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 77 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 nine 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
Before we get into today’s article, I am going to lay out my picks today much differently than I normally do as tonight I am looking to employ a full on game stack of the Rockets and Warriors.
This game has a MASSIVE 237 combined team total, with both teams projected to score 116+ and with a Vegas spread of only 4 points, we can expect massive minutes/usage from this games stars.
Game stacking is something we talk about often and typically we look to employ mini-stacks of key players and spread our roster to other games to get exposure elsewhere but this game stands out tonight as such a unique opportunity, I wanted to explore it further.
Both the Warriors and Rockets are projected to score above their season averages and they see the second and third largest pace increase of any teams on the board! Let’s figure out how we stack this one up!
Patrick Beverley ($5,700) Beverley comes into this game in great form, having eclipsed 37 FanDuel points in two of his last three games which would exceed 6x value at his current price point. Beverley has played 30+ minutes in eight of his last nine games and with Ryan Anderson potentially still out tonight(a big item we need to keep an eye on), Beverley will be leaned on to carry even more of the offensive burden while also being tasked with stopping Stephen Curry!
Rajon Rondo ($4,000) I thought we were game stacking here? This is the one player/position where we need to look outside the Warriors/Rockets game and Rondo has immense GPP potential at this price point.
Rondo will square off with a Hawks team that is 13th in DvP but more importantly gets to play against Dennis Schroder who has the third worst individual defensive rating of any PG on the slate! Rondo has played 20+ minutes in five of his last six games and although he has been splitting time with MCW, I expect there will be a game where Rondo takes over and never lets MCW back on the court. As far as GPP dart throws go, Rondo makes for one of the best value plays as a result of his upside relative to this price point!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
James Harden ($12,200) and Eric Gordon ($6,100) From here on out, we are all about stacking this game and shooting guard is the prime spot to do so as we can choose from either member of the Rockets back-court or opt to pivot off Eric Gordon and grab Klay Thompson for a few hundred dollars more.
I will look to utilize this spot to grab both Rockets players as I believe these are the two best individual plays on the Rockets.
It goes without saying, but Harden is the stud you want to pay up for on this slate. In the first match-up between these two teams, Harden put up 29 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists for 65.5 FanDuel points! If you chose to go with a non-stack roster construction, Harden is the player I would still look to lock in to ensure you have exposure here!
Eric Gordon continues to just dominate usage for the Rockets second team and is a league leader in three-point field goals across the NBA this season. In the previous match-up this season, Gordon scored 23 points and put up over 30 FanDuel points in that game. If Ryan Anderson is forced to miss tonight’s action, it becomes a huge benefit to the rest of the Rockets as they will all see a slight uptick in usage. Without Anderson on the floor this season, Gordon sees a 4% usage bump and is second on the team in usage with 29% while averaging nearly a fantasy point per minute!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Kevin Durant ($10,500) and Andre Iguodala ($4,000) Finally some Warriors exposure here! Similar to my take on Harden, Durant is the top player we want exposure to here from the Golden State side and I would look to get him into your lineup even if you are not going full on game stack.
In the previous match-up this season, KD went off for 39 points, 14 rebounds, 3 steals, 3 blocks and 68.8 FanDuel points! The price is insanely fair on KD tonight and I expect he will be highly owned in every single format, for good reason!
Andre Iguodala may get overlooked but this is the kind of game he could excel in. In the previous match-up against the Rockets, the Warriors rolled out their “Death Lineup” for the majority of the game and had Iguodala play with the Big 4 instead of Zaza Pachulia. In that game, Iggy played a whopping 41 minutes and put up 21 FanDuel points.
Now we may not see the same kind of run minutes wise, but it is worth nothing that Steve Kerr felt Iguodala matched up better with the Rockets in this same spot earlier this season. Iguodala only needs 20 FanDuel points to hit 5x value, a number he has hit in four of his last five games so he becomes a relatively safe “floor” play with immense GPP upside if he gets added run!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Draymond Green ($8,200) The Rockets rank 29th in DvP to opposing PF’s this season and in their earlier match-up, Draymond absolutely abused the Rockets inside! In that game, Draymond put up 20 points, 15 rebounds and 9 assists for 53.5 FanDuel points! The price point here is such that you could roster a player like Green to get exposure to the Warriors with 50+ point upside while spreading out your picks across the rest of the NBA.
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Montrezl Harrell ($5,200) Although Clint Capela is back, the Rockets are limiting his minutes initially and with Ryan Anderson out, Harrell remained in the starting lineup last game out. This kind of up tempo, fast paced game, is exactly the kind of spot we want to target Harrell and he is the one Houston big I would look to get exposure to here!
In the game earlier this season, both Capela and Harrell were active and both played 25 minutes, but it was Harrell who had the better fantasy day as he racked up over 28 FanDuel points versus Capela’s 15.8. The price point and availability of Capela may keep many away from Harrell but this is a great way to utilize his PF eligibility to complete a GS-HOU stack!
Zaza Pachulia ($4,100) This pick may be a bit contradictory as my recommendation for Andre Iguadala was based on the fact that the Warriors went small the majority of the game last time versus the Rockets and Zaza only saw 8 minutes of action. I expect something a bit more balanced in this contest and I am employing a strategy here where I will take both Zaza and Iguodala here.
In the last game, these two combined to play nearly 50 minutes of action (in a OT contest) so if we assume they essentially split time tonight, we are looking to get 20 minutes/20 FanDuel points from each player. If we can do that, we are basically rostering one $8k player who will play 40 minutes and get 5x value.
Over the last five games, Zaza and Igoudala have played 20 minutes each in four of those game games and have hit 5x value (20 FD points) together in three of those fives games.
Well there you have it – let’s stack away and ignore the rest of the NBA tonight 🙂
Best of luck tonight in your FanDuel NBA lineups and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR Twitter all day for the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!