogs at home, I expect DSJ to still get enough run to make value even if the Raptors pull away by the fourth quarter.

Bojan Bogdanovic (5800)

The Pacers continue to play great basketball sans-Oladipo and one of the reasons they haven’t missed him much has been the consistent scoring output by B.B. He’s now averaging over 20 points a game this season in games that Oladipo has missed and is up around 24 points per game in his last five games. He’s super steady and should be able to easily make value against the Cavs tonight.

Lauri Markannen (7900)

My main man Lauri is our cover boy today. He’s absolutely rolling right now and fresh off last night’s 31-18 line that was good for 55 FD points. His price somehow went down 200 dollars (Good job, FanDuel) despite the fact that he still has a great matchup and basically no competition for minutes (39 per game since the Portis/Jabari trade).

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.

Bradley Beal (9500)

First of all, can I just say how happy I was to find a picture of both Beal and Turner for this slide? And what do you think they are talking about here, maybe their favorite place to get good sushi?

Beal showed no signs of sulking last night after he wasn’t dealt on at the deadline, posting a 25-6-13 line as he hung 51 FanDuel points on the Cavs. Tonight he has a prime matchup against Chicago in a game that has enormous fantasy appeal to me (and not just for revenge narratives). Beal’s only game against this season was a monstrous 34-7-5 outing and I expect him to have himself another big performance tonight.

Myles Turner (7900)

The Turner hype train has already left the station but there’s still time to get on if you haven’t already. Those of you who read every day know I’ve been on him for the last week and he’s been downright dominant in that stretch. He needed only 27 minutes against the Clippers to rack up 52.9 FD points as he had a whopping 10 combined blocks/steals. I’ll chase that upside in GPPs every night until he’s priced up on 9k.

Julius Randle (8400)

I’m expecting we get Anthony Davis to sit out tonight, as the Pelicans came out and stated (after yesterday’s article was already published, of course) that they would limit his minutes and rest him on back to backs. Assuming Davis is out, we can fire up Randle, who was awesome for a long stretch last month when Davis and Mirotic were both out. Memphis was a tough matchup for teams but with Gasol gone to Toronto, I don’t see anyone who’s going to be able to handle the size and athleticism of Randle.

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.

Jabari Parker (3900)

Jabari was super impressive in his debut with the Wizards, nearly amassing a triple-double in 23 minutes off the bench. FanDuel dropped his priced by 300 dollars (why would they do that – seriously?) and now he’s a 100% lock in every lineup I make. The Wizards clearly wanted him to help provide a nice scoring punch with their second unit and he’s going to big part of their rotation it seems. Oh, and he’s playing against the team that traded him just a few days ago if you need some added drama.

David Nwaba (4200)

I did it again – I got two of the players I’m writing up in the same picture on this slide. That’s impressive, don’t you think?

All kidding aside, Nwaba has entered the starting rotation for the Cavs and is the kind of stat stuffer that can exceed value in a number of ways. He totaled 32 FD points last night in 29 minutes and he’s just way too cheap for the number of minutes and shots he’s going to get for this rebuilding Cavs team.

Marquese Chriss (3500)

Chriss came over from Houston in the Alec Burks trade and made his Cavs debut last night, scoring 13 points and adding 8 rebounds in 22 minutes off the bench. With Kevin Love ruled out tonight, we could see Chriss enter the starting lineup.  He’s min-priced and has legit 10x upside if he stays out of foul trouble.

Jonas Valanciunas (4900)

I’m hoping J-Val is ready to make his Grizzlies debut and that they wisely slot him right into the starting center position. He was ready to return from injury on the night he got traded, so I’m assuming he’s healthy and ready to play and that Memphis wants to see what they got in return for their former franchise center Marc Gasol. If Jonas is finally freed and given 25-28 minutes in Memphis, we certainly know what he’s capable of and he won’t be this cheap for long.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Bonus Picks

Jordan Clarkson (5800) and Larry Nance Jr. (6600)

You could probably add Colin Sexton to the list of Cavs that I’m interested in today, but for now I’m most likely to have a lot of David Nwaba, Nance, and Clarkson.

Clarkson’s usage is over 30% with all of the players that are now gone from Cleveland off the floor and he showed some nice upside last night with a 24-6-3 against the Wizards. His price also went down 200 points (what is this madness, FanDuel???)

Nance doesn’t see a massive usage bump but is the kind of player that relies more on rebounding, assists, and defensive stats to get his fantasy points anyway. He nearly hit 50 FD points last night and should again get a ton of minutes tonight with Kevin Love out. He’s had success against Indiana this season, too. If you take away one game where he left with an injury after only 5 minutes, he averaged 15-14-5 in the other two games against the Pacers.

Chris Paul (7800)

The game with the highest total on the slate is the OKC-Houston game and I haven’t even mentioned anyone from it yet!  There are so many solid mid-range targets today that I am not prioritizing paying up for Harden, Paul George, or Russell Westbrook. But CP3 is still pretty affordable at this price and has been playing well since returning from injury. His minutes are trending up as he played 33 against Phoenix and then 29 against Sacramento (but sat almost the entire fourth quarter in a blowout). I like his matchup against Westy the most of any player in this game and I think he’s primed for a big night and has 5+ steal potential against the sloppy ball handling and passing of Westy.

Bobby Portis (6500)

Portis was scorching hot when he got dealt to Washington and it turns out, he’s still really hot as he made a huge splash in his debut for the Wizards last night scoring 30 actual points in 27 minutes off the bench. He and Parker looked great out there together and I’m sure it helps that they played a lot together with the second unit in Chicago, too. This is a revenge narrative I can get down with because Bobby P can get buckets and boards against Chicago’s weak interior.

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.

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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 GPP lineup. You might notice that I have players from my cash core or GPP plays in GPP lineups and that’s because you can always play cash plays in GPPs. A solid GPP lineup usually has some “good chalk” in it mixed in with lower owned, more contrarian plays.

My favorite game to stack up is the Washington-Chicago game and I’ll have a lot of exposure to Beal, Green, Parker, Portis, Markannen, LaVine, and Dunn.

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: Dennis Smith Jr. (6500)
PG: Chris Paul (7800)
SG: David Nwaba (4200)
SG: Bradley Beal (9500)
SF: Nicolas Batum (5600)
SF: Jabari Parker (3900)
PF: Lauri Markannen (7900)
PF: Larry Nance Jr. (6600)
C: Myles Turner (7900)

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!