Basketball is the most consistent sport for daily fantasy purposes.
A top slugger in baseball will have his fair share of 0-for-4 days, and an elite fantasy football player is at risk of having games where his team's offense as a whole is shut down. A high-priced NBA stud is generally going to get his, though. With so many possessions in a game providing opportunities to produce, top fantasy basketball options will be posting high scores just about every night.
While this consistency puts us in a good position to identify top plays, it also means you can't afford to miss when you're paying up for someone. Even with strong value plays in your lineup, paying up and getting a dud is likely going to leave your lineup drawing pretty close to dead.
Let's get right into it and look at which top players should be the focal points of your lineups tonight.
Luka Doncic, PG, Dallas Mavericks ($11,300)
On a short three-game slate, it's tough to ignore Luka Doncic's upside.
Doncic sits just ahead of both LeBron James and Anthony Davis with 53.6 FanDuel points per game, ranking third in the NBA on the year. He doesn't look to have the pure one-game upside of either Laker, as those two combine to own the five highest single-game fantasy scores of the trio this year. Doncic has shown far more consistent upside, though, accounting for 10 of the top 18 single-game scores among the three.
He also gets a more favorable matchup than the Lakers do as the Portland Trail Blazers' defensive rating and effective field goal percentage (EFG%) allowed are both the third-worst for any of the six teams in action tonight, while the Brooklyn Nets -- the Lakers' foe -- rank second-best in defensive rating and are tied for first in EFG% allowed.
Kyrie Irving, PG, Brooklyn Nets ($8,700)
Kyrie Irving is clearly still banged up, but he's probable to suit up tonight and has played 30-plus minutes in each of his last three games. That includes 32.2 and 36.8 in two games with 11-point margins of victory, then 30.7 in a blowout loss decided by 20. With a 5.5-point spread in this one, look for Kyrie's minutes to climb despite the injury issues.
The injury and blowout-reduced workload has driven his salary down, and at $8,700, he's a steal relative to his season average of 46.8 FanDuel points per game (5.4 per $1,000 of salary tonight).
The Lakers certainly make for a tough defensive matchup, but the promise of a full complement of minutes in a close game combined with his low price-tag make that worth overlooking on this short slate.
Bradley Beal, SG, Washington Wizards ($7,500)
The most appealing fantasy matchup of the day is the Cleveland Cavaliers-Washington Wizards game. It doesn't feature a ton of fantasy studs, but Bradley Beal certainly counts.
The Wiz are playing down in pace here, but Cleveland and Washington own the two worst defensive ratings on the slate, and this game has a hefty 232-point over/under. The Cavs, despite their slow pace, have allowed top-10 fantasy production to shooting guards as well as the most FanDuel points to point guards.
Beal snapped out of a brief slump with 57.3 fantasy points in his last outing, marking his fifth time topping 50 in his last 12 games. That upside is way under-priced at $7.5K, especially when he gets such a juicy matchup.
Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.