NBA DFS action on Monday, Jan. 4, locks at 7 p.m. EST with a healthy nine-game main slate. Before you lock in your NBA DFS picks and favorite lineups on DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo and SuperDraft, make sure to check out Awesemo’s daily fantasy basketball rankings and projections. Let’s dig into some NBA DFS picks, including De’Aaron Fox, John Wall and more.
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NBA DFS Picks: Key Building Blocks | Jan. 4
De’Aaron Fox: Sacramento Kings at Golden State Warriors
DraftKings $8,200, FanDuel $8,000, Yahoo $37
Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 18.1%, FanDuel 30.4% Yahoo 19.8%
After running into foul trouble in the second game of a back-to-back with Phoenix, De’Aaron Fox has been on a tear. In the three games since then he has played 36, 35 and 35 minutes. In this stretch he is averaging 23.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 3.7 combined blocks/steals. Additionally, he has averaged 19.0 field goal attempts and 7.7 trips to the charity stripe in this timeframe.
On tap is a matchup with Golden State, who won last night against Portland, but who will also be playing their third game in four days. This game carries a 232.5 projected point total with the Kings favored by a bucket. The Warriors are also playing at the fastest pace in the league with the fourth-worst defensive efficiency.
John Wall: Houston Rockets vs. Dallas Mavericks
DraftKings $7,600, FanDuel $8,500, Yahoo $34
Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 24.5%, FanDuel 12.2% Yahoo 22.8%
Through his first two regular season games with Houston, John Wall is averaging 25.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 7.5 assists, and 3.5 combined blocks and steals. More importantly, he has played 37 minutes in each of those appearances. The Mavericks are on a back-to-back and got rolled in Chicago last night by the Bulls 118-108. Yes, Luka Doncic did not play with a bruised quad, but Chicago is missing two starters and two key reserves , who are in the COVID-19 protocol.
James Harden missed the last game with an ankle injury, but his availability should not dramatically impact Wall who spent several seasons next to a high-usage combo-guard in Bradley Beal. The salary may seem a touch high on FanDuel, but with 18 teams in action, we will have plenty of salary cap flexibility as all of the injury news starts to trickle out today.
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NBA DFS Picks: Good Value
Yes, Julius Randle is making the good value section today. The two focuses I have for this article each day are to provide good plays that have a shelf life that should lead up until tip-off. That means I would expect my main lineup most night to contain several players from my article. The second goal is to help teach something each day that you can carry forward in your bag of tricks for future slates. One thing we have seen over the years is that the masses will tend to take much of the savings from the value plays and apply it to the same top-tier options. This is fine, but often times it will leave players that are just a little below that lost in the shuffle. Randle likely will fall into that category tonight, particularly on DraftKings.
Julius Randle: New York Knicks at Atlanta Hawks
DraftKings $9,000, FanDuel $8,100, Yahoo $38
Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 8.1%, FanDuel 30.9% Yahoo 22.2%
Clearly Randle is 10-15% underpriced on FanDuel and Yahoo for this matchup. DraftKings got the pricing right, but we should have plenty of discount dandies popping up tonight when news and lineups come out in the hour before tip-off. Luka Doncic, James Harden, Alec Burks, Tristan Thompson, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose and Dwight Powell are among the many players who could sit tonight.
In his six games under new head coach Tom Thibodeau, Randle has been averaging a whopping 37.4 minutes per game. This is a full five minutes more than last season. While 35-36 minutes is probably a better baseline as the season progresses, let’s enjoy the extra couple minutes we have been seeing. On the year he is averaging 21.2 points, 10.5 rebounds, 7.2 assists and 1.2 combined blocks. This is a cherry matchup with Atlanta that we will want to be a part of tonight.
Zion Williamson: New Orleans Pelicans vs. Indiana Pacers
DraftKings $7,900, FanDuel $7,500, Yahoo $35
Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 10.7%, FanDuel 26.5% Yahoo 13.6%
Similar to Randle, Zion Williamson may get overlooked by the masses once we are certain who will be in and out tonight. Gamers are going to want to reach for the stars with Harden, Doncic, Trae Young, etc. and may overlook the next tier of talent. Last season the No. 1 selection of the 2019 draft averaged 27.8 minutes per game and 1.23 fantasy points per minute. This year he is averaging 30.8 minutes and 1.09 fantasy points per minute.
So why point this out? Well, if we take out the laugher where the Pelicans crushed the Thunder by 33 points and Williamson played just 17.5 minutes and took only six shots, he has an average of 33.5 minutes per game and 1.1 fantasy points per minute. I think Williamson is going to be closer to a 1.3 or 1.35 fantasy point per minute performer. Even splitting the difference between last year’s rate and his first six games with his higher court time, we project to nearly 40 fantasy points, which still has plenty of upside. Indiana is a pedestrian rebounding team, and Williamson has the opportunity to excel tonight.
NBA DFS Picks: Risky Value
Marvin Bagley: Sacrament Kings at Golden State Warriors
DraftKings $5,500, FanDuel $4,800, Yahoo $22
Ownership Rating (preliminary run): DraftKings 19.8%, FanDuel 36.1% Yahoo 7.2%
Monday night has a very compressed game schedule with eight of the nine contests going off between 7:oo p.m. and 8:00 p.m. EST. This leaves the lone late-night hammer with arguably the best fantasy environment of the night, though New York – Atlanta comes very close.
Inherently gamers want to have extra player minutes remaining, aka PMR, or they feel like they are losing when their currently winnings goes down because all of their players have completed their games. While it seems like this is true, that is just a fallacy, as we should consider each game independently and not based on the order of the schedule. That said, we will want to have a piece or two of this one on most our rosters.
Using the NBA rotations feature on AddMoreFunds.com, we can see that Marvin Bagley has played in the fourth quarter in just three games this year. He did not see a minute in the final frame of the other two. Additionally, he is averaging just 2.5 minutes when playing in the fourth quarter, and he has not actually been on the court at the end of the game. Essentially the oft-injured youngster is being supplanted by Richaun Holmes as the lone big, and then Cory Joseph is coming in to provide additional shooting and ball handling. This is important to note since Bagley is drawing a lot of attention today, and he may end up playing only 23-25 minutes, thus capping the upside of a wildly popular play.
 Yahoo Daily Fantasy Basketball Discount Dandies
- Delon Wright:Â DET at MIL – $10
- Maxi Kleber:Â DAL at HOU – $10
- Aron Baynes:Â TOR at BOS – $10
SuperDraft Daily Fantasy Basketball Picks
- Zion Williamson:Â NOP at IND – 1.45x multiplier
- Jerami Grant:Â DET at MIL – 1.70x multiplier
- Mason Plumlee:Â DET at MIL – 1.95x multiplier
Final Thoughts
Once again, we will have plenty of value, so we can facilitate a stars-and-scrubs build. Just keep in mind that it is not necessarily going to be the same players across all of the sites.
Be sure to into the Awesemo NBA DeeperDive and Live Before Lock show beginning at 5:00 p.m. EST for all of your up-to-date information and analysis.
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