5 NBA FanDuel Value Plays to Target on 2/7/19

Nerlens Noel, C, Oklahoma City Thunder

FanDuel Price: $3,600
Projected FanDuel Points: 15.0
Projected FanDuel Value: 4.16

There aren't a ton of traditional avenues for finding value on tonight's relatively small slate. There aren't really many injuries to major players that have arisen overnight and no major trades impacting teams have happened -- yet. As such, we need to look elsewhere for value. One such place to look for it is by looking for potential increases in minutes due to blowouts.

If you believe that the Grizzlies are going to be blown out -- and there are a lot of reasons to believe that it will happen tonight, given their opponent and their skeleton roster -- then Thunder backups, like the aforementioned Schroder, should be on your radar to use as value plays this evening. One player with the ability to rack up points in limited run is Nerlens Noel.

Noel is averaging just 17.8 FanDuel points this season, but he is doing so in just 14.3 minutes per game. Even a small boost to 20 minutes tonight -- which, given the 14-point spread, is not an unreasonable assumption -- would be enough for him to return a solid value at his efficient clip of 1.24 FanDuel points per minute.

There is no denying the fact that if you use Noel, you're gambling on his playing time. Sometimes, however, taking a risk is exactly what you need to do to win.

Ian Goldsmith is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Ian Goldsmith also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username zoidbergs_revenge. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.