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Friday, March 29, 2024

NBA Sunday Night DFS Picks 1/22: DraftKings lineup, sleepers for tonight’s daily fantasy basketball tournaments

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What a great time for professional sports! This weekend has featured four fantastic NFL Playoff divisional games, including Cowboys-49ers kicking off tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET. But the NBA has been superb since the calendar flipped to 2023, with the playoff race heating up after the midway point and All-Star votes coming in fast and furious. If you’re planning on watching hoops later on — even if you’re waiting until after the last football game ends — we have a solid DraftKings lineup for you to play ahead of the four-game 8:00 p.m. slate. 

Vote now for your favorite NBA All-Star starters!

You know the deal when it comes to our DFS lineups — we’re not telling you to play each and every player we highlight and draft to our team, but rather showing you one of our many different build strategies and showcasing the players who are hot and/or have a solid opportunity to exceed their projected value. Today, we are anchoring our lineup with two star guards and then loading up the rest of our team with sleepers and under-the-radar value plays. You may call it ‘stars-and-scrubs,’ but we prefer ‘stars-and-sleepers.’

Let’s dive into our lineup, and discuss which players made the cut. Here’s our Sunday night DraftKings NBA roster, and a brief explanation of why each player could help win you some end-of-the-week DFS cash.

Note: DraftKings lineup construction is simple: draft eight players with assigned salaries — one for each position, as well as one guard flex, one forward flex, and one utility — and keep the team under the $50,000 salary cap. 

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Best NBA DFS Lineup 1/22: DraftKings strategy, sleepers for Sunday night

Kyrie Irving 122122

PG: Kyrie Irving, Nets at Warriors ($10,000)

Irving remains one of the more globally-unlikeable players in pro sports, but he still balls with the best of them. He’s averaging 44.4 fantasy points on the season, but he has been otherworldly in the Nets’ past two games to make up for the absence of superstar teammate Kevin Durant (knee). In Phoenix and Utah, Irving combined for 78 points, 18 rebounds, 13 assists, eight steals, and two blocks — and 145.5 fantasy points! If we can even sniff 72.8 fantasy points tonight — at $10,000 against one of the eight worst fantasy defenses against guards in the NBA — we’ll automatically be in the running of most of our tournaments. We’ve seen KI destroy the Warriors before — let’s gobble him up and hope he does it again tonight without KD by his side. 

Damion Lee, 10192022

SG: Damion Lee, Suns vs. Grizzlies ($5,000)

Lee has stepped his game up of late with Devin Booker, Cam Payne, and Landry Shamet all out and Chris Paul an off-and-on questionable most nights. The hot-shooting young guard and former Warrior spaces the floor well and occasionally helps out with boards and dimes — but he’s mostly utilized as a scorer. That’s fine, at $5,000! He’s averaging 17.3 points per game over the Suns’ past six contests, and his usage won’t dip until Book returns to the court. Memphis quietly surrenders the fourth-most points to guards in fantasy hoops. 

SF: Troy Brown Jr., Lakers at Blazers ($3,800)

Another guy who has recently stepped into a bigger role, Brown has been a solid full-game contributor for LeBron James and the Lakers since Anthony Davis went down with his foot injury. Like Lee, Brown has even been trusted with late-game shots, and he has four games of 17-plus fantasy points — including two of 22-plus — over the past 10 days. With the Lakers-Blazers game expected to be a high-scoring one — with an over/under of nearly 240 — we love the value we are getting for a starter consistently hitting 30-35 minutes and stroking the ball. 

PF: Aaron Gordon, Nuggets vs. Thunder ($6,400)

Gordon has quietly been one of the best players on the Thunder this season, obviously overshadowed by reigning two-time MVP Nikola Jokic and the healthy returns of Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. Averaging 32.1 fantasy points, Gordon provides a ton of the intangibles, like pounding the glass or hitting an open shooter with a crisp pass. But he can also explode to the hoop with a rim-rattler as well as he could in his Dunk Contest days, and his jump shooting and free-throw consistency have both improved mightily over the years. Grab this All-Star sleeper for $6,400 against an OKC team that often seems allergic to defense (the Thunder have allowed the sixth-most fantasy points to forwards this season, if you needed some corroborating stats for that last statement).

Ja Morant, Steven Adams (Memphis Grizzlies)

C: Steven Adams, Grizzlies at Suns ($5,900)

One of the most likable bigs in the NBA, Adams just continues to excel at pounding the glass and eating up his opponents on the interior. He also serves as a damn good Ja Morant bodyguard, as we witnessed with the whole Shannon Sharpe courtside fiasco in Los Angeles a couple nights ago. But what really stands out to us with the Adams play tonight: the matchup with the Suns. No star big plays as soft down low as DeAndre Ayton against big, strong centers. The dude cowers. Adams should beat, bruise, and batter Ayton to the tune of 15-20 boards and 10-15 points, not to mention some assists and stocks. 

Shai Gilgeous Alexander 122222

G: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Thunder at Nuggets ($9,700)

It took a while for us to get to our second star guard, since Irving took up our starting point guard spot. But what a mighty fine backup point we have for our DFS squad! SGA is an All-Star starter, if you ask me, never mind how good the team around him may or may not be. If the Thunder were even at .500, he would be getting MVP love right about now. His baseline — hell, his average — is just under 50 fantasy points, but he has shown us plenty of times this season that he can put up 60, 70, or even 80 points with ease. Let SGA make your Sunday — these Nuggets can’t stop average guards, let alone superstars.

jalen williams okc thunder

F: Jalen Williams, Thunder at Nuggets ($5,500)

One of my favorite rookies of the 2022 NBA class, and one of my favorite fantasy hoops sleepers all season, Williams can do a lot of things very well. He’s going to be an All-Star one day, but for now he’s just going to remain one of the more valuable DFS assets in the $5,000 range. Help us get the W, J-Dub.

kendrick-nunn-lakers

NBA Getty Images / The Sporting News

Util: Kendrick Nunn, Lakers at Blazers ($3,700)

The Lakers have recently called upon Nunn to do more with the ball on offense, and his occasionally-scrappy full-court defense and hustle points have helped as well. There will still be sloppy (and sometimes downright-ugly) moments, but we can’t complain too much if he logs 19-plus points for the fourth consecutive game. Hopefully at $3,700, he’s the cherry on top of our Sunday night DFS winner!

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