FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – February 4
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 87 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 378.7 a night which means we have needed 6.3x value to win big!
Saturday’s Main FanDuel NBA 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!
FanDuel NBA – Top Point Guard Picks
Jeff Teague ($7,600) Teague was a wildly popular pick on Friday night against the Nets and he responded with 41 FanDuel points as part of our Picks and Pivots lineup. Tonight, I expect most will jump ship but I will look to continue to roster Teague in a plus match-up against the Pistons.
The Pistons are ranked 25th in DvP to opposing PG’s and Reggie Jackson has the 5th worst individual defensive rating of any PG on this slate. Teague has faced off twice against Reggie Jackson this season and put up 41.8 FD points and 29.6 FD. Teague has put up 40 or more FanDuel points in four of his last five starts and makes for a great play in any format at this mid-range price point!
Reggie Jackson ($6,100) On the other side of this match-up, we can look to Reggie Jackson who has thrived in this match-up against Indiana this season. In his two previous games against the Pacers, Jackson put up 36.6 and 47.4 FanDuel points which would equate to 6x value in both spots while averaging 19.5 points and 11.5 assists in those contests.
Although we have a variety of great high-end plays on this slate, I am inclined to go with a more balanced approach and by stacking the Detroit/Indiana PG situation we can target 6x upside while giving us significant salary relief for the rest of our roster!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards Picks
Devin Booker ($6,900) The Milwaukee-Phoenix game may be my favorite game on this slate as it has the second highest combined team total (217) and a 1 point Vegas spread so we should look to stack our exposure here!
The Suns have the third highest team total on the slate and they face a Bucks team that is 27th in DvP to opposing SG’s on the season. Devin Booker comes into tonight’s game with 30 FanDuel points in each of his last six games and dropped 43 FD points last night against the Kings.
Booker has the highest usage rate of any SG on this slate at 27% and at this price point, we have significant profit potential with a relatively safe cash game floor!
Tim Hardaway Jr. ($5,200) This pick is part analysis and part irrational love for this player. Growing up, Tim Hardaway was my absolute favorite player in the NBA and I followed him from his Run TMC days in Golden State to his epic pairing with Alonzo Mourning to his swan song in Dallas. Watching his son now thrive in the NBA makes me feel old but it is also pretty incredible to watch his development as he becomes an elite scorer for the Hawks.
With Thabo Sefolosha questionable for tonight’s game we should feel confident firing up the son of the Killer Crossover again tonight as he will likely slide into the Hawks starting lineup! Hardaway has put up 38+ FanDuel points in two of his last three games which would exceed 7.3x value at this price point and tonight he gets to face a Magic team ranked 18th in DvP to opposing SG’s. I will be locking THJ into my lineups tonight and may even break out my Dream Team II Tim Hardaway Jersey while watching this game (after my wife goes to bed because I don’t want her to know I still own NBA jerseys from when I was in High School).
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Andre Iguodala ($4,400) and Matt Barnes ($4,000) The Golden State-Sacramento games has the highest combined team total on this slate at 226 but with a 12 point spread the blowout potential is very real. The Small Forward Position is one where I am going to look to double-punt and this game gives us two value options that I believe should continue to crush DFS value and allow us to spend up elsewhere.
Iguodala comes into this game hitting 5x value in four of his last five games and has hit 6x value in two of his last three contests. With Zaza Pachulia out of the lineup, the Warriors will look to utilize their “death lineup” more where they feature the Big 4 with Iggy joining them in the starting lineup. In the last five games Iggy has played 30 or more minutes in three of those contests and put up over 25 FanDuel points the last time these two teams squared off. I love the consistent 5x production we get from Iggy each night and the 6x upside is evident with Zaza off the floor!
Matt Barnes has re-entered the starting lineup for the Kings and with Rudy Gay and Garrett Temple out, he is playing major minutes for Sacramento. Barnes has played over 30+ minutes in each of his last two games and has double-digit rebounds in both those contests. Barnes is averaging over 23 FD points in his last three which would put him right at 5.8x value and any time I can get a confirmed starter in a high scoring game for $4k, it is a strategy I will look to employ!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Nikola Jokic ($10,300) Jokic returned to the court on Friday night for the Nuggets and with a “soft minutes restriction” he was the perfect GPP target as he was under 6% owned in GPP and responded with a triple-double and 52 FanDuel points! You would expect that most will jump all over Jokic tonight but the match-up with the Spurs may keep many away but keep in mind this is a player who dropped 56.4 FD points against the Spurs just a few weeks ago on the back of 35 points and 12 rebounds.
More from FanSided
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- Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
- Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing
Of all the high-end players on the slate tonight, The Joker is by far my favorite for tournaments and I will have heavy exposure to him tonight!
Jabari Parker ($7,400) I mentioned earlier the Suns-Bucks game is one I want to target and although I always love to play The Greek Freak, I think Parker is the ideal target from Milwaukee in this game. The Suns are ranked 20th in DvP to opposing PF’s on the season and Jabari comes into this game after dropping 49.2 FanDuel points against the Nuggets last night!
Parker has clear 50 FD point upside as he has hit that threshold twice in his last six games and in a fast paced match-up against the Suns, I would expect he would thrive as in a similar spot against the Rockets just a few games ago he went for 50+ FD points!
Rudy Gobert ($7,900) Center is a position I will look to spend up at tonight and the $7-$8k range is loaded with solid options but the player I want to target is Gobert as the Jazz take on an under-manned/under-sized Hornets team!
The Hornets are 25th in DvP to opposing Centers on this season and with Cody Zeller already ruled out, that leaves Frank Kaminsky, Marvin Williams and the newly acquired Miles Plumlee to try and slow down Gobert. Good luck fellas – this is going to be a Gobert rebound and block fest and I want all the Stifle Tower I can get!
Best of luck tonight in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!