NBA FanDuel Daily Picks and Pivots – December 16
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 47 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 371.6 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Friday’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
Elfrid Payton ($5,700) It is not often that I go out of my way to target Orlando Magic players and I rarely lead my articles off with them. Tonight my friends, buckle up because we are looking at a spot where we can stack the Magic. You may think I am crazy, but this is what happens when you face the Brooklyn Nets defense!
The Magic (yes the Magic) are the second highest projected scoring team on a ten game slate! The Magic are projected to score 112.1 points tonight which is an amazing SIXTEEN points above their season average. You just flat-out do not see variances like that in DFS so this is a spot where we want to target the Magic who not surprisingly also see the largest pace increase of any team on the slate.
If you have been playing GPP’s over the last 7-10 days, you have noticed a common player at the top of some of the winning lineups as Payton has been routinely putting up big time games. In his last 6 games, Payton has two 50 FanDuel point outings (ok one was 49.7 but stay with me) and tonight he faces a Nets team giving up the most fantasy points to opposing PG’s. Payton is incredibly volatile but the upside here is real and if you ever want to throw a GPP dart with him, this is the match-up to do it.
Reggie Jackson ($5,600) Two picks in and if you haven’t noticed, these picks have a strong GPP flavor to them! The breakout game is coming for Jackson and if you have been watching his game logs like I have, you will see a very promising trend that could lead to a big time DFS night!
Jackson’s minutes since returning from injury have steadily climbed up from 18 to 25 to 28 and last game he logged 29.57 minutes. Now take a look at his shot attempts – 9,12,15,17 and 16. The minutes are ready to tip over the 30 mark and Jackson is putting up a ton of shots!
Wednesday night was the first time I had the guts to roster Jackson and he was only 2.2% owned in a single entry large field GPP. As long as Jackson continues to get over looked he makes for a great GPP target and tonight against the Wizards, the Pistons see a pace increase and an uptick in projected points in a game Vegas expects to stay close. Fire up Mr. October tonight!
NBA FanDuel – Top Shooting Guard Picks
James Harden ($11,800) With so much value on the slate and some bargain high upside GPP options we want to target, we have the salary to pay up and lock in some high-priced studs as a foundation of our lineups.
The Rockets have the highest projected team total on the night and take on the Pelicans in the highest combined total game of the night. Harden gets an extremely favorable match-up against a Pelicans team that is giving up the 26th most fantasy points to opposing teams. The Rockets are expected to see an uptick in pace and points scored tonight so this is a great spot to get exposure even with a double-digit Vegas spread.
Last season, in his final two games against the Pelicans, Harden put up 62.2 and 65.9 FanDuel points while averaging 37 points, 11.5 rebounds and 7.5 assists. Expect The Beard to flirt with a triple double again tonight in an elite scoring environment!
Sean Kilpatrick ($5,400) The Brooklyn-Orlando game should be chock full of fantasy goodness and Kilpatrick is my favorite way to get exposure to this game from the Nets side. With Jeremy Lin coming back, many expected it to signal the end of Kilpatrick’s value but with Lin questionable for tonight, Kilpatrick should continue to see a high usage as a primary ball-handler in Brooklyn’s offense.
In his last game out against the Lakers, without Lin in the lineup, Kilpatrick notched 33.3 FanDuel points which is right in line with the 33.7 and 34.2 he put up in his previous Lin-less games. As long as the Nets PG remains out, Kilpatrick is a great play on this slate as he should be a focal point of the Nets offensive attack.
NBA FanDuel – Top Small Forward Picks
Aaron Gordon ($4,700) Coming into this season, Gordon was a popular breakout candidate however he has struggled so far this season to find his footing in the Magic rotation. In his last game out, Gordon finally showed that breakout potential with a career night scoring 33 points and racking up 41 FanDuel points in 40 minutes against the Clippers.
Tonight, Gordon gets the perfect match-up to continue that hot streak as he faces a Nets team that is dead last in DvP to opposing SF’s this season. Gordon is a great play in any format tonight and if Nikola Vucevic is ruled out again it will only further enhance his value as an elite play for NBA FanDuel!
Robert Covington ($5,000) If you play DFS regularly than you have likely been burned by Covington but I am ready to roll him out in GPP play tonight! Covington gets an elite match-up with the Lakers tonight who are 29th in DvP to opposing SF’s!
Covington’s recent performances should give us additional confidence as well as he has played at least 30 minutes in each of his last 3 games and over his last 2 games has averaged 21 points, 9.5 rebounds and 35 FanDuel points per game. Roll Covington out tonight in tournaments as the 6x upside is clearly there in this match-up!
NBA FanDuel – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Anthony Davis ($11,800) With so many value options tonight, especially in the up-tempo Magic-Nets game, this seems like a great spot to go stars/scrubs and use our salary savings to lock in both the Beard and the Brow as they face off against each other!
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Davis continues to put up massive numbers each night and although the DvP numbers are relatively neutral here, I don’t see how Clint Capela or Ryan Anderson is able to defend Davis tonight. The Rockets do not have the interior defense to slow down The Brow and I love the idea of a mini-game stack here with the two high-priced stars in the highest scoring game of the night!
Ryan Anderson ($5,300) Whenever Houston is in a pace up game, I always am intrigued by Ryan Anderson and against a Pelicans team that is 27th in DvP to opposing PF’s, this is an ideal spot to fire up Ryno!
Anderson comes into this game in good form as well, averaging 30 FanDuel points per night and is a cost-effective way to build off the Davis-Harden mini-game stack and maximize your exposure!
Bismack Biyombo ($4,600) One last Magic player to touch on here and this one is going to be contingent on the status of Nikola Vucevic. If Vooch is out again tonight, Biyombo will see all the minutes he can handle as he has played at least 33 minutes in each of his last three games. The Nets are 29th in DvP and with Brook Lopez essentially allergic to rebounds(seriously how does a 7 footer average only 5 rebounds a game), Bismack should absolutely clean up on the boards tonight!
Next: FanDuel Lucky 7 NBA Picks
Good luck tonight in your NBA FanDuel contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the latest lineup news and roster updates!