FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 3/11 – Let’s Get Medieval!
By Dan Palyo
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Monday, 3/11
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. As always, my goal is to help you get your research started for tonight’s NBA DFS slate on FanDuel.
The weekend treated me well as far as DFS goes as I hit my cash games on both days and had a few nice GPP finishes Saturday night and on the early Sunday slate. Somehow Joel Embiid was only 10% owned in my FanDuel GPPs and he did what he usually does and went for 50+ on a two-game slate.
It was a bold strategy to go all-in on him considering he was coming off an injury that has kept him out for over a week, but it paid off. And it serves as a reminder that the majority of DFS players tend to “play it safe” even in GPP contests which allows the opportunity to gain leverage by rostering players that others are afraid to roster.
"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 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.
We have a nice little six-game slate that locks at 7:00 eastern time and only one late night game to fall asleep while watching (does anyone else do that?) I really love the Kings-Wizards game tonight (hence the nerdy title today) and I plan to get heavy exposure to it in cash and stack it up in GPPs.
Let’s start our analysis by looking at Vegas totals and relevant injury news as a way to begin the process of narrowing our player pools.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: First Look
Injury Report
OUT: Ricky Rubio, Raul Neto, Larry Nance Jr., Marvin Bagley III, Tristan Thompson,
DOUBTFUL: Treveon Graham
QUESTIONABLE: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jayson Tatum, Bismack Biyombo
PROBABLE: Tony Parker, Dante Exum, Shabazz Napier, Jeremy Lamb
A pretty quiet day for injury news, but this is the NBA and we all know that there will be someone who pops on the injury report between now and lock who’s not on our radar. Let’s just hope it’s before lock and not after it! Late scratches are the worst!
Vegas Info
***The Washington-Sacramento game has a massive 241 total and a spread of only two points. I’ve been targeting the Wizards games for a few weeks in a row now and I’m not about to stop tonight! Both of these teams play fast and loose and I expect there to be plenty of fantasy points scored in this one.
***The next two closest totals belong to the Thunder-Jazz (227.5) and the Clippers-Celtics (226) games. I have some interest from players on both sides of those games as they both have tight spreads, too.
***Houston, Detroit, and Toronto are all playing the second half of back to backs.
***The Wizards and Jazz see the biggest pace increases 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.
Tomas Satoranksy (6300)
T-Sat is a lock and load play for me at this price in cash games. He’s playing nearly 40 minutes a game for the Wizards and produces across the board in multiple categories. He’s not exactly Ben Simmons, but he can rack up a cheap triple-double and is an affordable piece of the most appealing game for DFS tonight.
Jabari Parker (5800)
A bench player who only plays 28 minutes per game in cash? Yes, and here’s why. Jabari may be limited to those 28 minutes on a nightly basis, but he’s been producing at an elite level when he’s on the floor and is anchoring the second unit for Washington. He’s shown a solid floor lately and in this elite matchup should have a nice ceiling, too.
Andre Drummond (10600)
The center position today is pretty bleak and I am just going to pay up for Drummond in cash games because I think he could outscore everyone else by 20-30 FD points. He has an excellent matchup against Brooklyn and should dominate them. He already has done so twice this season and is averaging 24-20 against them in their two meetings.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: 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.
Paul George (10700)
I’ve been riding PG13 all season long and I’m not about to let recency bias stand in the way of firing him up again tonight in a good spot against the Jazz. George was disappointing on Saturday as he was hounded by Pat Beverley on defense and struggled throughout the game. I’m looking for him to bounce back tonight in a big way. He feels underpriced here based on what he’s done this season and his game logs against the Jazz are most impressive.
Lou Williams (7300)
Sweet-Lou is the ultimate GPP play on almost any night and he showed us why on Saturday night when he dropped 65 FanDuel points on the Thunder. He’s an elite scorer and carries a top 5 usage rate in the NBA. The matchup doesn’t scare me one bit because Boston has struggled against shooting guards this season despite having a solid defensive rating. Lou makes for a nice correlation play in a 1-1 game stack with everyone’s favorite misunderstood star from the Celtics…
Kyrie Irving (9800)
Kyrie can be maddening at times to roster, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt tonight and fire him in the “late-night hammer” game against the Clippers. Boston is getting paced up and they have a healthy team total tonight. If Kyrie decides he wants to take over the offense, we know he’s capable of breaking a slate on any given night and the Clippers are a team that I love to target with point guards.
***Note that Bradley Beal is not on this list and though his price may now be getting out of control at 10800, I still plan to have some exposure to him in an amazing spot.
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.
Nemanja Bjelica (4600)
It’s been a few months since I got to write up Bjelica. He was one of our favorite plays earlier this season and then was pushed to the bench for rookie sensation Marvin Bagley III. Well, with Bagley out, Bjelica has been slowly earning his minutes back and played 28 and 30 in his last two games. He’s a really solid, cheap piece of this high total game with Washington tonight that I love for tournaments mainly.
Frank Kaminsky (4500)
Another day, another Frank Kaminsky write up. The guy is just too good to be this cheap if he’s going to be 20-25 minutes in the rotation. He’s made value in four of his last five games since rejoining the rotation.
Jaylen Brown (4600)
I am trying to find ways to get some Celtics exposure besides using Kyrie and Brown is the cheapest piece that has some upside based on his minutes and production. If Jayson Tatum gets ruled out then Brown is going to have an opportunity to get some more run and he can pile up stats in a hurry, especially in pace up spot like this one.
Kyle Korver (4500)
If you’ve been keeping up with the Breakdown, you’ll know that I’ve been on Korver now for the last three games and he’s come through with 20+ FD points in each. His minutes are going to be there and this is a prime spot for him tonight as OKC struggles against shooting guards.
FanDuel NBA Breakdown: Position Rankings
What some players find really helpful are position rankings. I will rank my favorite players at each position based on their upside and point-per-dollar viability for cash and GPP. Think of this a type of “cheat sheet” but it’s not an exhaustive list of my player pool by any means.
Point Guard
Shooting Guard
Small Forward
- Paul George
- Jabari Parker
- Jae Crowder
Power Forward
Center
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
- 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
- Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet
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. It’s a combination of a partial game stack of my favorite game (Washington-Sacramento) with my favorite one-off play (Andre Drummond). I didn’t have time to devote an entire slide to the Washington-Sacramento game but it should be an offensive explosion and I want to get as many pieces of that game as possible.
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. I rarely end up playing this lineup as there are always pivots that need to be made as the slate unfolds during the day!
PG: Tomas Satoransky (6300)
PG: De’Aaron Fox (8000)
SG: Lou Williams (7300)
SG: Eric Gordon (5400)
SF: Jabari Parker (5800)
SF: Nemanja Bjelica (4600)
PF: Kenneth Faried (5500)
PF: Bobby Portis (6500)
C: Andre Drummond (10600)
Next. NBA DFS - Top Value Plays on FanDuel and DraftKings - March 11. dark
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 with your contests!