Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 11/10/16

First the election, and then an enormous Wednesday slate - it's almost relaxing settling into the sanity of a 4 game slate that starts a little later than usual. But this one isn't without its potential pitfalls and big value guys. Let's make the 10th of November one to remember! Wow, that rhyme really sucked. On to the picks.

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Point Guards

It's a messy position today, so let's get into the types of decisions you'll need to make today.

Emmanuel Mudiay FD - $5900 DK - $6300
Opponent - GS
Proj Pts FD - 28.82 DK - 31.29
Stephen Curry FD - $8900 DK - $9000
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 42.13 DK - 45.91
Decision #1: Decide your appetite for blowout risk. This game will have the largest spread of the day (7.5 as of this writing), but it also has by far the highest total. The Warriors and Nuggets both play a top 5 PACE, and both have been in the middle of the pack defensively as well. Mudiay and Curry are both easily capable of paying 5x+ points per dollar on these prices as well. But if the game gets out of hand, both are huge risks to lose minutes. In situations like these we tend to favor the guy who's on the positive side of the blowout, but Curry's priced to the point where he can easily clock in below 4x points per dollar (as he has several times so far this season). You'll have to decide our own appetite for risk, here.

Goran Dragic FD - $6800 DK - $6700
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 31.76 DK - 33.55
Rajon Rondo FD - $5500 DK - $5700
Opponent - MIA
Proj Pts FD - 28.45 DK - 30.37
If you don't want to go high risk high reward, you could theoretically go low risk low reward. The Bulls/Heat game has the lowest overall total of the day (198), but the tightest point spread (1.5). Rondo and Dragic both have games where they've been excellent on these prices, and games where they've been straight up terrible. Miami has the 6th best defensive efficiency and plays the 8th slowest PACE, and Chicago has the 6th slowest PACE with basically league average defense. But! Dragic is more expensive here, and more reliant on scoring (which generally makes a guy riskier). I'm not sure I'd be thrilled with either honestly, but PG is so terrible tonight that I'd be content to have either in my lineup if that's how the money wound up working out.

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Shooting Guards

Giannis Antetokounmpo FD - $9600 DK - $9700
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 48.97 DK - 50.48
Giannis was a tremendous disappointment in his last game, when early foul trouble cost him nearly the entire first half. After back to back underwhelming performances, it stands to reason that a decent amount of your daily fantasy basketball competition is going to feel once bitten and twice shy. But should you? We don't think so. Giannis is still shooting more than 40% more shots per minute this season, and more amazingly, he's improved on a per minute basis for every single fantasy stat this season. While improvement in and of itself means very little, all of the little things Giannis does add up to a truly elite daily fantasy talent - one that has a transcendent ceiling and a very respectable floor. It's rare that a player with his talent and opportunity has back to back bad games, but we're willing to chalk this up to an anomaly, and against a New Orleans team that lacks anyone who can even pretend to cover him, he sure looks like a must play in all formats.

Klay Thompson FD - $5900 DK - $6200
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 34.51 DK - 37.26
After Giannis, the shooting guard pickings seem to drop off fairly dramatically. The next guy to show up on a points per dollar basis here is Klay Thompson, but he has all the same issues that Steph has as well. There are so many things that can take a guy's opportunity away in Golden State, but Thompson's price almost fully accounts for that. He won't be anything close to match-up proof on these prices going forward, but in a fast paced game with Denver I think you'll be happy with playing him here more often than not. Of particular interest is Denver's lackadaisical transition defense - Thompson just shreds teams that aren't mindful around the perimeter in transition. Harris isn't an elite defender to begin with, and the fact that he's still getting into game shape means Thompson should be a big time option for the Dubs tonight.

EDIT: Just checked to see how Thompson was doing tonight, and as of this writing he's got 18 points in the first quarter against what's left of the Mavs. Some chance he's using up "his turn" against Dallas - we shall see.

Nick Young FD - $4100 DK - $4500
Opponent - SAC
Proj Pts FD - 22.26 DK - 24.12
The daily butt of the DFS joke, Nick Young is sort of rounding into a real daily fantasy commodity under Luke Walton's tutelage. His field goal percentage is at an all time high, and while some of that could be variance, the eyeball test says that the Lakers are actually just getting him a lot of good looks as well. Walton has spent the last several years dreaming up how to get amazing shooters better looks from the outside, so don't be surprised if the gains we're seeing here are real and Young continues to play this big a role in the offense going forward. The bonus for this game of course is that Young will be facing Sacramento's rotating cast of inept 2 guards. McLemore has never been much of a defender, and Afflalo's days as an elite defender ended 2 or 3 teams ago. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I like Nick Young for both safety and upside.

Small Forwards

Justise Winslow FD - $4800 DK - $5400
Opponent - CHI
Proj Pts FD - 30.62 DK - 31.76
Who on Earth is the real Justise Winslow? There are a lot of common misconceptions about how hard it is to increase your shots per minute and maintain your efficiency. It's why people make outrageous comparisons between guys like Kobe Bryant and Kyle Korver. If Kobe's job were to stand around and occasionally shoot open 3s, his field goal percentage would have looked much differently by the end of his career. Likewise, if you forced Kyle Korver to try and create 20 shots a game for himself, it would be a complete embarrassment. When it comes to Winslow, we're still just not sure what he's going to become. The Heat's small forward is shooting 8 more shots per game this season, or more than double last year's total. He's also shooting just 31% from the field. At some point, one of those two facts are going to have to give - he'll either go back to shooting far less, or start shooting better. In watching the games it certainly doesn't look like things are coming easy for Winslow right now, but the eyeball test can really betray you when a guy is running bad from the field. The good news for us is that Winslow is still priced so affordably compared to his current opportunity, and we can happily play him even in a snail's pace match-up with the Bulls.

Kevin Durant FD - $9600 DK - $9400
Opponent - DEN
Proj Pts FD - 47.69 DK - 50.32
Just going to write the same thing I wrote for Klay and Curry, so I'll save you the whole treatise here. This is a ridiculously good match-up for Durant, as the Denver bigs are WAY too slow to cover him, and their wings are way too small. It could be his best game of the season, or he could spend a lot of time high-fiving people and then sitting on the bench in warm-ups. For my big money play, I'll probably wind up trusting guys with a larger percentage of their team's opportunity, like Giannis and Davis.

Jimmy Butler FD - $7600 DK - $7100
Opponent - MIA
Proj Pts FD - 36.34 DK - 37.8
We've given you Butler as a mispriced guy in each of his last two starts, and he's averaged better than 50 fantasy points per game in that time frame. Yes, the Bulls added two high-profile, ball dominant wings in the off season. And yes, that means Butler has the ball in his hands less. But you know what it didn't change? Butler is still the best offensive weapon on the Bulls. He's added range this season, and two other competent wings has actually helped the Bulls spacing to the point where Butler is a legit inside-outside threat. It's going to feel weird to play him in one of his worst match-ups of the season, and I'm frankly not even sure it's correct, but at one of the shallowest positions of the night it might wind up being a thing you go for just to lock in some safety.

Consider: Tony Snell, in the super-cheap category.
 

Power Forwards

Anthony Davis FD - $10900 DK - $11300
Opponent - MIL
Proj Pts FD - 52.71 DK - 54.14
Now here's a big money play I can get behind. Our lineup optimizer has an unabashed love affair with the Pelicans' big man, and while his price keeps climbing up, he's still priced cheaply enough that he's a terrific payoff for going cheap elsewhere. He's averaged 50 fantasy points per game in his last 3 games, and has done so with a methodically consistent effort on offense, defense, and the glass. Davis completely embarrassed the Bucks front court in their first meeting this season, putting up 35 and 15 with 3 blocks and 3 steals to go with it. And the Pelicans lost. Even if they go winless this season, though, it seems like they're dedicated to helping Davis pad his stats in the meantime. Great play in all formats.

Jabari Parker FD - $6100 DK - $5900
Opponent - NO
Proj Pts FD - 29.82 DK - 30.94
Parker, like his teammate Giannis, has shown improvement across nearly every statistical category this season. His shots per minute are up, his engagement on both ends of the floor has been excellent, and his defense is even starting to come around. He put up better than 6x points per dollar in back to back games against Sacramento and Dallas while averaging just 29 minutes per game, and he's still priced to move given that he has 40 minute upside. The only fly in the ointment is that in their first meeting, Davis just outclassed Parker in most important areas. Davis is a bad match-up for him because he's basically just a slightly smaller version of him, making things much harder on the boards and on the offensive end. Still, the position is shallow enough that I think you could do much worse than just stacking the PFs from this game and calling it a day.

Julius Randle FD - $6200 DK - $6800
Opponent - SAC
Proj Pts FD - 30.47 DK - 32.16
How about another young player coming into his own? I can only recommend Randle as a high upside play here because I think he's sort of just a slightly worse version of Parker at a higher price, but his poor positioning relative to Parker should make him under-owned in big tournaments. Randle's minutes are basically capped in the low 30s, but he's put up some beastly double-doubles against fierce competition (OKC, GS, DAL) this season. He's also disappeared from time to time. Still, The Kings lack a true power forward to deal with him, and if he happens to draw Kosta Koufos here I could see him going off for one of his high 30s low 40s fantasy performances.

Centers

DeMarcus Cousins FD - $9500 DK - $10300
Opponent - LAL
Proj Pts FD - 49.41 DK - 51.77
You're going to have to pick somewhere to not spend up today, but it's awfully tempting to go up at center. There just aren't a lot of excellent cheap options, and Boogie draws an excellent assignment here against the Lakers. LA has run the 4th fastest PACE this season, and paired their fast PACE with an undisciplined bottom 10 defense. Let's be clear, that's a HUGE improvement over what they've done in the past - but it's still a situation that a remarkable scorer like Cousins can take advantage of. Cousins has been up and down this season to be sure, but the problem isn't the opportunity when he's out there - it's been foul trouble. The Lakers lack the elite driving or post up threats than normally get Boog in trouble, though, so I think he'll eat plenty in this one.

The rest
And this is really the strongest case for Cousins today - you just get question marks wherever else you look. I love Jusuf Nurkic's upside against the Warriors, but the minutes have just been bananas this year. Hassan Whiteside looks to be rounding into an elite fantasy player, but it's about as bad a match-up as you can hope for if your goal is to just pile up blocks, rebounds, and put backs.

After those teams, you've got the Pelicans, Bulls, Lakers, Bucks, and Warriors, none of whom give regular minutes or opportunity to a reasonably priced fantasy center.

Weird day at the position, and I might just wind up boogieing again.

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