Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/13/17

Happy Monday, y'all! As of this writing our Sunday night plays are doing amazing, so I'm just going to freeze this moment in time and write this article while in a good mood. Plus, noted DFSR chatter Evan Lane (the fastest man in the industry with injury news) said he liked my picks articles, so I'm going to do my best to bring a touch more fire than normal. You're entering an article filled with DFS wizardry, you have been warned.

Just kidding. But I'll still do my best.

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Point Guard

D'Angelo Russell FD - $6700 DK - $7700
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 38.31 DK - 41
Jordan Clarkson FD - $5200 DK - $5500
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 27.78 DK - 29.72
We start off with a semi-rare treat, getting playable point guard options against the hapless Nuggets' perimeter defense! The Nuggets have managed to allow the 2nd most fantasy points to opposing point guards this season in spite of notable tanking efforts from teams from coast to coast. Their defensive indifference leaks into their stats across all relevant fantasy categories, allowing the 2nd most assisted baskets per game, the 3rd highest 3pt% per game, and generating the very fewest turnovers in the league. This is especially great for the Lakers' young, mistake-prone ball-handling duo. Russell is obviously the safer (and chalkier) option here - he's been routinely paying 5x on these prices and he's been getting a longer minutes leash recently. Clarkson is interesting in his own right, though. The ostensible back-up has put 34 shots in the air in the last two games, and remains very cheap relatively to the opportunity he seems to be getting right now. Russell is a cash game staple, but I'd potentially be interested in both for a big tourney stack.

Patrick Mills FD - $4000 DK - $4400
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 27.75 DK - 30.1
There's a good chance Tony Parker and Dejounte Murray miss Monday night's tilt with the Hawks, and if they do, you can expect to see my dear friend Patrick Mills in cash game lineups across the industry. He was a 66% start against the Warriors in the Battle of the Backups, and while the Hawks don't represent quite the same quality match-up, they've still been a top 8 match-up for opposing PGs on the back of Schroder's offense-first (offense-only?) approach to hoops. The knock on Mills as a punt play has always been that the Spurs are content to let him run the second unit as long as their is some passable option to dish with the first unit, but given the Warriors' current vulnerability and their lack of other options, I'm prepared for a huge game. He was great against the Warriors and lost minutes thanks to a random blowout - if this one stays as close as it ought to, I think you'll be happy with him in any format.

Some similar mid-ranged options: There's almost an embarrassment of riches at point guard today, so I'll go ahead and paint the rest of the picture a little more broadly. I'm a huge fan of Mike Conley's present workload (37+ minutes) and this spot against the Bucks. Delly's not a push-over, but it's hard to imagine him locking down Conley. I also like Kemba Walker against whomever the Bulls decide to roll out at point guard, and wouldn't even mind a slightly overpriced Elfrid Payton in a great match-up with Sacramento's point guard poo-poo platter. I'd be fine with any of these fellas in really any format.

Shooting Guard

Gary Harris FD - $5600 DK - $5800
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 28.57 DK - 30.26
Shooting guard really lacks depth tonight, and some of the top end options (Giannis in particular) leave me a little cold on account of their match-up. Thankfully we have a slam dunk mid-range option to hold down at least one of our two FanDuel slots. Gary Harris is locked into a 35-37 minute rotation right now, and aside from an odd Boston game script that didn't favor him (they were up a ton) he's put up a steady diet of 30-35 FanDuel points per night. Tonight he'll have the best match-up he's had during that stretch. The Lakers have been a revolving door at shooting guard this season, but the one thing all of their potential candidates have in common is an allergy to play perimeter defense. They've allowed a top 8 fantasy points per game total to opposing shooting guards, but that doesn't tell the whole story of how max-effort guys like Harris can punish them. I'm expecting big things here in a fast paced game.

Evan Fournier FD - $5500 DK - $5600
Opponent - SAC
Proj Pts FD - 27.63 DK - 30.03
A couple of off games for Fournier have his price stagnating, but I'm seeing a pretty significant buying opportunity here. Sacramento is a mess right now, and they literally don't feature a single reasonable perimeter defender. The Collison/Lawson duo is downright laughable, and the well-intentioned Buddy Hield just isn't there yet. The DFS community has a short memory, but Fournier is generally a lock for 35 minutes in non-blowout games, and had just posted back to back 6x+ points per dollar games against Chicago and New York before scrubbing out in his last two. Sacramento has allowed the very most fantasy points to opposing shooting guards this season, and their absent-minded perimeter defense has yielded the 3rd most total 3pt attempts and the 5th highest 3pt percentage. Fournier looks like a great candidate to go off here.

Buddy Hield FD - $4200 DK - $4000
Opponent - ORL
Proj Pts FD - 21.58 DK - 23.93
Hield has quietly played 30 and 37 minutes in his last two games, and managed to get 16 shots in the air against Washington when Joerger lost patience with the starters. More importantly, though, was that he followed that up with a strong shooting performance and 30 minutes against the Nuggets. Now I don't know that we can pencil him in for 30+ minutes per game going forward, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the Kings would really, really love for him to work out. Orlando's cadre of shooting guards presents another juicy opportunity for him to put up reasonable numbers, and he's still super cheap (particularly on DraftKings, considering his 3pt abilities) at a position that seriously lacks safety and upside tonight. Maybe he's not where you want to be for cash games, but he should at least be considered.

Also considered: Rodney Hood for upside.

Small Forward

Wilson Chandler FD - $6700 DK - $7200
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 33.06 DK - 35.41
Otto Porter FD - $6200 DK - $6400
Opponent - MIN
Proj Pts FD - 27.44 DK - 28.83
Forecasting Denver's minutes typically drives me to drink, but sometimes the value is too good to ignore. Chandler's kind of expensive on DraftKings, but this price is very reasonable for his FanDuel salary, and man, has he been incredible recently. He scored 140 fantasy points across the 3 games before last, and perhaps more importantly, his usage was way up. He averaged 18.3 shots over that stretch, which is almost 5 more than he's shot per game this season. The match-up needs no introduction at this point, but for sanity's sake I'll remind you that Brandon Ingram and the Lakers have allowed the 7th most fantasy points to opposing threes this season. We'll need to keep an eye on Chandler thanks to this little groin issue he's dealing with, but if he's announced as the starter it's hard to imagine not running him here. As for Gallo, he's kind of a poor man's Chandler at this point? Still, he's been very reliable on these prices recently, and if Chandler can't go Gallinari's stock goes through the roof.

Jimmy Butler FD - $8900 DK - $9300
Opponent - CHA
Proj Pts FD - 42.98 DK - 44.88
If you thought predicting Denver minutes was brutal, you probably should avoid looking at Chicago game logs. The one rock in the storm, though, has been Jimmy Butler. He lost his minutes in an obvious blowout spot against the Rockets, but for the most part the Bulls are riding their last hope as hard as ever, locking him into a 36 minute rotation and touching 38-40 when games are remotely close. Vegas has the Hornets favored by 6.5 points at this point, but after the Bulls embarrassing loss to the Rockets, it's very hard to imagine them going down without Butler on the court for his full run here. This situation is actually fascinating to me from a projection standpoint because it does make a material difference which of the Hornets' wings tracks him. Batum is another guy whose defensive reputation outstrips his current level of production, and the Hornets have been considerably weaker against SGs than SFs thanks to Michael Kidd-Gilchrist's insane hustle. The presence of Dwyane Wade shakes things up, though. I can imagine the two Hornets wings rotation between them, with MKG taking a spell on the less active Wade from time to time. Either way, Butler is a great value on this FanDuel price in at the worst a league average match-up, and I'd feel fine having him in my cash games.

Kawhi Leonard FD - $9300 DK - $9900
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 44.18 DK - 46.66
So let's start by stating the obvious - we can only consider Kawhi if we get the 100% all clear on this concussion stuff. Yes, it's horrifying, and yes, there's still risk even if he plays. But if you DO think he plays 35+ minutes, we kind of have to consider him, right? He's priced at a discount to his peak on FanDuel, and had just averaged 60+ fantasy points per games against fairly tough competition before exiting the Thunder game early. The Hawks don't have the reputation of being soft against opposing small forwards, but Bazemore and Sefolosha haven't lived up to their defensive reputations this year - the Hawks have allowed the 2nd most fantasy points per game to opposing small forwards while playing the league's 10th fastest PACE. If Kawhi gets the all-clear, I'm probably just going to go for it.

A quick note on Joe Johnson - if Favors is out again, I believe the 32 minutes he played against Houston is closer to his expectation than the 19 he played in that bizarre OKC game. He's a great candidate on DraftKings in particular where he's just $3,800.

Power Forward

David Lee FD - $4700 DK - $5000
Opponent - ATL
Proj Pts FD - 28.97 DK - 30.48
Lee was an uber-chalk play in his last start, but unlike Mills, his job is almost set in stone. The pricing algorithms haven't picked up on Lee's great opportunity just yet because, like Mills, he lost his minutes in the blowout of the Warriors. It's far from an ideal match-up with Millsap, but we're looking at a simple case of price and opportunity mismatch here. You can expect him to be the highest owned PF on FanDuel, and to pay his price, once again.

Nikola Jokic FD - $10000 DK - $10400
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 46.44 DK - 48.48
The Joker managed to punish the Kings for 45 fantasy points in spite of playing just 27 minutes, which seems to be well below where the Nuggets would like to play him these days. His price has fluctuated more wildly than any player in recent memory, but it's certainly not because of his points per minute production. He's averaged ~52 fantasy points in his last 5 games in spite of averaging a hair over 30 minutes - an absurd Westbrook-esque average that you'd kill for at nearly any price. The thing with Jokic is that, thanks to his incredible per-minute production, every minute he's on the court just matters a ton. The three things we look for to project his minutes are the potential game script, the match-up, and the likelihood that he'll get in foul trouble. Vegas has the Nuggets as heavily favored, which is a mark against him to be sure - but the other two factors are very much in his favor. The Lakers don't really have a true center to bang him down low, and perhaps more importantly, they've drawn the 3rd fewest fouls of any team in the NBA this season. They don't really play the slash-and-kick game that many teams do, as evidenced by D'Angelo Russell's paltry 3.6 drives per game. In case you need a little frame of reference, that number is below Lance Stephenson's (3.7) and Andrew Harrison's (3.65) totals. Seems like a great spot to pay up.

Paul Millsap FD - $7800 DK - $6900
Opponent - SA
Proj Pts FD - 36.58 DK - 38.81
"Paul Millsap against the Spurs? James has really lost a step or two." You know what, hypothetical hater? You might be right. But you shouldn't be surprised to see a few fireworks from me. So why the Millsap love? Well, you did read my David Lee write-up, right? Lee has had trouble sticking a starting job in the NBA, which is pretty incredible, considering how great he is at both scoring and rebounding. So what's his issue? You guessed it - his D. There's almost no chance he can handle Millsap's incredible strength down low in this match-up, and Millsap's been one of the steadiest minutes guys in the league recently. Assuming that the Spurs' lack of front-court depth helps this game stay close, it's very hard to imagine Millsap not paying this DK price going away.

Also considered: Julius Randle and Willie Cauley-Stein. Both are playing more minutes recently, and remain great values in good match-ups. Randle's a little pricey on DraftKings, but I love him on FanDuel tonight.

Center

Nikola Vucevic FD - $7500 DK - $6900
Opponent - SAC
Proj Pts FD - 34.5 DK - 35.96
A few weeks ago our projection system predicted Vuc would climb back up to $8,000, and while we're not there yet, we only have a little while left to keep getting him at prices like these (on DK in particular). Vucevic has averaged 22.5 and 12.5 in his last two games in brutal match-ups with the Cavs and Heat, and draws a much softer Kings' front court tonight. Please don't use season long defense vs. position metrics when evaluating opposing centers' prospects vs. Sacramento - they're a totally different team without Cousins, and don't really have a strong post defender left on the team. Cauley-Stein's defense is at its best when it's helping against drivers, and Vucevic's polished post game should give him and Koufos fits here. I love Vucevic for cash game purposes, and could see him putting up big tourney-worthy numbers as well.

Cody Zeller FD - $5000 DK - $5100
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 28.73 DK - 29.85
Not a sexy name to look at, to be sure, but with Kaminsky shelved it looks for all the world like Zeller is locked into a 35 minute rotation. So, yes, we have a price and opportunity mismatch - but can Zeller really make the most of this opportunity? I've kind of given up on him being the huge upside guy he flashed against the Pacers, but if his recent game logs are his floor, I'm willing to live with it tonight for cash game purposes. If you put a gun to my head I'd also suggest that he seems to have run bad from the field and even on the boards - and I think there are brighter (if still boring) things to come for Zeller going forward. Be warned that he will not likely be a chalk play, though, if that kind of thing matters to you.

Also considered: Pau Gasol. I firmly believe he would have played way more minutes if the Spurs/Dubs game didn't get out of hand, and have to believe he'll burden more of the load down low with Aldridge gone for a stretch. I still can't recommend it for safety's sake until we see them tip their hand in regards to his minutes, though.

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