After making an appearance in the Western Conference Finals last season, the Dallas Mavericks have underperformed during the first couple of months of the season and enter Saturday with a 15-14 record. However, that mediocrity is certainly no fault of Luka Doncic, who continues to pile up incredible numbers during his fifth NBA season and making a massive impact for NBA daily Fantasy owners. Doncic is averaging 33.0 points, 8.7 assists and 8.3 rebounds per game this year while shooting a career-best 49.9% from the floor and he’s the most expensive player in the NBA DFS player pool as the Mavericks take on the Cavaliers on Saturday night.
But affording stars like Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Zion Williamson or Damian Lillard will require that you make sacrifices elsewhere in your NBA DFS lineup. So how can you strike the perfect balance with your NBA DFS roster, and who are some of the low-cost options that free up cap space to take those big swings? Before you make your NBA DFS picks on Saturday, be sure to check out the NBA DFS advice, player rankings, stacks and top daily Fantasy basketball picks from SportsLine’s Mike McClure.
McClure is a DFS professional with over $2 million in career winnings. He’s also a predictive data engineer at SportsLine who uses a powerful prediction model that simulates every minute of every game 10,000 times, taking factors like matchups, statistical trends and injuries into account.
This allows him to find the best NBA DFS values and create optimal lineups that he shares only over at SportsLine. They’re a must-see for any NBA DFS player.
On Friday, he highlighted Timberwolves center Naz Reid as one of his top NBA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel. The result: Reid had 28 points, nine rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block to return 51.75 points on DraftKings and 52.3 points on FanDuel for an ROI of over 11x on both sites. Anybody that included him in their lineups was well on the way to a profitable day.
Now, McClure has turned his attention to NBA action on Saturday and locked in his top daily Fantasy basketball picks. You can only see them by heading to SportsLine.
Top NBA DFS picks for Saturday, December 17
For Saturday, one of McClure’s top NBA DFS picks is Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who is listed at $9,900 on DraftKings and $10,200 on FanDuel. The 24-year-old was already on the verge of stardom and was well-known to NBA daily Fantasy players as an extremely capable scorer and distributor entering this season but he’s taken a massive step forward in his fifth NBA season.
Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 31.2 points, 5.8 assists, 4.7 rebounds and 1.7 steals per game entering Saturday. He’s been making hay at the free-throw line, where he averages 10.0 attempts per game and shoots 93.0%. Now he’ll take on a Grizzlies squad that allowed him to go to the charity stripe 19 times just 10 days ago and he looks like a major mismatch for Memphis with Desmond Bane (toe) and Danny Green (knee) out.
Another part of McClure’s optimal NBA DFS strategy includes rostering Suns guard Devin Booker ($9,100 on DraftKings and $8,700 on FanDuel). It’s been a quiet couple of weeks for Booker, who has averaged just 15.3 points per game over his last five contests while also missing two games with a hamstring injury.
However, we’re not too far removed from a torrid stretch where he scored 136 points over 103 minutes during a three-game stretch against the Kings, Bulls and Rockets. That’s the kind of scoring that he’s capable of on a nightly basis and he’ll be eager to exact some measure of revenge on Saturday against the Pelicans, after suffering his injury against New Orleans on Dec. 9 and missing another game against the Pelicans just two nights later.
How to set your NBA DFS lineups for Saturday, December 17
McClure is also targeting a player who could go off for massive numbers on Saturday because of a dream matchup. This pick could be the difference between winning your tournaments and cash games or going home with nothing. You can only see who it is here.
Who is DFS pro Mike McClure putting in his optimal NBA DFS lineups for Saturday? Visit SportsLine now to see optimal NBA DFS picks, rankings, advice, and stacks, all from a professional DFS player who has over $2 million in career winnings, and find out.
