Fantasy basketball tips and projections for Friday - ESPN

ESPN's fantasy basketball and basketball betting tips cheat sheet is your pregame destination for basketball betting predictions and our best intel and data, featuring ESPN's proprietary Basketball Power Index (BPI) to help you make smart fantasy and wagering decisions. Fantasy advice is based on ESPN 10-team leagues.

New this season, ESPN Analytics will also generate daily NBA fantasy projections. By combining historical player and team data and specific game factors ESPN is able to accurately predict player box score stats. Accounting for injuries, trends in playing time, and other factors impacting future performance the statistical models can be used to help NBA fantasy players gain an edge in their league.

Despite the mindset of NBA players to be more focused on how many games they can play as opposed to how many games they can miss this season, the injuries and missed games are starting to pile up. LeBron James, Lauri Markkanen, Zion Williamson and Donovan Mitchell all sat out with injuries on Thursday, and Luka Doncic and Jimmy Butler have already been ruled out for Friday. There are probably more DNPs coming, so keep a close eye on the news wire Friday afternoon.

Friday's light six-game slate features the Wizards at Golden State on ESPN at 10 p.m. and five other games that lack a ton of fantasy appeal. Set your lineups, go to your Christmas parties and figure out what happened the morning after. The Warriors should destroy the Wizards on the World Wide Leader tonight.

Joel Embiid is sure to have a field day against the Raptors, Nikola Jokic should rock the Nets, Stephen Curry will have his way with the Wizards, and De'Aaron Fox and Devin Booker should try to destroy each other tonight. Keep an eye on Trayce