FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – January 8
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 69 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 373.2 a night which means we have needed 6.2x value to win big!
Sunday’s Main FanDuel NBA action kicks off at 8:00PM 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 Guard Picks
After a great Saturday Night for Picks and Pivots where we racked up a score of 373.8, we head back to the hardwood on Sunday where FanDuel has a split slate throughout the day. The All-Day slate starts at 12PM EST with a three game early slate at 2PM and finally the Main slate at 8PM EST. There is too much uncertainty in NBA lineups for me to feel comfortable playing the all-day slate with the main set of games not kicking off until 8 hours later so I will likely avoid the early slates altogether.
Kyrie Irving ($8,900) Initially I was disappointed we only had a five game main slate but the more I dig into it, the more I really like our options. The Cavaliers and Suns open up with a combined 218 total and the Cavs see one of the biggest pace bumps of any team in action against an up-tempo Suns team.
The best place to attack the Suns on the season is at point guard as they are ranked 24th in DvP to opposing PG’s and with Kyrie still priced under $9k, we can target a high upside play at a reasonable price. Kyrie returned to action on Friday against the Nets and put up 45.6 FanDuel points in 36 minutes against the Nets while hoisting 26 field goal attempts! On a short slate like this, I think we need to have exposure to the Cavs Big 3, and I believe the other positions can be filled outside of this game which makes Kyrie my preferred target.
Elfird Payton ($6,200) The Magic-Lakers game may be the best place for us to attack from a DFS perspective as the game has a combined team total of 216 and with a 2 point Vegas spread should provide a full complement of minutes for the games biggest stars. Perhaps the best part of this game is that we can utilize the majority of the players here at bargain price points which makes it much easier to pay up for the slates stars.
Payton gets to face off against a Lakers team that is ranked 26th in DvP to opposing PG’s and had significant success in this match-up just a few weeks ago. In that game, Payton played 30 minutes while racking up 25 points, 9 assists and 45.1 FanDuel points. With Payton now locked into the starting line-up, he makes for an elite GPP play and will be a core play for me tonight!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Evan Fournier ($5,800) The Lakers are an exploitable match-up across the board as they rank 26th or worse in DvP against every single position so you can realistically target every single member of the starting 5 on the Magic!
With Fournier now back from injury and in the Magic starting line-up, he will go back to being the team leader from a usage perspective as he has been all season. Fournier has now played 30+ minutes in both games since his return from injury and has taken 13 and 14 shot attempts in those contests. For under $6k, I love the idea of rostering a player who has guaranteed minutes and a high usage as it builds a safe floor for our roster while providing upside due to his favorable DvP match-up.
Devin Booker ($5,800) Honestly, copy and paste what I said about Fournier and apply the same logic to Devin Booker tonight. Booker is locked into 30+ minutes a night and has 19 shot attempts in three of his last five games and tonight he gets a match-up against a Cavs team that is 26th in DvP to opposing SG’s.
From a roster construction perspective, I love the idea of pairing Fournier and Booker together as the price point is such that we have significant flexibility to pay up elsewhere while not foregoing upside. Both players should have very safe floors with DvP match-ups that could lead to either/both having big time GPP nights!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Kevin Durant ($10,200) When looking over roster construction on this slate, we can basically pick between Stephen Curry/LeBron James for the same price as Kyrie Irving/Kevin Durant. I love the idea of these pairings as we can get exposure to one star from each team but the key will be making sure we pick the right pairing.
Durant and LeBron have similar DvP match-ups as the Kings/Suns are ranked 21/22 in DvP to opposing SF’s so I think you can realistically roll out either of them tonight. In my roster construction, I want to ensure I have Warriors exposure so I will lock in Durant here who has back to back 50 points outings on FanDuel.
Aaron Gordon ($4,800) If you read Picks and Pivots consistently you will notice I have a tendency to go back to value plays over and over again and Gordon is one of those guys I find myself rostering often. As we mentioned, the Lakers can be attacked from every position on the floor and are ranked 28th in DvP to opposing SF’s.
Gordon comes into this game with 35+ FanDuel points in two of his last three games which would exceed 7.2x value at this price point and he will be a core play for me as part of a Magic stack that allows me to pay up for the Warriors/Cavs stars.
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Andre Drummond ($7,800) and Tobias Harris ($6,000) The Portland and Detroit game was postponed to tonight due to weather so we can head back tot his spot and attack to Pistons big men in an elite spot against Portland.
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On the season, Portland is ranked dead last in DvP to opposing PF’s and 29th against opposing Centers so this is a spot that both Drummond and Harris should excel in. I love the idea of utilizing this pairing as Harris plays off the bench and will dominate the usage on the second team which should not cut into Drummond’s production with the starters.
Harris has not had below 30 FanDuel points since he moved to the bench and remains one of the steadiest options to build around. When building my rosters, I always will shoot for upside but I like to build in guys I feel like have solid 30-40 point projections locked in as they provide a great foundation for any format you play in.
Drummond is certainly a bit riskier of a play but has the upside we want to target as he has failed to reach 30 FanDuel points in two of his last five games but also has 45+ FanDuel points in two of the other three. This is a great spot for him however as Portland does not have anyone to stop him inside and a 20/20 game is possible!
Derrick Favors ($4,300) The beauty of back to back games is that FanDuel does not have the time to adjust pricing and tonight I plan on rolling our Favors in what is likely the last time we will see him under $5k! Favors played 34 minutes on Saturday night and put up 33.7 FanDuel points which is nearly 8x value at this price point.
There is certainly risk on a back to back but the price point is just far too low for his talent and he is essentially a free square tonight. I will happily eat the chalk tonight as Favors only needs 25 FanDuel points to hit 6x value and he has clear upside for WAY more.
Next: FanDuel NFL Playoff Picks
Best of luck tonight in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR throughout the day for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!