Happy Valentine's Day, lovers and friends! Valentine's is a day for love and passion, and we love the fact that NFL football is in the rearview so we can focus our fantasy passions on NBA hoops. Like many single dudes on this Hallmark holiday, we're shooting our shot this evening — but our sights are set on FanDuel's $200K Tuesday NBA Shot, which guarantees $50,000 to the tournament winner.
As always, we will reveal our DFS lineup within this column and briefly discuss why we drafted each player. And as always, our roster construction will be strategized with the core objective of finding as much value (or 'bang for our buck') as possible.
Here's the schedule for Tuesday, the final night of hoops in an action-packed month of January:
- Celtics at Bucks (7:30 p.m. ET)
- Magic at Raptors (7:30 p.m.)
- Kings at Suns (9:00 p.m.)
- Warriors at Clippers (10:00 p.m.)
- Wizards at Blazers (10:00 p.m.)
That's a lot of contenders in a five-game slate, including a head-to-head matchup of MVP contenders Jayson Tatum and Giannis Antetokounmpo. With the playoff race heating up now that the regular season is 70 percent complete, daily fantasy contests are getting more and more fun to enter. Let's review our FanDuel squad for Tuesday night, and briefly detail why we drafted each player to our lineup.
Before we break down all of our selections, here are the most notable scoring rules for FanDuel contests: Made three-point shot (+1 point), rebound (+1.2 points), assists (+1.5 points), steals and blocks (+3 points), field goal made (+2 points) and free throw made (+1 point).
MORE NBA DFS: DraftKings lineup
Tuesday night's FanDuel Picks: NBA DFS lineup for GPP tournaments
Tuesday main late swap slate, $60,000 budget.
PG Damian Lillard, Blazers vs. Wizards ($10,400)
With so many superstars either injured, 'OUT,' or "game-time decisions" (GTD) for this evening, our strategy today will be to draft four of the 10 best fantasy players of the night and then five of the top sleepers. Lillard, by our estimation, should be the No. 1 fantasy scorer. Giannis ($12,000) and Tatum ($10,800) are both GTD and facing one another's top-eight defense, while Dame draws a Wizards team on the tail-end of a back-to-back that just surrendered 135 points to the Steph Curry-less Warriors. With Josh Hart traded to New York (where he's killing it), Jusuf Nurkic out, and Jerami Grant likely sidelined with a concussion, the Blazers All-Star will need to keep his foot on the gas for Portland to remain in playoff contention. He has scored 36-plus points in 11 of the 17 games since Jan. 12 and poured in 702 points over the past 19 games. He's averaging 35.7 points, 7.3 assists, and 5.4 rebounds in February. His shooting-percentage splits for the month: 49.0/39.5/96.4. With Anfernee Simons as streaky as ever on the offensive side of the court (that's a nice way of saying inconsistent), expect the heroics of Big Game Dame to continue.
PG Payton Pritchard, Celtics at Bucks ($3,900)
Another squad that's banged up, the Celtics have gone 10 games now without starting point guard Marcus Smart (ankle) and face the rival Bucks tonight without All-Star Jaylen Brown (facial fracture). Sixth Man of the Year frontrunner Malcolm Brogdon (Achilles) and perennial All-Defensive candidate are also listed as a GTD. That all adds up to increased playing time and usage for pp, everyone's favorite reserve point guard from the 8 Mile. Pritchard may have preferred to get traded out of Boston at the deadline, but Brad Stevens kept him around for precisely this kind of situation. He scored 17.7 FanDuel points in Boston's last game against Memphis and should be in line tonight for even more PT than the 18 minutes he got that game. A line of 20 fantasy points for $3,900 would be a rousing success.
SG Kendrick Nunn, Wizards at Blazers ($4,200)
Nunn has seen his stock soar since joining the Wizards, and he's quietly averaged 11.5 points, six assists, 2.5 rebounds, and one steal over Washington's past two games. He has a true shooting percentage of 57.1, aided largely by his 42.9 percent three-point shooting and 87.5 percent free-throw shooting. Portland might be the most miserable perimeter defensive team in the NBA now that Josh Hart got traded, and the Blazers have allowed the second-most FD points to guards. Start Nunn and get some.
SG Josh Okogie, Suns vs. Kings ($5,100)
Okogie has been one of the hottest Suns role player over the past few games, benefiting from the departure of Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson and the temporary delay of Kevin Durant in a Suns uniform due to KD's knee injury. Okogie has poured in 42 combined points over Phoenix's past two games, and the 10 boards, six steals, three assists, and one block don't hurt matters one bit. That's good for 79.5 FD points — or 39.75 per game — so yeah, we're chasing points on this one. Sacramento's perimeter D has been abysmal, allowing the fifth-most FD points to wings. Fire up JO until KD makes his debut.
SF Kawhi Leonard, Clippers vs. Warriors ($9,600)
Finally, another star! Leonard graced our small forward spot this time two weeks ago, coincidentally at the same $9,600 price point, and he promptly put up 65.3 FD points on the Bulls in Chicago. Tonight we have him beating up on the undermanned Warriors, with Steph Curry sidelined and Klay Thompson potentially sitting out the tail-end of their back-to-back. Golden State ranks in the bottom-10 in fantasy points allowed to forwards, and Los Angeles needs to crank out as many wins as possible in the parity-driven western conference. Let's keep riding Kawhi our guy and stay fly 'til we die.
SF Matisse Thybulle, Blazers vs. Wizards ($3,700)
With Thybulle, a time-honored expression comes to mind: "One man's trash is another man's treasure..." Philadelphia had barely been using the three-and-D specialist and shipped him out for Jalen McDaniels at the trade deadline. One game into his career as a Blazer, the Artist dropped an FD score of 35.2 points thanks to a colorful line of 14 points, six rebounds, two assists, three blocks, and a steal. A masterpiece for anybody priced under $4,000, to be sure. We'll run it back with Thybulle tonight against the Wiz, who have surrendered the eighth-most FD points to forwards this season.
PF Pascal Siakam, Raptors vs. Magic ($9,800)
The Magic might need some Pepcid this evening, because Spicy P has been sizzling hot over Toronto's past few games. He's the 20th-ranked 9-cat player over the past week on Yahoo, and he has averaged 53.5 FD points over that span. His offense has been so special that he crushes it for fantasy investors even when he does little to nothing defensively. And against a young Orlando defense ranked among the bottom 10, his hot streak should continue.
PF Thaddeus Young, Raptors vs. Magic ($3,900)
Thad's basically the opposite of Spicy P, in that he contributes more defensively but can be limited on the offensive end. Still, fantasy points are fantasy points, and Young has individual FD games of 30.8, 16, and 12.6 so far this February. Toronto should be able to handle the Magic at home with relative ease, so we could get plenty of Thad garbage time. He's a huge value at under $4K.
C Kristaps Porzingis, Wizards at Blazers ($9,100)
Last but certainly not least, the Latvian Legend! Porzingis has been rolling lately, averaging 29.2 points, 7.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.2 blocks per game in February. He scored 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting in the first quarter against the Warriors last night. Now he gets a Portland squad that will be without Jusuf Nurkic, putting Drew Eubanks and Trendon Watford in the unenviable positions of slowing down a 7-3 unicorn with a 7-6 wingspan. Go off, Zinger!
