Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 10/31/16

Happy Halloween! After a solid weekend for DFSR NBA and NFL, we're excited to settle in to a more manageable workload - a single, 4 game slate of NBA. Or at least that's what I thought before I started researching for this slate. It's actually sort of a mess of teams that we're fairly unclear on during this early season - teams that have been involved exclusively in blowouts, or teams with new players, or both. But! They (whoever they are) pay us the big bucks to churn out winning picks, so that's what we'll attempt to do. Let's do this thing.

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Point Guards

There's going to be a little theme at point guard today - deciding which sample size to trust. We have some big name guys that we can grab at serious discounts to their historical production on their current opportunity, but do you trust their 2 games from this year or their body of work from the past?

Kyle Lowry FD - $7400 DK - $7400
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 40.9 DK - 43.78
Exhibit A: Kyle Lowry. Lowry is actually playing more minutes this season than he averaged last year, and the Raptors really haven't changed at all. He's averaged fewer shots per minute than last year, but that could be a result of how his shots have fallen, which is to say, they haven't fallen at all. His 28% rate from the field is a full 14% below his locked in historical average of 42%, and unless you buy that something fundamental has changed about his game (I don't), then you're getting him at a deep discount to his historical production. When Lowry's played these minutes in the last few seasons he's been an easy $8,000 player, and while DEnver has a decent defensive efficiency so far this season, their blistering 110 PACE should give Lowry plenty of opportunity to get back off the schneid. And besides, Denver's personnel is essentially the same group as last year that didn't play a lick of D. I love Lowry for value and upside here.

Chris Paul FD - $9300 DK - $8500
Opponent - PHO
Proj Pts FD - 44.7 DK - 47.09
Exhibit B: Chris Paul. Paul played more minutes and took more shots than his last season averages in his first game of the season, then took a huge step back in game 2. But here's where we aren't going to stumble - we have whole seasons of Paul playing with this cast of characters, and we know roughly what to expect of him. Hint: it's not the 36 fantasy points per game we've seen so far. Paul is back to leading the NBA in time of possession per game at 10.1 minutes per game, which is just an absurd amount of time to have the ball in your hands. Phoenix has followed up last season's fast PACE and no defense strategy with more of the same so far, and on a short slate where the pickins are slim, Paul seems like a supremely high floor option for cash games.

Ty Lawson FD - $5100 DK - $5600
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 29.8 DK - 31.78
In a slightly different vein, our high upside candidate. Lawson wasn't phenomenal against the T-Wolves, but if that's his floor, we have to be a buyer on these prices. He's actually sliding into a more traditional point guard role this year, which is actually a very good thing for his ability to stay on the floor. At solidly 34-36 minutes a game, Lawson actually ranks 8th in the NBA in time of possession per game (at 6.9 minutes/game), and I think we really haven't seen close to what his fantasy output will be as the season progresses. If he's really a 35 minute per game guy he's easily 20% cheaper than he will be, and possibly more if he starts shooting more. Atlanta has played the 7th fastest PACE in the league this season, and while they've been tough on defense, Lawson's price more than makes up for anything but the very worst match-ups. I like Lawson in all formats.

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Shooting Guards

Will Barton FD - $5300 DK - $5700
Opponent - TOR
Proj Pts FD - 29.5 DK - 31.34
Well, this one is a lay-up. Barton has paid any easy 29 fantasy points per game in his first two contests, averaging 37 minutes per game. That's just a LOT of minutes for a guy who has occasionally led his team in usage. While it hasn't played out that way thus far in Denver, I believe the 12 shots per 28 minutes he averaged last season are closer to the real story than the 12.5 per 37 minutes he's averaged this season. Even if things meet in the middle, Barton is just going to be a great value until Gary Harris returns. If Harris does return, snap your fingers, and play somebody else.

DeMar DeRozan FD - $7900 DK - $7300
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 42.69 DK - 44.16
My guess is that DeRozan winds up being the chalk play of the day at shooting guard, but it's starting to get awkward, because it's REALLY hard to pay up at every position. But man, it's tempting to pay up for DeRozan. He's shot an incredible 55 times in the first two games of the 2016 season, and while it would be awfully tough for him to replicate that over the course of a whole season, he honestly doesn't need to to pay a $7,900 salary. This is roughly $200 more than you needed to pay for DeRozan last year, for something like 30% more opportunity. And like Lowry, the pace that Denver is trying to play will play right into DeRozan's hands. Honestly, we probably have seen DeRozan's biggest game on these minutes and opportunity so far. At these prices, I'm still a buyer.

Dwyane Wade FD - $6900 DK - $6500
Opponent - BKN
Proj Pts FD - 35.76 DK - 37.32
Man, do I hate recommending guys who have switched teams. But Wade has kind of looked awesome for the Bulls, right? And it's not like we don't have very recent precedent for him being worth $6,900 on FanDuel. The secret here is that Wade could wind up being worth considerably more if the Bulls continue to use him the way they have so far. He shot 18 times against the Celtics, and put up 27 fantasy points in just 21 minutes against the Pacers. The risk here is the blowout, of course - the Nets are a complete mess, and the Bulls are very likely to rest Wade when things get out of hand. Brooklyn is playing a fast pace and doing so poorly, and their rotating cast of wings will likely do very little to stop Wade's old-man pick-up game. Seems like a high floor, if low ceiling, shooting guard play.

Small Forwards

T.J. Warren FD - $5500 DK - $5400
Opponent - LAC
Proj Pts FD - 25.91 DK - 26.87
The man with the broken price. I wrote Warren up last night and we wound up playing him in all formats, even in a tough match-up with Golden State. Warren rewarded us by going off for 26/6 and 39 fantasy points. But can it really be considered "going off" when that's just a shade more than he's averaged so far this season? It's clear that that Suns have given up on the PJ Tucker experiment, and actually view Warren as potentially a big piece of the plan going forward. You just don't get to average 19 shots over two games if that's not the case. The Clippers haven't fielded a credit small forward defender in years, and haven't changed that for this season - Warren looks like just the guy to help you pay up at other positions.

DeMarre Carroll FD - $4600 DK - $4500
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 25.64 DK - 27.15
A cheaper and likely worse option than Warren, though still fairly solid, is DeMarre Carroll. We never really got to see Carroll spread his wings last season thanks to injury, but we have plenty of precedent for Carroll paying off these prices by doing a little bit of everything in the past. The game against the Cavs is a perfect example of what a good Carroll game looks like - a few points, a few rebounds, a handful of defensive stats, and 25+ fantasy points when it all comes out in the wash. We've seen two weird games from the Raptors so far - a blowout, and a game against one of the toughest defenses in the league - and getting back to normal against a generically bad defense should help even the role players like Carroll pay their prices handily.

Jimmy Butler FD - $8000 DK - $7600
Opponent - BKN
Proj Pts FD - 38.51 DK - 39.91
I don't think that small forward is necessarily the position where you want to spend up today, but if you disagree, consider Jimmy Butler. The arrival of a bunch of other ball hogs didn't look very good for Butler's fantasy value on paper, and the sites decided Butler should be priced about 10% lower to start the season. The Bulls only have one game so far that followed a normal game script thanks to blowing out the Pacers, but it looks like Butler won't likely be the odd man out in Chicago this season. He shot 16 shots against Boston, and averaged 15.4 last season. Business as usual. This is a great match-up against the Bojan Bogdanovic/Sean Kilpatrick types, and the only real risk you take on with Butler here seems to be of the blowout variety.

Power Forwards

Paul Millsap FD - $8100 DK - $7900
Opponent - SAC
Proj Pts FD - 41.13 DK - 43.34
The Hawks haven't played a game with a normal game script so far this season, and while there's no guarantee that playing against the Kings will change that, teams don't tend to play in blowouts every single day. The signs around Millsap's future are very promising. With Horford and Teague gone, Millsap has added 4 shots per game on 4 fewer minutes. That's bananas. And Millsap, like so many others, is still priced like a guy who is in the exact same situation as he was last year. He isn't. The Kings, meanwhile, are basically the same team that played the league's fastest PACE with the 7th worst defensive efficiency. Millsap is a phenomenal play at these prices in all formats.

Nikola Jokic FD - $6100 DK - $7000
Opponent - TOR
Proj Pts FD - 31.14 DK - 32.43
Kenneth Faried FD - $5500 DK - $4700
Opponent - TOR
Proj Pts FD - 26.14 DK - 27.08
Doug and I were talking throughout the Nuggets' last game, primarily about how poorly coached they seem from year to year. Is Jokic good, or isn't he? How about Faried? Nurkic? They seem to have a glut of good scorer/rebounders who can't play defense very well, and figuring out who is in or out of favor in any given week is positively vexing. That being said, it sure looks like Jokic and Faried are currently in favor. Faried has played a steady 29 minute rotation through two games, and provided roughly the fantasy point per minute production that we're used to. As for Jokic, he scored 12 fantasy points one game and 55 (in an overtime game) in the next. What's the real story? It's anybody's guess. But you can believe people will be playing Jokic here, so I figured he should be on your radar.

Centers

Tyson Chandler FD - $4200 DK - $4300
Opponent - LAC
Proj Pts FD - 28.51 DK - 29.92
Chandler was a tentative recommendation of ours yesterday, and in a very tough match-up with Golden State, he went out there and had his best game of the season - paying his price before the halftime buzzer sounded. It's hard to say for sure, but it looks like Chandler is on roughly a 28 minute rotation, and his rebounding and role in the pick and roll make him worth simply more than the $4,200 price tag you have to pay for him. Guys in solid roles at deep discounts to their opportunity are jewels on small slates, and I'd be pleased to play him against the defensively overrated DeAndre Jordan wherever.

Jonas Valanciunas FD - $6400 DK - $6700
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 34.78 DK - 36.11
You can't play a Raptor at every position, but it kinda feels like you should. Valanciunas has added usage AND minutes this season, and like so many others, is only a little bit more expensive than he was last year. Last season he shot 9 times per game on 26 minutes, and this year he's shooting 15 times per game on 33 minutes. His typically great rebounding has followed, and he's rounding into a $7,000+ center. It's not quite the same discount your getting at some other positions, but against Denver's offense-first bigs, I see Valanciunas as a generally safer option than Chandler, albeit with less points per dollar upside.

Also considered: Boogie, though I'm not convinced this is where you should be paying up. Still, he's a man possessed out there (as usual), and still probably at a discount to where he'll be if he can consistently stay on the floor. I won't know for sure if he'll be in optimal lineups until the optimizer turns over, but I don't mind playing him anywhere.

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