Welcome to the FanDuel NBA edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best FanDuel NBA lineup!
The purpose of this FanDuel NBA column is to first identify key building blocks that can be used for any roster construction and then identify pivot points to help differentiate your lineup in hopes of a big payday!
For those of you that are new to Picks and Pivots, we will go through the season tracking trends in this space by looking at the winning GPP lineups each day.
One of the most basic questions when starting out the NBA season is how many points should I be targeting for tournament entries? A good rule of thumb is that you want your players to exceed 6x their salary so on a $60k team salary you are looking for 360+ points. If you spread that out over a roster of 9 players, that is an average of 40 points per player.
A good rule of thumb is that you want your players to exceed 6x their salary so on a $60k team salary you are looking for 360+ points. If you spread that out over a roster of 9 players, that is an average of 40 points per player.
Now it is unreasonable to expect every player to hit that target, especially when you are utilizing value plays but remember that is the average you need over the course of your roster!
To start the year, I would simply build your roster with the simple 6x rule in mine and do the math quickly. Can I see player X hitting 6x their salary? For example, LeBron James is priced at $9,600 so in order to return value he would need to exceed 57 points.
This is not a hard and fast rule, but as we go through the season I will track the trends each night to understand the target multiplier we should use as our baseline.
Over the first few days we have seen winning GPP point totals in line with our initial expectations with tournament scores ranging from 373 on Tuesday night to 412.8 on Wednesday. With value ranging from 6.2 to 6.8x salary, we need to shoot a bit higher here in the early season while prices are still soft.
Thursday night we saw scores move back a bit to the 350 range as lineups built around Kawhi Leonard and Blake Griffin were the common top performers!
Friday Night we had winning scores eclipse 400 with another huge 75 point night from The Brow!
Saturday’s Main NBA preseason action kicks off at 7:00PM EST with eight games on the main slate and no shortage of superstars to choose from. Without further ado – let’s get into our top picks for the day!
FanDuel NBA – Top Point Guards
Damian Lillard ($9,100) Looking over the Saturday main slate, the Portland-Denver game has the highest opening total at 212.5 and will be a game I look to get significant exposure to. There is no better player in this contest than Damian Lillard and with a sub $10k price point he has the ability to be the top scorer in the slate and should be the point guard you build your roster around!
Lillard has been phenomenal over the first two games, averaging 48.5 FanDuel points and in an up-tempo game against the Nuggets he has a massive ceiling. The entire offense runs through Dame and his 37.9% usage rate(5th in the league) reflects the amount of touches he sees per game.
We are seeing early on in this season that Lillard is becoming a multi-category contributor, averaging 9.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. With his immense scoring upside, if Lillard is able to rack up non-scoring stats he has the ability to post a 50-60 game with ease in this spot!
Tim Frazier ($5,300) After using him Friday night in every single lineup, I will take advantage of the price staying the same on Saturday and will go back to the well with Frazier against the Spurs.
Frazier is locked into 30+ minutes every night for the Pelicans to start the season and will be one of the best DFS values until his price point increases. Frazier is a multi-category threat who put up 40 FD points in his opening game and followed it up on Saturday night with another 40 point game!
Frazier is averaging 35+ minutes, 18 points and 10.5 assists per game and although the team match-up against the Spurs is not ideal, I do not believe the defense of Tony Parker will be able to slow down Frazier!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards
Giannis Antetokounmpo ($9,500) After putting up 52 FD points on opening night, Antetokounmpo gets to take on the Brooklyn Nets on the tail end of their back to back in a game with an opening total of 208.5
Antetokounmpo is essentially operating as a point-forward this year and is one of the best DFS targets due to his ability to dominate across stat categories. In the opening game. Antetokounmpo put up 31 points on 21 shots and racked up 9 rebounds and five assists while leading the team in usage percentage.
Will Barton ($5,200) With Gary Harris likely to miss another game, Barton should slide into the starting SG spot for the Nuggets in the highest scoring game on the slate and makes for one of the best value targets on this slate.
In the opening game, Barton scored 22 points (29 FD points) in 35 minutes and will be asked to continue to score in bunches for the Nuggets. Barton provides high upside scoring and exposure to the top DFS match-up and should be an easy play in all formats.
Sean Kilpatrick ($3,900) If you are looking for a real value play, allow me to recommend the Nets rookie, Kilpatrick who has provided top end bench scoring for the Nets in the early going. In the opening game scored 18.8 FD points in 22 minutes of action and on Friday night he notched 18 points and 5 rebounds in 25 minutes of action. At this price point, Kilpatrick only needs 23.4 points to hit 6x value and with his ability to score off the bench, the Nets may look to increase his minutes based off his early season impact.
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forwards
Kawhi Leonard ($8,400) This price is a steal. Just lock this play in and do not overthink it!
Leonard is coming off back to back 50 point FD games to start the season and with a favorable match-up against the Pelicans, this is the easiest play on the slate. The only “issue”
here is that the Pelicans are coming off a game on Friday night against the Warriors and are 13.5 underdogs so there is some blowout risk with Kawhi. At this price point however, he should be able to easily pay off his salary and is a must pay for me on this slate!
Maurice Harkless ($5,400) Harkless was named the starting Small Forward for the Blazers this year and responded well in his last game out, racking up 35.6 FanDuel points. Harkless put up 23 points on 15 shots and added 8 rebounds and 2 assists to his state sheet.
This Blazers-Nuggets game has a ton of value and I love the idea of a game stack here to maximize your exposure to this contest!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forwards and Center
Let’s start with Anthony Davis – can you possibly fade a man who is averaging 86.3 FD points? Davis was over 45% owned in GPP’s on Friday night and with fewer high dollar players to choose from, this may be the ideal spot to play the fade as his ownership is going to be astronomical!
One roster construction note – you can build a roster of Lillard, Frazier, Giannis, Kawhi and AD by using players like Kilpatrick and Nurkic. Just something to consider…
Jabari Parker ($6,000) Coming off a strong preseason in which Parker averaged 17.2 points and 6.8 rebounds a game, we should expect the Bucks PF to take a big step up this season as one of the primary play makers on this team.
Parker started out slow in his opening game against a slow-paced Hornets team, but the fact that Parker is locked into major minutes and gets a match-up against a Nets team with no defensive threat at PF, this is a great spot to target Jabari before we see his price rise!
More from FanSided
- Predicting NBA’s Christmas Day Schedule: Lakers, Warriors highlight slate of postseason rematches
- 3 reasons the Blazers should trade Damian Lillard to the Heat and 2 reasons they shouldn’t
- LeBron James, Giannis, Damian Lillard all want that Mbappé money
- Is this Alex Morgan’s last Women’s World Cup with the USWNT?
- 3 reasons the NY Giants won Saquon Barkley contract negotiations
Nikola Jokic ($6,000) Heading back to Denver, another preseason favorite looks to bounce back after a tough opening night performance. Jokic should have no problem operating against an undersized Portland front court and with massive double-double potential, Jokic makes for a great value play as part of a Nuggets game stack!
Jusuf Nurkic ($4,900) Perhaps the best value to be found in this game however lies in the new starting center for the Nuggets who is woefully underpriced for this match-up. Nurkic put up 39.3 FanDuel points in his opening game which would exceed 8x value at this bargain price point.
Nurkic racked up a team high 23 points and 9 rebounds in only 26 minutes against the Pelicans (and Anthony Davis). I do not see any way that Portland can slow down the Nuggets big man and will look to employ this cost-effective, high upside stack in the majority of my lineups!