RADIO
After a day off from doing preseason content to focus on football, I'm back with another NBA DFS article as we have a five-game slate tonight! I hope you are as pumped as I am to have the NBA back in our lives and I appreciate you checking out my preseason NBA content here at RotoBaller! In this article, I will be providing you with my daily fantasy basketball lineup picks for FanDuel and DraftKings on 12/14/20. You can find me in the RotoBaller Premium NBA Chat Room or @ThunderDanDFS on Twitter.
We have a lot of injury info to monitor and a lot of coaching sound bytes to dissect as the day goes along. I highly encourage you to follow me on Twitter and check out the list of beat writers that I follow to keep informed on the latest up-to-date information about each team and their plans for minutes and rotations. Today we have four games that are repeats of games that were played on Saturday with Miami-New Orleans being the only game between two teams that have yet to play this preseason.
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Preseason NBA Overview
The first thing you need to know is that building lineups on FanDuel and DraftKings this preseason is going to be very different. FanDuel has decided to keep their prices low (no one priced over 6,000) and therefore, you can build a lineup with any nine players you want as long as you roster two PG, SG, SF, PF, and one C. We can leverage that on FanDuel by rostering some lesser-known players since we should expect the well-known players to be more highly-rostered, especially amongst more casual players and fans. All prices listed in the article are DraftKings prices since the FD prices simply don't matter.
DraftKings has priced guys as they would on a normal slate for the most part, but we do get discounts on superstars if we want to cram some into lineups. I like to use a balance of younger players with some veterans that we can project for solid minutes and, honestly, every slate is different to some degree. With only a few days of practice before the first preseason games, I would expect we don't see any big minutes for starters in the first few games with most teams easing their guys into action.
Yesterday we saw some teams increase the minutes of their starters a little, so we could some of these teams do the same thing tonight in their second game. A word of caution that Miami did not release an injury report and is being pretty tight-lipped so far about minutes, so I would use caution with the Heat unless we get more information about their plan for their first preseason game.
Preseason NBA DFS Injuries/Rest
Knowing who is playing on any NBA slate is half the battle. Getting injury info on preseason slates is a tad harder than in the regular season but here's what we know right (as of Thursday night).
ALREADY RULED OUT:
Eric Bledsoe, J.J. Redick, Kyle Lowry, Jaren Jackson Jr., Justise Winslow, Naz Reid, Shaquille Harrison, Malik Monk
DOUBTFUL:
Brandon Clarke, Jontay Porter,
QUESTIONABLE:
Steven Adams, Dario Saric, Jae Crowder, Mike Conley, Chris Paul
TEAMS (or rather COACHES) THAT I DON'T TRUST:
Unless we get word on minutes the teams I trust the least to give guys regular minutes are Toronto, Dallas, Utah, Miami
Preseason NBA DFS Core Plays
Giannis Antetokounmpo - PF/C on DK ($9,000), SF on FD
Giannis put up 25-10 in only 25 minutes of action against the Mavs on Saturday and as I predicted, you simply needed his raw points. I think he probably plays about the same minutes tonight or a little more and we know that he is a fantasy monster who you simply can't fade on a slate where you can easily fit him.
The Pelicans Starters - Lonzo Ball ($6,900), Josh Hart ($4,900), Zion Williamson ($6,300), Brandon Ingram ($7,600)
This is New Orleans' first preseason game and they are missing a few rotational players tonight with Bledsoe and Redick out, and Adams potentially missing, too. It's not often we get a coach saying he's going to play his starters around 30 minutes but that's exactly what Stan Van Gundy said his plan was. Hart should start for Redick and all four of these guys are solid fantasy players who could easily pay off their tags with 30 minutes, so mix and match them in your lineups as you see fit.
Ja Morant - PG ($8,800)
I am keeping Morant in the core again on this slate. He paid off nicely for us on Saturday as he put up 20 points and 11 assists in 25 minutes and looked aggressive on offense. I don't see a reason not to go back to him tonight in the same solid matchup unless we hear about some kind of minute reduction.
Preseason NBA DFS Top Plays
D'Angelo Russell - PG/SG ($8,300)
Luka Doncic - PG ($8,900)
Deandre Ayton - C ($7,200)
I was on these three on Saturday but backed off Ayton due to a concern with minutes. He had a strong outing in 22 minutes so I might go back to him here with the hope he plays a little longer. Luka burned a lot of people playing only 16 minutes, but if he sees a minutes increase we know what he can do. The same thing goes for D-Lo in his matchup against Memphis.
Khris Middleton - SF ($6,800)
Malik Beasley - SG/SF ($5,300)
Bobby Portis - PF/C ($5,000)
Chris Boucher - PF/C ($5,000)
Middleton was great in his debut, leading the Bucks in scoring while Beasley is a guy I really like on the wing in Minnesota. He is a great rebounding guard a great glue guy and a scorer for the Wolves. Portis and Boucher were both productive off the bench in their first outings. Portis is probably the safer of the two, but Boucher is a per-minute stud with more shot-blocking upside.
Preseason NBA DFS Value Plays
Gorgui Dieng - C ($4,200)
De'Anthony Melton - PG/SG ($4,900)
Malachi Flynn - PG ($4,700)
PJ Washington - PF/C ($4,800 DK)
Dorian Finney-Smith - SF/PF ($4,300 DK)
Jalen Smith - PF ($4,300)
Matt Thomas - SG ($4,800 DK)
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