FantasyDraft NBA DFS picks: Wednesday, December 25

Russell Westbrook remains underpriced at just $16,200 on FantasyDraft. Westbrook’s playing time has increased recently as he has gone from playing about 35 minutes in competitive games to playing at least 40 minutes in three of his last four. I don’t expect 40 minutes to be the standard going forward, but it is nice to see that we can count on 37-plus at this point. Over the last month, Westbrook has averaged 1.30 FantasyDraft points per minute with a 32.8 percent usage percentage and 32.6 percent assist percentage.

Kyle Lowry leads the NBA with 38.1 minutes per game this season. He has a tough matchup against the Boston Celtics, who rank 7th in defensive rating and 27th in pace over the last month, but he is still affordable and should see huge minutes. Pascal Siakam remains out for Toronto, which means that about 25 percent of Lowry’s minutes should come without Siakam or Fred VanVleet on the floor. Lowry has averaged 1.38 FantasyDraft points per minute this season in 170 minutes without either of them on the floor, posting a 29.6 percent usage percentage and 46.2 percent assist percentage. He has averaged 1.15 FantasyDraft points per minute alongside VanVleet without Siakam, which will be the case for about 75 percent of his minutes. That comes out to about 1.21 points per minute and I expect about 40 minutes from Lowry. Even if we discount the per-minute production for the difficult matchup, he projects as a strong play at his $15,400 salary.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is the best per-minute fantasy point producer in the NBA by a pretty wide margin. His biggest issue is that he has only averaged 31.1 minutes per game this season, in large part because Milwaukee is so much better than almost every team that they play. The Bucks are only three-point road favorites today against the Sixers, however, so this game has as good a chance of being competitive as any. Giannis usually plays around 36 minutes in competitive games, we just tend to forget because they happen so infrequently. The likelihood that this game is competitive, combined with it being a Christmas game, is enough for me to project 36 minutes for Antetokounmpo. For what it’s worth, he played 35 minutes in a 14-point win over the Knicks last Christmas. Giannis has averaged 1.97 FantasyDraft points per minute this season. He has a tough matchup against the Sixers, but the probability that he plays increased minutes more than makes up for that.

LeBron James is extremely affordable at $18,000 on FantasyDraft. He is expected to play in this game after missing Sunday’s game against Denver, and I assume that he is not going to be restricted. He leads the Lakers with a 32.8 percent usage percentage this season and also has a massive 48.8 percent assist percentage. LeBron is fifth in the NBA in transition possessions per game, but the Clippers have allowed the fifth fewest transition points per possession this season. Still, LeBron contributes in all categories and is clearly underpriced. He is one of my favorite plays on the slate at his price.

Joel Embiid is one of my top projected players tonight and he is affordable. He has averaged 1.58 FantasyDraft points per minute this season and his salary reflects the fact that he has averaged just 30.5 minutes per game. I have him projected much higher than that today, however, in a marquee matchup against Milwaukee. We have seen Embiid reach 36 minutes in a few games this season and I expect it to happen here as long as he isn’t in foul trouble and the game is competitive. He played 36, 36 and 37 minutes in his three meetings with the Bucks last season and Brett Brown ran him out for 40 minutes in Philadelphia’s Christmas game last year. There is obviously still downside risk on his minute projection since Philly could just run the same rotation they normally do, but I think there is a good chance that he plays more today than normal. One thing working against Embiid is that the Bucks have allowed the fewest post-up possessions per game this season and rank in the 79th percentile in defensive efficiency against post-ups. Embiid leads the league in post-ups per game. I think that the likelihood of increased playing time and his inexpensive salary outweighs any play-type concerns for me, however.

Author
Adam "ShipMyMoney" Scherer has been playing and analyzing DFS full-time since quitting law school in 2016. He has qualified for the 2016 FanDuel MLB Playboy Championship, the 2016 DraftKings Fantasy Baseball World Championship (3x) and the 2019 DraftKings Fantasy Basketball World Championship. You can find him on Twitter at @ShipMyMoneyDFS or by emailing [email protected].

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