RADIO
We are now less than one week away from opening night of the NBA regular season! But we still have four more preseason slates left to play and there's still money to be made!
Each of the four games on tonight's slate is the first of a two-game set between these teams as they will face off again on Friday in their preseason finale. The Cavs, Knicks, Trailblazers, Lakers, Suns, and Bulls have all played two games already while the Thunder and Nuggets have only played once.
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.
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In this article, I will be providing you with my daily fantasy basketball lineup picks for FanDuel and DraftKings on 12/16/20. You can find me in the RotoBaller Premium NBA Chat Room or @ThunderDanDFS on Twitter.
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.
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:
Larry Nance Jr., Matthew Dellavedova, JaVale McGee, Devon Dotson, Adam Mokoka, Thaddeus Young, Denzel Valentine, Tomas Satoransky, Garrett Temple, Zach Collins,
DOUBTFUL:
QUESTIONABLE:
Kevin Love, Collin Sexton, Kevin Porter Jr., Cedi Osman, Ty Jerome, Darius Miller, Trevor Ariza, Jae Crowder, Cameron Johnson, Dario Saric,
SITUATIONS TO AVOID
Both LeBron James and Anthony Davis are set to make their debuts for the Lakers tonight, but will only play in the first half. That means we can probably project them for maybe 15-16 minutes total and that makes them hard to roster on this slate. It also muddies things up a bit for the Lakers we have been playing in their absence, too.
Preseason NBA DFS Core Plays
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander - PG ($6,200)
SGA is my favorite play on the slate. He was solid in his first outing, posting a 12-3-4 line with a block and a steal but played only 19 minutes as OKC let their backups play the majority of the minutes. So far this preseason, we've seen most teams ramp up the minutes for their starters in the team's second game so hopefully, we see SGA around 24 minutes tonight, which should be plenty for him to do some damage against this Bulls' backcourt.
Andre Drummond - C ($7,500)
The Cavs' big man played 23 minutes against the Pacers on Monday night and posted an efficient 17-11 with 5 combined steals/blocks. With Larry Nance Jr. out and Kevin Love questionable, Drummond should soak up the bulk of the center minutes tonight, and minutes in the mid-'20s is all he needs to rack up enough stats to make value.
RJ Barrett - SG/SF ($5,500)
Barrett led the NBA last preseason in minutes played and this year seems to be following the same pattern, even with a new coach. He played 29 and 35 minutes in New York's two games against Detroit so far, and in the second meeting was the Knicks' high scorer with 25 points. The Cavs are a great team to target with guards and a poor defensive team overall. I expect Barrett and the Knicks to be popular picks tonight, but for good reason.
Preseason NBA DFS Top Plays
Julius Randle - PF/C ($6,600)
Nikola Jokic - C ($8,600)
Julius Randle has been really good for the Knicks this preseason and his minutes look secure. He's averaging 14-7-5.5 through their first two games in 30 minutes per game. Pairing him with Barrett makes a lot of sense in cash games for their solid floors in a good matchup with Cleveland.
The Joker and his Nugget squad are playing only their second game of the preseason and will face the rather porous defense of Portland tonight. Jokic poured in 26-10-5 in only 22 minutes in Denver's first game and like I mentioned earlier with SGA, I think we can expect to see Denver and OKC increase their starters' minutes in their second game tonight. Whether he's scoring the ball or distributing the rock as point-center, Jokic is going to pile up counting stats and I like the idea of making some double center builds tonight on DK.
Zach LaVine - SG ($7,400)
Talen Horton-Tucker - SG/SF ($5,500)
LaVine is my favorite play on the Chicago side of this OKC-Chicago matchup that could be a high-scoring game to target. He played 27 minutes last time out and led the way with 23-9-5 and is one of the higher-usage guards we have on the slate. He and Coby White should once again take the majority of the shots with Chicago's first unit again.
Horton-Tucker is absolutely still in play tonight even with LeBron James and Anthony Davis set to return. He's having an incredible preseason so far and is leading the NBA in minutes played with 39. He averaging 26-9-4 in two games against the Clippers and while I don't expect 39 minutes out of him, I do expect him to come in with the bench unit in the first half and then lead the second unit the entire second half. If people are going to jump off THT tonight, I want to stay the course and keep riding him.
Preseason NBA DFS Value Plays
Listed in the order of my preference (favorites first).
Darius Bazley - PF ($4,900)
Al Horford - PF/C ($5,000)
Hamidou Diallo - SG/SF ($4,300)
Isaac Okoro - SF/PF ($4,200)
Dante Exum - PG/SG ($4,500)
Nerlens Noel - C ($4,800)
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope - SG/SF ($4,400)
