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 main slate.
Best of the Best
Russell Westbrook ($12,000): Through a small three-game sample, we haven't seen any reasons to be worried about Westbrook's efficiency. His 1.45 FanDuel points per minute are down slightly from last year's clip of 1.49, but with the variance that goes with a three-game sample, that doesn't mean much. His usage rate and effective field goal percentage are also down slightly, but at marks of 33.5% and .473, respectively, there is again nothing to worry about. His playing time does leave some room for concern, however, as he's played fewer than 33 minutes in two of his three games, but he also played 35.1 in his first game of the year, so we have seen that there is room for upside there. Tonight's matchup with the Los Angeles Clippers should be a close one (the Thunder are favored by 2.5 points), and our models project Westbrook to score almost 10 more fantasy points than anyone else on the slate.