FanDuel Daily Fantasy Basketball Helper: Tuesday 12/6/22

Since it's much simpler to predict than baseball or football, daily fantasy basketball would get plenty of votes as the best sport to play on FanDuel. Players usually stick to the same minutes and produce at roughly the same rate. Sounds easy, right?

As a result, NBA daily fantasy is highly reliant on a player's opportunity, so you'll need to ensure that you're up-to-date with key injuries. Our projections update up until tip-off to reflect current news, we have player news updates, and the FanDuel Scout app will send push notifications for pressing updates regarding your players.

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

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

Let's break down today's main slate on FanDuel.

The Slate and Key Injuries

Today's injury report is fairly quiet on a three-game slate.

The lone bit of drama in Cleveland is whether or not they'll get back Jarrett Allen, who has missed five games with a back issue. He's questionable.

The Heat are on a back-to-back, so watch all three of Jimmy Butler (knee), Dewayne Dedmon (foot), and Gabe Vincent (knee). They played through a questionable tag last night. However, with the lowly Pistons in town, more of Miami's key players could get a night off.

Finally, in the nightcap, Michael Porter Jr. (heel) is already ruled out for the Nuggets, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (wrist) is questionable.

Guards

On a three-game slate, it's absolutely terrifying to fade Luka Doncic ($11,800), and I won't be doing so.

Doncic tallied 2.01 FanDuel points per minute in last night's three-quarter battering of Phoenix. I've seen sizable roles in NBA daily fantasy before, but Doncic regularly hits value in plus-side blowouts. He's tallied over 55 FanDuel points in three games this year below 30 minutes played. There's nothing like him.

Yet, I don't mind double-dipping at guard with studs. Donovan Mitchell ($8,800) is amidst a woeful 37-for-86 (43.0%) stretch from the field that's seen him fall well short of what a team-best 31.3% usage rate can provide. Still, Mitchell is averaging 41.2 FanDuel points per 36 minutes, and he's now set to face the high-flying Lakers (fourth in pace).

My gut feeling is Jimmy Butler ($9,400) sits tonight's second leg, which would bring Kyle Lowry ($6,700) to the forefront of consideration. Lowry has averaged 33.2 FanDuel points per 36 with Jimmy off the court, and he's numberFire's third-best projected guard of the day already with Butler pegged as playing.

Others projecting well around Lowry include Jamal Murray ($7,100), Bruce Brown Jr. ($5,600), and Dennis Schroder ($4,800).

Wings

LeBron James ($10,900) might be a tinge oversalaried, but this isn't a slate where we'll be scrapping for per-dollar value.

James has still eclipsed 40 FanDuel points in 15 of his 17 games this year, and one of the exceptions was his return-game clunker against Indiana. He answered any questions about his ceiling with 60.1 FanDuel points on Friday against Milwaukee, so it's nice to know James can still deliver fantasy points as a facilitator to the scorer, Anthony Davis ($12,300).

Tyler Herro ($7,700) appears to have taken the next step for Miami. He's been over 40 FanDuel points in each of his last four, so expect him to be one of the more popular plays on the slate. I'd be inclined to fade him if Butler plays, but his usage rate without Jimmy on the floor (team-best 28.6%) is too solid to pass up.

Detroit's a mess, but Bojan Bogdanovic ($6,000) just keeps scoring. He's posted over 18 real-life points in 11 of his last 12 games, which means he doesn't need much in other categories to pay off this tag.

On an ugly slate, Bogdanovic's value score in our projections (4.62) is actually the highest at small forward today. Yikes. However, I will say, I don't mind some of the projections' top options -- Tim Hardaway Jr. ($5,700), Lonnie Walker ($5,200), Caleb Martin ($4,600), and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($4,600) if he plays -- whatsoever. I'd get to some of those guys on a larger slate.

Bigs

A.D. is making an MVP statement at present, so even with the salary unnerving, it's impossible to cross him off.

Davis is averaging 37.1 points, 14.2 rebounds, and 2.65 blocks per 36 minutes since November 1st. That's well worth his salary. He's likely going to be a contrarian option, though. Not only are most people likely reserved that the production level holds, but Davis isn't the easiest guy to trust in DFS due to his health.

I'd expect many will turn to Nikola Jokic ($11,300) instead, and that's fair. With Porter still out for Denver, Jokic has posted 59.5 FanDuel points per 36 minutes. It's largely driven by a one-percentage-point increase in usage rate.

In the last five games without Jarrett Allen ($6,900), Evan Mobley ($7,800) has feasted. He's posted 41.8 FanDuel points per 36, which well outpaces this salary. Given his return will likely come at 100%, Allen is viable -- and sneaky -- on this small slate if he plays.

In fact, in terms of a per-dollar value score, J.A. leads our projections now given his normal full workload. Others behind him include Christian Wood ($7,100), Aaron Gordon ($6,100), Isaiah Stewart ($5,800), and Kevin Love ($4,900) at what is -- by far -- the model's deepest position of the day in terms of value.