NBA FanDuel Daily Picks and Pivots – December 14
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 45 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 372.9 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Wednesday’s Main NBA FanDuel action kicks off at 7:00PM EST with ten 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
Goran Dragic ($7,400) Looking over this slate, although we have many high-priced stars and some early value plays, going with a balanced approach may be the best way to attack tonight in NBA FanDuel.
Dragic and the Heat get a favorable match-up tonight against an up-tempo Indiana team and are expected to see a pace increase and one of the largest point increases over their season average (5+ points). The Pacers are 21st in DvP to opposing PG’s and Dragic is coming into this game in elite form with at least 38 FanDuel points in five of his last seven games.
Kemba Walker ($7,400) The price point is frankly daring us to play Kemba tonight and it is tough to pass over the discount on a player we were routinely paying over $9k for earlier this season.
Walker has been struggling lately but is still putting up over 30 FanDuel points in five of his last eight games. We typically hear the industry buzz about Kemba when he is at home so the fact he is on the road and scuffling lately may lead him to be under-owned tonight which gives us a great chance to shoot for upside at this deflated price.
Walker will be facing off with John Wall and the Wizards who surrendered 46.5 FanDuel point to Goran Dragic in their last game so this is a match-up with upside for a player I feel will be largely ignored on this slate!
From a GPP perspective, one player I am intrigued by tonight is Reggie Jackson ($5,500). Since his return from injury we have seen his minutes steadily increase (28 in the last two game) and has put up 15 and 17 shot attempts in his last two games. If Jackson can get over 30 minutes tonight in a game against Dallas that most are completely ignoring, this could be a great spot to hit on a low owned high upside GPP play!
NBA FanDuel – Top Shooting Guard Picks
J.R. Smith ($3,500) It is not often we lead off our top picks with a minimum price punt play but I am all over the shirtless Cavs guard tonight (ok that sounded odd but let’s move on).
The Cavaliers have already ruled out Kyrie Irving, LeBron James AND Kevin Love tonight so the offense should run through Smith tonight in a back to back against the Grizzlies.
In this spot last night, J.R. played 34 minutes and put up 33 FanDuel points against the same Grizzlies team he faces tonight so this play is not going to sneak up on anyone but the value is WAY too good to pass up.
I am a huge fan of the Rotogrinders Court IQ tool which allows you to sort statistics to find how it affects players when other players are on or off the court. If you look at J.R. Smith the last two season without the Big 3 on the court, we see his usage spikes 14% to 32.2% and he averages .9 fantasy points per minute.
We can safely project Smith for 30+ minutes so another 30+ FanDuel performance at this price is a lock and load in all formats for me tonight!
Evan Fournier ($5,500) Fournier was a part of my Picks and Pivots yesterday and he responded with his second straight 38+ FanDuel point performance.
The match-up here with the Clippers is not nearly as favorable as his previous two games but the situation Fournier finds himself in remains highly advantageous at this price point.
With Elfrid Payton running the second unit (very successfully) and Nikola Vucevic out/on the second unit, Fournier is the focal point of the Magic offense each night and continues to play massive minutes as their primary scorer.
On a short slate last night, Fournier was owned at 20% in single entry GPP’s on FanDuel so with a larger slate and tougher match-up I expect most will jump off which may give us the chance to roster him at single digit ownership where we can get 6x value again!
NBA FanDuel – Top Small Forward Picks
Kawhi Leonard ($8,300) Kawhi is not a guy I would normally look to roster but with SF looking rough tonight, I expect most will drop down for bargain plays which leaves the very reasonably priced Kawhi in a great spot to build our rosters around.
Kawhi has eclipsed 40 FanDuel points now in three straight games and the Spurs get to take on a Celtics team that is 25th in the NBA in DvP to opposing SF’s. If you are looking to build a balanced roster you are essentially looking for 40 FanDuel points from each player to hit the target GPP score so Kawhi fits into that mold perfectly tonight!
Gordon Hayward ($8,100) With George Hill out, Rodney Hood questionable and Derrick Favors making his return on a minutes limit, this may be one of the last times we can roster Hayward with all those pieces missing which has been a very profitable strategy in NBA FanDuel.
Hayward has eclipsed 36 FanDuel points in each of his last nine games and the Jazz get a huge pace up tonight against OKC who is on the second night of a back to back. Again this play has everything to do with roster construction as I can build a balanced lineup with two 40+ FanDuel point SF’s without having to make a massive salary commitment.
NBA FanDuel – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Trevor Booker ($5,900)/Julius Randle ($6,400) Welcome to the fantasy game of the night! Yes the Nets and Lakers get that distinction as they have the two highest team totals on the slate, are both projected to score more than 8 points higher than their season average AND see the two biggest pace increases on the slate.
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We HAVE to get exposure to this game tonight, the issue is going to be where. The guard spots are a muddled mess that I am frankly looking to avoid as the returns of Jeremy Lin, D’Angelo Russell and Nick Young have completely thrown the guard rotations out of whack which make it nearly impossible to find guaranteed minutes with so many players coming back from injury.
The place I will look to get exposure here is in the front court with Booker and Randle and since these two teams have played once already this season, we have a good point of reference for what we can expect. In that game, Booker racked up 11 points, 10 rebounds and 31.5 FanDuel points while Randle threw down a 14-14-10 triple double for 45+ FanDuel points!
These two teams rank 27th and 29th in DvP to opposing PF’s on the season so stacking your exposure to both these players is my preferred strategy tonight!
Brook Lopez ($7,500) Staying in this game, this is an ideal spot for Lopez to put up a big time game as he did the last time he faced this Lakers squad. In their last meeting, Lopez dropped 30 points, 10 rebounds and 50.5 FanDuel points so at this price point he is an elite play in this match-up and a player I absolutely want exposure to tonight.
The one player I will absolutely pivot to in secondary lineups tonight is DeMarcus Cousins ($11,500) as the he gets an ideal match-up against a Rockets team he already dropped 50 on this season! The biggest bump here comes from the fact Rudy Gay is likely to miss this game and in those instances, Boogie sees his usage jump to a massive 44.4%. If you are looking to pay up at one spot tonight, Boogie is the play for me!
UPDATE: Boogie has been ruled OUT for tonight! This game gets ALOT less appealing now as the Rockets should have no problem handling a Kings team without Cousins or Gay!
Next: FanDuel NBA - Lucky 7 Plays
Best of luck tonight in your NBA FanDuel contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!