NBA Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 12/8/17

If you're new to daily fantasy basketball -- maybe you started your DFS journey during the MLB or NFL seasons, or maybe basketball is your sport and this will be your first year giving it a shot -- you're in for a treat. The NBA scene changes hugely on a week-to-week, day-to-day, and -- depending on injury news -- even a minute-to-minute basis, making every slate a unique one that requires an ever-changing approach.

With so much changing so quickly, we're here with plenty of tools to help you out. We have daily projections, a matchup heat map, a lineup optimizer, and a ton of other great resources to help give you an edge.

We'll also be coming at you with this primer every day, breaking down a few of the day's top plays at each price point.

Let's take a look at who you should target on today's slate.

Best of the Best

LeBron James ($12,000): The Indiana Pacers give up big numbers all over the box score, allowing above-average marks in points, rebounds, assists and blocks per game. They sit bottom-12 in both rebound rate and defensive rating, and also play at a top-10 pace. James is the kind of guy who can take advantage and post big numbers in all of those areas, with a 43.0% assist rate, 12.2% rebound rate, 2.7% block rate, 30.1% usage rate and .642 effective field goal percentage on the year. He's also playing a league-leading 37.2 minutes per game, and that combination of efficiency and playing time has him posting some huge fantasy numbers, topping 50 FanDuel points in 10 of his last 12 games (while averaging a league-leading 55.5 FanDuel points per game over that stretch). Don't expect him to slow down in a matchup this good.