NBA FanDuel Daily Picks and Pivots – December 13
Welcome to the NBA FanDuel edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best NBA FanDuel lineup!
The purpose of this NBA FanDuel Picks 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 44 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 372.3 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Tuesday’s Main NBA FanDuel action kicks off at 7:00PM EST with six 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!
NBA FanDuel – Top Point Guard Picks
Eric Bledsoe ($8,500) With star-studded games between the Warriors and Pelicans and OKC-Portland, this Suns-Knicks game may get a bit overlooked but it is perhaps my favorite spot to target from a DFS perspective on this slate!
This game has a massive 220.5 combined team total and both teams are expected to see a pace uptick in a game that Vegas expects to stay close throughout (3.5 point spread).
Attacking the Knicks back court has been a profitable strategy all year-long and Bledsoe comes into this game playing perhaps his best basketball of the season. Over his last two games, Bledsoe is averaging over 30 points, 8 assists and 51 FanDuel points per game in similarly favorable match-ups. The price is simply far too low for the level Bledsoe is playing at the fact that he is the fourth most expensive PG on the slate may lead him to be overlooked with players option to spend a bit more for the bigger name stars!
Derrick Rose ($6,800) I expect Tim Frazier at $5,600 to be a popular pick coming off his massive triple double off the bench last game and although the spot against Golden State is a good one, I will let others chase the points and I will look to stack the Phoenix/New York game!
The Knicks are projected to score the second most points on this slate at 112 which is over 7 points higher than their season average and they see by far the biggest pace increase of any team on the slate. Any time a team sees their point total and pace projections increase that much you want to target the players who have the ball in their hands the most and locking in the Knicks floor general is a great way to attack this spot!
The Suns have been brutal all season long defending guards as they are 24th in the NBA in DvP to opposing PG’s. The price on Rose has actually gotten a bit high as he will need 40+ FanDuel points to pay it off, but this is the kind of match-up where I believe that upside is achievable which makes him a great GPP play!
NBA FanDuel – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Devin Booker ($5,800) Heading back to Phoenix, if there is one spot we know we can attack the Knicks it is at the Shooting Guard position!
The Knicks are 26th in DvP on the year to opposing SG’s and although Booker has struggled, this is about as perfect a “get right” spot as you can ask for! Booker is locked into 30+ minutes a night and has at least 13 shot attempts in his last six games which shows his role in this offense continues to be massive.
The price point is deflated to a point where we can extract massive profit from Booker as we have seen his 40-50 FanDuel point upside already this year. Hopefully his recent struggles scare some off and we can get him at an ownership discount!
Evan Fournier ($5,500) The Magic may get a bit overlooked in this spot with so many other “sexier” teams on the slate (yeah, I said it). The match-up however with Atlanta is one we should look to exploit as the Magic will get a material pace increase tonight and face a Hawks team that is 23rd in DvP to opposing SG and is now playing an offensive-centric Tim Hardaway Jr. at the position due to injury.
Fournier has been one of the steadiest producers all season long for the Magic and their recent lineup changes have resulted in him being the key focal point of the first team offense with Elfrid Payton and Nikola Vucevic on the second unit.
Fournier is coming off one of his best games of the season when he scored 39.8 FanDuel points on the back of 24 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists and is priced at a spot that allows us to target significant GPP upside in a plus match-up.
NBA FanDuel – Top Small Forward Picks
Carmelo Anthony ($7,800) As long as Melo is priced under $8k on FanDuel, he is going to be consideration any time I fill out my DFS rosters as the price discount off the LeBron/KD/Butler tier is material enough where we can really improve our roster elsewhere without sacrificing much production.
As I mentioned, the Knicks see the biggest pace increase on the slate and have the second highest team total so I am stacking at least two Knicks in this spot. Many will likely chase after the big game Kristaps Porzingis has last time out, but looking at the Suns, we may be best suited attacking them at SF as they are ranked 27th in the NBA in DvP.
P.J. Tucker ($4,400) Writing the night before/early in the morning, we are waiting to see if any value opens up at SF is a spot I am hopeful we get some as the early landscape is rather ugly.
Tucker is a solid choice assuming T.J. Warren remains out as Tucker should be locked into major minutes although he is a very volatile GPP option as evidenced by his game log. In his last game, Tucker played 42 minutes and dropped 31.5 FanDuel points while racking up 9 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks which would absolutely crush value at this price point. However, look back just a few games earlier and you will see a 21 minute 0 point, 0 rebound, 0 assist FanDuel goose egg!
One potential spot for value that could open up would be in OKC as Victor Oladipo is nursing an injury that forced him to miss practice on Monday and if he was out it would open up massive usage across the Thunder lineup, well assuming Russell Westbrook doesn’t just play 1 on 5! Andre Roberson at $4k on FanDuel could be an interesting punt play in that scenario as he would be asked to take on a larger role if Oladipo sat out!
UPDATE: One other punt option that you can utilize in this range is Thabo Sefolosha ($4,300) who has 24+ FanDuel points in each of his last three games while starting for the Hawks. At this price point and with his new role he is flirting/surpassing 6x value nightly so he is worth a look if you want a “safer” option than Tucker!
NBA FanDuel -Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Anthony Davis ($11,900) The question tonight is going to come down to whether you roster Russell Westbrook, the Warriors stars or Anthony Davis (or maybe you fade them all) but this is a night where I am looking to pay up for The Brow as he gets a home match-up against the Warriors.
This game has the highest combined total on the slate and similar to every Warriors game, has a double-digit spread so the blowout risk is always real. The one way this game stays close is if AD simply takes over and he has shown us in this match-up, against a team that is 23rd in DvP to opposing PF’s, that he can do just that.
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Earlier this season, Davis dropped 45-17 on the Warriors on his way to 76.9 FanDuel points and frankly he would have to do something similar here to pay off this inflated salary. On a short slate like this one with multiple superstars, it feels like you are going to have to find a way to fit at least one of them in and I believe AD is in the best match-up to push us above the cash line tonight!
Ed Davis ($3,800) If we want to fit in the Suns/Knicks stars and the Brow, we are going to need to find value elsewhere, and Davis has quietly been killing it for Portland!
In his last two games prior to Monday night, Davis had exceeded 6x value in each game which was primarily due to Al-Farouq Aminu being out with an injury but even in limited minutes he has shown he can produce. In his last game against Memphis he logged 10 points and 10 rebounds in only 18 minutes and with Portland playing on the second night of a back to back, Aminu may get limited run here tonight which could set Davis up for an expanded role.
Tyson Chandler ($5,300) The center position is a spot we can look to pay down at tonight and getting additional exposure to this Suns/Knicks game is my preferred strategy.
The Knicks are 28th in the NBA in DvP to opposing centers this season and Chandler has three straight games with double-digit rebounds, including a 37.2 FanDuel performance his last game out when he racked up 14 points and 21 boards. If you are looking for a salary saver tonight, Chandler is a great mid-level option!
Best of luck today in your NBA FanDuel contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR all day on Twitter for the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!