FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – January 6
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 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 67 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 372.6 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Friday’s Main FanDuel NBA 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 Guard Picks
Heading into Friday’s slate we have a multiple games still without lines/totals as we await injury news. The one game I will be keeping an eye on is Cleveland-Brooklyn as if any of the Cavs Big 3 are sitting, I would look to get exposure against an awful Nets defense. For now, I am ignoring them in my picks as there is too much uncertainty but will look to update this article as news breaks.
Isaiah Thomas ($9,200) Looking over the slate initially, I was surprised to see IT4 priced in the same bucket as players like John Wall, Kevin Durant and Karl-Anthony Towns, but his recent production certainly warrants the price hike!
Over his last three games, Thomas is averaging over 53 FanDuel points per game which has boosted his season average to 40.2 FanDuel points per game. The Celtics face off against Philadelphia and currently have the third highest team total on the board with a 13.5 Vegas spread.
The Sixers are a team we should look to exploit as they are 21st in DvP against opposing PG’s and Thomas racked up over 52 FanDuel points against them earlier this year.
From a game theory perspective, if you are fading players like James Harden on this slate (which I am), you want to find players in that next tier that have 50+ point upside that can match those types of players and IT4 is my favorite target. The blow out risk is certainly there but these two teams played a very close game in their last contest without Joel Embiid on the floor so the Sixers may be able to keep this one close enough for Thomas to put up another 50 burger.
Malcolm Brogdon ($4,600) FanDuel sure is taking their sweet time adjusting the price of the starting PG’s price but hey, let’s just keep riding this train while we can!
Brogdon has now played over 30+ minutes in each of his last four games as the Bucks starting PG and is averaging over 29 FanDuel points per game which would exceed 6x value at this price point. Brogdon and the Bucks get a date with a Knicks team they beat on a last second shot their last time on the court and in that game, Brogdon put up 12 points, 8 assists, 6 rebounds and 31.2 FanDuel points.
The only difference in this game is that Kristaps Porzingis will likely return which does impact some other players we targeted on Wednesday, but Brogdon’s role/production should stay consistent and he remains a lock and load value play for me in DFS!
FanDuel NBA- Top Shooting Guard Picks
Giannis Antetokounmpo ($10,700) I live in the Northern New Jersey suburbs in the shadows of NYC and have spent my life watching opposing teams come into Madison Square Garden with some of the most memorable performances I can recall. In this area I certainly do not get a ton of nightly TV exposure to Milwaukee but Wednesday night, I had the privilege (and yes, I meant to use that word) of watching Giannis put on an absolute show in MSG.
As someone who writes about DFS, I typically ignore the name of the player and am looking solely at statistics/price to come up with my line-up but knowing that the Bucks-Knicks played again Friday night, I will tell you honestly, I had no intention of starting my lineup with anyone else. I don’t care what his price is, I don’t care who else is at SG (James Harden), this is the guy I am locking in tonight and cannot wait to watch him again!
Giannis has not put up less than 40 FanDuel points in his last 13 games, and has 50+ in 7 of his last 13 games including his last game out against the Knicks. Lock him in tonight in all formats, it is just that simple.
Evan Fournier ($6,000) Fournier finally returned from injury in his last game and the news broke that he would be “eased” in coming off the bench which led me to take a wait and see approach before rostering him. Well in that game, Fournier was “eased” into 30 minutes of action and I expect we will see him back in the starting lineup tonight!
Fournier and the Magic get a huge pace bump against the Rockets that has a 223 combined team total and a 6 point spread so I want to ensure I have some exposure to the Magic here! Assuming Patrick Beverley plays, Elfrid Payton will be “hands-off” from a DFS perspective while Fournier gets a DvP match-up against James Harden and a Rockets team that is 23rd in the NBA! I love this spot for Fournier and the price point makes him easy to fit in around the other stars!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Carmelo Anthony ($7,900) On Wednesday’s slate we knew that Kristaps Porzingis would be out, which made Melo a must play and he did not disappoint, as he dropped 55.7 FanDuel points against the Bucks in a losing effort.
The return of KP will likely lead most to jump ship off Melo, but I intend to stick with him as the Bucks are giving up the third most fantasy points to opposing SF’s on the season. One of the reasons I am looking to lock in Anthony tonight is that the SF position is going to be difficult to navigate as LeBron James could potentially sit against the Nets and Kevin Durant gets to face a slow-paced Memphis team in a likely blow-out.
If you are not paying up for Melo than you are going into a mid-range that will likely be without Rudy Gay and Robert Covington so it comes down to Otto Porter and Andrew Wiggins? Nothing against those guys, but I will take my chances with Melo in an ideal DvP spot. Watching him leave the court on Wednesday after Giannis shocked the Knicks, this has a bit of a revenge feel to me where Melo is going to want to put on a show for the Bucks fans!
Aaron Gordon ($4,800) Gordon is one of those guys that has likely burned you more often than he has helped you this season but he is one of the best GPP plays at SF as he can significant upside at a bargain price point.
Gordon has been a steady producer over his last three games as he has averaged over 30 FanDuel points which would exceed 6.2x value at this price point. As I mentioned with Fournier, the Magic have the biggest pace bump on the slate against the Rockets and Gordon is a cheap way to get 6x exposure to this game!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Ersan Ilyasova ($5,800) This pick does depend a but on injury news as Robert Covington and Joel Embiid are questionable for this one, which would give a significant boost to Ersan against the Celtics.
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The Celtics have been exploitable all year in the paint as they rank 24th in DvP to opposing PF’s and Ersan comes into the game in great form, averaging over 31 FanDuel points per game in his last four. If Embiid and Covington are out, Ersan will see a 3-4% usage bump and be one of the primary scoring options for the Sixers which would make him an elite value play at PF.
UPDATE: Joel Embiid and Robert Covington are now PROBABLE for tonight. Ersan is a solid play however with these two in the line-up, I would be inclined to find the salary savings elsewhere to pay up for Julius Randle ($7,100). Randle is averaging just under 40 FD points per game and has the GPP upside we are looking for against a banged up Miami Heat front-court.
James Johnson($5,500) With the news that Justise Winslow will be out for the year, James Johnson gets a significant boost for the Miami Heat and in a match-up against the Lakers, we have a great chance to unleash him tonight.
Neck Tat comes into this game having exceeded 33 FanDuel points in each of his last three games which would put him at 6x value at this mid-range price point. The Lakers are giving up the second most fantasy points to opposing PF’s on the season and JJ should be able to approach 33+ points again tonight!
Greg Monroe ($5,500) On Wednesday night, the Monroe-Noah combination was a popular bargain center target and I see no reason to avoid it tonight even with a slight price bump. The return of Porzingis makes me less interested in Joakim Noah and as I watched that game in crunch time, the Knicks seemed content with letting Kyle O’Quinn get the run inside.
Monroe however has emerged as a very steady option finally for Jason Kidd and the Bucks as he now has three straight games with 30+ FanDuel points. The Knicks are giving up the second most fantasy points to opposing centers and Monroe just put up 39.8 points in this spot so I have no issue going back to the well!
Best of luck tonight in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter and Facebook for all the late breaking line-up news and roster updates!