FanDuel NBA Single-Game Value Targets: Wednesday, May 1st
We’re getting down to the portion of postseason play where we’re gifted just one game each night, and while we’ll still have several multi-game slates ahead of us, this is the time of year where FanDuel Single-Game contests are at their peak.
The goal with this article is to uncover a few value targets to round out your NBA lineups for this evening. Hitting on the right value targets is key to success and if you can be a little off-the-board with those picks, it does a lot to help you separate from the field. Let’s highlight a few of the top punt play candidates ($10K and below on FanDuel) for the Wednesday night slate…
Paul Millsap – $10,000 – He’s the most obvious of the potential punt play candidates but is someone who has struggled to find consistency so far in the postseason. Millsap finished with more than 22 fantasy points in just one of the seven games against San Antonio but did respond with a strong line in the opener against Portland (31.7 FPs) thanks to an efficient 7-12 shooting. He only played 28 minutes but did deal with a little foul trouble, and I’d expect that number to climb a bit this evening. It’s very likely that Millsap is a popular target given his price and strong Game 1, but he does have ample per-minute upside thanks to his ability to rack up defensive stats.
Al-Farouq Aminu – $10,000 – He’ll almost certainly be a less popular target than Millsap, and Aminu had considerable success against the Nuggets in the regular season. He averaged over a fantasy point per minute in the five meetings with Denver to this point in about 30 minutes of action per contest. He wasn’t counted on for a huge workload in Game 1 (28 minutes), but Portland doesn’t really have any better options at the 4 and front-court depth is a big question mark as it is with Enes Kanter dealing with a shoulder injury. There is suitable upside here at this price tag.
Mason Plumlee – $9,000 – Plumlee played 24 minutes in the opening game, spending some time at PF alongside Jokic while also manning the C spot in the few minutes that Jokic sat. He’s by far the best big on the Nuggets bench both in terms of talent and fantasy appeal, as he can regularly be a fantasy point per minute contributor and is one of the few bench options in this series who can say that. With Jokic playing 41 minutes there aren’t many backup C minutes left, so if Millsap does see his time rise a little this evening, we could see Plumlee shoot back down to about 18-20 minutes of floor time. This is where things start to get risky in a hurry.
Malik Beasley – $7,000 – This may be my favorite true punt play on the slate. At $7K, Beasley doesn’t need to light the world on fire, which is a plus considering he rarely adds much beyond raw points to his stat line. He was able to find the floor for 28 minutes in Game 1 with Torrey Craig taking more of a backseat, and given the matchup that is certainly something we could see continue. The floor is low here, but Beasley is the lone option in this price range with 30 FP upside.
Zach Collins – $6,500 – Collins’ viability is tied to Enes Kanter. It does not appear that Kanter has any shot of sitting out, but after getting dominated by Jokic in 33 minutes on Monday, it is certainly possible the Blazers put more of a focus on defense in the post. Collins seems to have a clearer path to minutes than Meyers Leonard, and Collins frame (7’0) and ability to shoot from distance does make him a suitable bench asset. If Collins can creep into the 20s in terms of minutes with Kanter phased out a little more, there is GPP-winning upside here.
Evan Turner – $6,000 – This one is by far the riskiest of the group, but one adjustment the Blazers may make is to put another potential ball-handler on the floor to take some of the pressure off Lillard (and McCollum to a lesser extent). Turner played about 10 minutes in the opener and wasn’t really a factor in the OKC series, so it’s very possible he simply maintains his current role, but if he were to see an uptick at a very low ownership, the ceiling is immense given how well he’s performed on a per-minute basis of late. He did drop two straight triple-doubles off the bench towards the tail end of the regular season.