FanDuel Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Wednesday 10/23/19

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.

Center

The FanDuel slate will depend a lot on where you go at center. Among the full player pool, the top options in terms of pricing tonight are four centers: Joel Embiid ($11,200), Karl-Anthony Towns ($11,000), Nikola Jokic ($10,800), and Andre Drummond ($10,800). Rudy Gobert ($9,200) and Nikola Vucevic ($9,100) also are options where we could spend up. And there are some mid-level options who make sense, as well, primarily Myles Turner ($7,400), Hassan Whiteside ($7,300), and Thomas Bryant ($6,800).

Based on the matchups and if I'm spending up, it's a night where I'm prioritizing Towns against the Brooklyn Nets in a game with a 227.0-point total, second-highest on the slate. numberFire's projections prefer Embiid among the top four options but actually give Gobert and Vucevic better point-per-dollar projections than even Embiid.

With so many high-ceiling centers on the board, there's opportunity cost in spending down at the position, yet there are still some options, primarily Tristan Thompson ($5,500) and Boban Marjanovic ($3,500).

Core Plays: Karl-Anthony Towns, Nikola Vucevic, Myles Turner
Secondary Plays: Joel Embiid, Rudy Gobert, Tristan Thompson
Tournament Plays: Boban Marjanovic, Hassan Whiteside, Thomas Bryant

Small Forward