FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 2/11 – King George’s Reign

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 2/11

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’m ready, as always, to help you get your research started for tonight’s NBA DFS slate on FanDuel.

My goal when I first changed the layout of 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 had a really profitable weekend using my picks from my Saturday article, so I hope you were able to cash, too! I took down a small tournament on Draftkings and cashed nearly every GPP lineup on FanDuel and DK both. As a reminder, this article is geared towards FanDuel but if you play on DK, too, then you should be considering the same plays a lot of the time. I know pricing and scoring is different, but if a player is a good play on FanDuel, he’s often also a good play on Draftkings.

Tonight we have a 9-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, especially since we have over half the games without Vegas lines as of this morning.

One quick note – FanDuel really dropped the ball on pricing on this slate (or they intentionally decided not to price hardly anyone up or down) which means we could see some heavy chalk again tonight on some of the elite value and mid-range plays.

"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."

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 who our “locks” are for cash tonight.

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.

Dennis Smith Jr. (6900)

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? I’m staying on DSJ again tonight. He has one of the best matchups of any point guard and a usage rate over 30% since joining the Knicks. He shot poorly on Saturday and still got 34.8 FD points. I think he goes ham against the Cavs and their rookie point guard Collin Sexton tonight on his way to 40+ FD points.

Runner-up: Darren Collison

Paul George (11600)

Paul George might be one of the top 5 complete players in the NBA right now (yes, I said it!).  He ranks 12th in PER (player efficiency rating) and rates better than guys like Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard. His defense has been phenomenal again this season and he’s slowly taken over as the star of the OKC franchise.

In two games against Portland this season, George is averaging a cool 36.5-8-3 with 3 steals. This game has a nice healthy 231 team total and I’m locking in the Thunder’s top scorer and biggest star (did you hear that Westbrook) as my top spend up in cash games.

Larry Nance (7100)

We will have to monitor Kevin Love‘s status for tonight, but it seems unlikely that he will play any kind of significant minutes since they played him 6 minutes on Friday before pulling him for the rest of the game and then holding him out of Saturday’s game. Nance has five straight double-doubles and should have no problem racking up stats tonight against the Knicks in a game that should have some fantasy goodness on both sides!

Runner-up: Kenneth Faried (7400)

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.

Tim Hardaway Jr. (5800)

THJ has a new life in Dallas! Fantasy CPR’s own Brian Tulloch has been thrilled that THJ is DFS relevant once again AND that I found this old picture of his dad donning the Mavs gear (Editors note – all true). Anyway, Hardaway is now starting for Dallas as their two-guard and broke out in a big way yesterday with 24 actual points in 32 minutes against Portland. I expect him to continue to do what he does best – score the basketball – tonight against Houston.

Andre Drummond (10600)

Choosing Drummond over Towns was tough, but the extra 600 dollars matters and personally I think that the Detroit-Washington game has a much better chance of staying close than the Clippers-Wolves game. Drum is in excellent form lately, topping 50 FD points in five of his last six games including two 20-20 games during that span. He should dominate Washington inside tonight and as long as he stays out of foul trouble, I see him having another 50+ outing.

Bobby Portis (6500)

Power forward is absolutely loaded today, and I am counting on some of those other solid PF plays to draw some ownership away from Portis. Maybe everyone will forget about him since the whole Chicago revenge thing is now over? I won’t, don’t worry. Portis is just an excellent fantasy producer and this role off the bench for him in the Washington offense is the perfect recipe for fantasy success.

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)

Hit the lock button and don’t look back. Parker has been reborn with the Wizards and has back to back games with 40+ FanDuel points. You simply cannot fade a guy who has a 10-12x ceiling and a very solid floor. Shame on you FanDuel for not raising his price at least 1000 dollars.

Ivica Zubac (3900)

Same story here with Zubac, no price increase despite the fact that he started for his new team and played 23 minutes. He’s too good on a per-minute basis to be this darn cheap.

Trey Lyles (4700)

Trey’s usefulness depends solely on Paul Millsap‘s status tonight. He’s currently questionable but has missed several games in a row now, leaving Lyles the opportunity to play 22-29 minutes and scored between 22 and 34 FD points.

Dario Saric (3900)

If you really want a cheap power forward punt, then consider Dario here under 4k. His minutes are trending in the right direction even if he didn’ have a great game on Friday night against New Orleans.

Dion Waiters (4400)

Waiters is coming off a big game last night against the Warriors in which he played 41 minutes and scored 36 FD points. It’s not always ideal to use shooters on back to backs, but if he’s getting that many minutes, it’s hard to ignore Waiters at this price.

FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Positional Rankings

So I’m going to try something new here today and give you my rankings at each position. These rankings reflect how I would order players based on the likelihood they hit 6x or more value for GPP tournaments.

Point Guard

1. Chris Paul
2. Dennis Smith Jr.
3. Darren Collison
4. Collin Sexton
5. Corey Joseph

Shooting Guard

1. Tim Hardaway Jr.
2. Andrew Wiggins
3. Bradley Beal
4. Zach LaVine
5. Dion Waiters

Small Forward

1. Paul George
2. Jabari Parker
3. Bojan Bogdanovic
4. Giannis Antetokounmpo
5. Kawhi Leonard

Power Forward

1. Larry Nance Jr.
2. Bobby Portis
3. Kenneth Faried
4. Lauri Markannen
5. Trey Lyles

Center

1. Andre Drummond
2. Karl-Anthony Towns
3. Ivica Zubac
4. Myles Turner
5. DeAndre Jordan

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.

Paul George is my top spend up today with Andre Drummond being a close second. The value that Jabari Parker gives us is going to allow us to punt another spot easily since we know Parker’s got a really solid floor/ceiling and is still badly mispriced. Parker and Zubac are elite punts today and the only reason I won’t be 100% Zubac is the uncertainty of his minutes and because we can only play one center on FanDuel.

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. (6900)
PG: Darren Collison (6700)
SG:  Andrew Wiggins (6500)
SG:  Tim Hardaway Jr. (5800)
SF: Paul George (11600)
SF: Jabari Parker (3900)
PF: Kenneth Faried (7400)
PF: Larry Nance Jr. (7100)
C: Ivica Zubac (3900)

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!