Sunday has a condensed three-game featured slate with a 6 p.m. ET first tip on DraftKings and FanDuel. This slate is loaded with decision points, making it the perfect opportunity to highlight the top NBA DFS building blocks and best picks of the day. Let’s break down Sunday’s core plays, featuring Tyrese Haliburton, Alperen Sengun and other solid value options.
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NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today: Sunday, Dec. 22
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NBA DFS Picks Today: Building Blocks
Tyrese Haliburton: Pacers vs. Kings
NBA DFS Projections
DraftKings: 41.49 | FanDuel: 40.29
NBA DFS Ownership Projections
DraftKings: 10.1% | FanDuel: 15.8%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $8,300 | FanDuel: $8,600
This should be a fun game with Tyrese Haliburton going against his former team and mentor De’Aaron Fox, while Domantas Sabonis is also getting in on the “Remember Me?!” fun.
Over his last dozen games, Haliburton seemingly moved beyond whatever was ailing his shot, knocking down 48.6% of his 15.1 field goal attempts during this stretch, with an impressive 41.9% conversion rate on 9.8 from behind the arc.
In this timeframe, Haliburton is also averaging 36.1 minutes per game, which has enabled him to compile 21.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 8.9 assists, and 2.1 combined blocks and steals. The Kings lost at home to the Los Angeles Lakers 103-99 Saturday afternoon and now are looking at a three-game skid as the Pacers come into town. Sabonis (37), Fox (36), DeMar DeRozan (37) and Malik Monk (36) all saw heavy minutes. Tonight will be the fourth game in seven days for the Kings, though all have been at home, as will their next game against Detroit on Thursday.
Indiana has a bottom-10 defense and a top-10 pace both for the last 10 games and on the season. Sacramento is always happy to run, and the Kings are a middling defense at best. The 237.5 points is the highest game total among the trio of tilts on the docket. Aaron Nesmith (ankle) is out, which is pushing Andrew Nembhard to be one of the three most popular players on both DraftKings (65.4%) and FanDuel (45.4%). Take the saving and find differentiation elsewhere.
Myles Turner is the next best option from Indiana on DraftKings, while Bennedict Mathurin gets than honor on the blue site. Pascal Siakam is a tournament target, though his apex games are hard to project. T.J. McConnell keeps chugging along with metronome-like consistency, logging minutes in the low-20s most games. Steals and assists are his path to fantasy relevance, with points being mostly an afterthought as he rarely attempts anything from long range. He is excellent around the rim, but most of his points come against the reserves when they lose track of the savvy veteran and his off-ball movement.
Wrapping up the Sacramento side, all of the starters are in play, though the bench is tricky now that Kevin Huerter is healthy again. The starters see the vast majority of the minutes, with the back of the rotation constantly shifting based on in-game matchups.
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Alperen Sengun: Rockets at Raptors
NBA DFS Projections
DraftKings: 48.12 | FanDuel: 48.06
NBA DFS Ownership Projections
DraftKings: 30.3% | FanDuel: 37.1%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $8,900 | FanDuel: $8,800
Jakob Poeltl is out tonight, which should have Alperen Sengun operating with impunity in the paint. The 22-year-old has seen his scoring efficiency slip a little from last year (21.1 points to 18.8), but the rest of his stats are in line or better than his breakout campaign. He has a strong floor with 18 double-doubles in his 27 starts while also notching a trio of triple-doubles.
Fan favorite Fred VanVleet will be lacing them up for the first time in Toronto since joining Houston. He was injured last year when the Rockets were north of the border, so expect a warm welcome from the locals. The soon-to-be 31-year-old has not been able to recapture the magic that led to his only All-Star Game appearance in 2021-22, but he has definitely helped the young talent for Houston begin to elevate as a team. This has led to him seeing decreased offensive opportunities, as his role is more akin to that of a steady captain at the helm of the offense. Tonight, though, he could get some extra field goal attempts in his old stomping grounds. If this were a larger slate, he would be an afterthought.
Scottie Barnes will be getting a lot of the defensive attention, but he is the engine behind anything that Toronto has to offer on offense. Jonathan Mogbo is likely to pick up extra minutes with Poeltl out, while Chris Boucher is always lurking and ready to break the hearts of DFS gamers in one way or another.
Amen Thompson, Dillon Brooks, Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr. all stand out on both DraftKings and FanDuel, where they are around 10% to 20% too cheap for this matchup, depending on the player and the site.
Today’s Top Sports Betting Pick
Tyrese Haliburton is absolutely in play for DFS contests, plus we can also look to him in the sports wagering world for the under on his 8.5 made assists prop.
Looking at the screenshot of Portfolio EV, we can see this wager is likely to come to pass 52% of the time; however, with the +110 odds, this works out to an enticing 8.4% expected ROI when factoring in the -107 “True Odds.”
BetRivers, SugarHouse and Unibet are offering +110, which well exceeds the True Odds of -107 and the -105 or worse odds posted on most other books.
Let Portfolio EV handle the heavy lifting and take the guesswork out of finding +EV bets. This powerful tool swiftly identifies inefficient odds, making it easy to spot profitable opportunities.
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Stokastic’s Advanced NBA Statistical Projections have Haliburton projected for 36.8 minutes and 8.35 assists. That is just below the 8.5 target, and since there are no partial assists, it is well below the nine needed for the under to fail. The main thesis here is that there is a decent chance that Haliburton will focus more on scoring, potentially getting into a back-and-forth offensive battle with former teammate De’Aaron Fox. That works out for both DFS and for the under on this line tonight.
