FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots November 15
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 18 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 372.1 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Tuesday’s Main NBA action kicks off at 7:00PM EST with five 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 ($9,500) The Tuesday night slate is very interesting as we get only 5 games to choose from and we do not have a single player priced over $10k on FanDuel. Even with a small slate, there are still a handful of stars to choose from and there is already enough identified value that allows us to load up on a few of the high-end stars.
Lillard is one of the key high-priced players I will be looking to roster as he gets a match-up with the Bulls in a game with the second highest team total on the board at 211. Lillard is coming off a 57.6 FD point outing in his last game against Denver when he scored 32 points, pulled down 8 rebounds and racked up 6 assists and 4 steals. I do not expect that Rajon Rondo will be able to slow down Lillard in this one and he makes for one of the best uses of your cap room on this abbreviated slate!
D’Angelo Russell ($5,800) One of the reasons we can afford to pay up for multiple stars on this slate is that the Nets-Lakers game offers a ton of value options to spread around our lineups. With the highest combined team total on the slate at 220.5, this is one of the best games to target for fantasy goodness as we get two high tempo teams that do not pride themselves on defense!
The Nets are a top 7 DvP match-up at every single position so every single Laker is in play on this slate but I love the salary savings and upside that Russell provides on Tuesday. Players may look at Russell’s game logs and see he has not topped 30 minutes in each of his last 6 games so I expect the ownership to be low but considering the match-up and high scoring projection, this is a spot where if given the minutes, Russell could crush value!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards
DeMar DeRozan ($9,200) All season long I have been looking to fade DeRozan as his rising price tag and scoring dependent output make him a risky play at his elevated price. It seems though that each night I have played the fade, DeRozan continues to bite me and on a short slate this may be a spot where we have to eat chalk and play a guy that is performing at a career best level.
DeRozan is averaging 44.9 FD points per game and has eclipsed the 40 point mark in all but one game this season. The match-up against Cleveland may scare some away but in the same spot earlier this season, DeMar put up 32 points and 44.4 FanDuel points which is right at his season average.
Josh Richardson ($4,000) As long as Goran Dragic remains out and Richardson continues to start at PG for the Heat, he makes for one of the best value plays on the board! With Dragic out of the lineup, Richardson has had to face two tough tasks against the Jazz ans Spurs but responded well with 26.6 FD points (6.6x) against the Jazz while struggling with 14.2 FD points against the Spurs on Monday night. Even in the tough game on Monday, Richardson saw 28 minutes of action so we know the minutes will be there again Tuesday night!
Assuming Dragic is out again on Tuesday, Richardson finally gets a favorable match-up as he gets to face off with an Atlanta Hawks team that is giving up the 5th most fantasy points to opposing point guards and is in prime position for 6x value at this price point considering his role!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forwards
Jimmy Butler ($8,600) Of all the high-priced stars on this slate, perhaps nobody comes into Tuesday on a better roll when it comes to fantasy production. Butler has eclipsed the 60 FD point mark in 2 of his last 3 games and gets to take on a Blazers team that is middle of the road in terms of DvP to opposing SF’s.
What has been most impressive recently for Butler is that he is not only contributing career highs in points per game while racking up rebounds/assists but he also has 16 steals in his last 4 games! With the price point being under $9k, Butler is a must play for me at SF on this slate and will be a foundation piece in all lineups I build on Tuesday.
Bojan Bogdanovic ($4,000) I expect most will look to pay the $300 more for Rondae-Hollis Jefferson after his recent big time outings so pivoting to Bojan in the same game may be a great way to differentiate yourself in GPP’s.
Bogdanovic is playing over 30 minutes a game in his last 5 contests and with the Nets still banged up without Jeremy Lin, there is a ton of usage to go around! As I mentioned already this game has the highest team total by almost 10 points and with many of the players at bargain price points, locking in these punt plays allows us to spend up elsewhere on the slate!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forwards and Center
Julius Randle ($6,400) Randle comes into Tuesday with over 30 FD points in 4 of his last 6 games and gets a match-up with a Nets team that is giving up the 3rd most points to opposing PF’s on the season!
Randle is one of the most consistent options on the Lakers and he gives us mid-tier exposure to a team that has the highest projected point total on the night in a significant pace up game against Brooklyn. Stack the Lakers tonight!
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Nemanja Bjelica ($4,000) Just prior to lock on Sunday it was announced that Zach Lavine would miss the game with an injury and Bjelica would get the start for Minnesota. For those of you lucky enough to make the late swap, Bjelica responded with 24 points, 8 rebounds and 3 steals for a whopping 45 points at only $3,500! Bjelica has seen his price rise to $4k but if he gets the start again on Tuesday he makes for a tremendous value play!
Hassan Whiteside ($8,500) On this slate center is going to come down to Whiteside or Karl-Anthony Towns and with only $100 separating them it should be easy to pivot back and forth if submitting multiple lineups.
The match-up actually favors KAT as he takes on a Charlotte team that is 20th in DvP versus opposing centers while Whiteside faces an Atlanta team giving up the fewest points to opposing centers. What intrigues me about Whiteside is the increased usage without Dragic on the floor as we saw in his last game against San Antonio when he dropped 23 points and 17 rebounds in a 48.9 FD performance.
With essentially no difference in price, I would look to pivot at center between these two in your lineups so that you can get exposure to both with Whiteside the higher upside GPP play!
Best of luck on Tuesday night in your FanDuel lineups – we will see you back here on Wednesday!