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 88 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!
Sunday’s Main FanDuel NBA action kicks off at 12:00PM EST with three 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
Happy Super Sunday All! The NBA is treating us to a nice 3 game afternoon slate as a warm up to the big game so it should be a fun day of DFS! The one big item to watch as we head towards lock is the status of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan who are both questionable to play against the Nets. If they are out, Cory Joseph and Norman Powell would become essentially must plays and with this being the first game of the day we should have news before lock!
Russell Westbrook ($12,400) On a three game slate and with tons of value plays on the board, paying up at PG is the way to go today and there is no better foundation for your FanDuel NBA rosters than Mr. Triple Double himself!
Westbrook is coming off a massive 72 FanDuel point outing in his last contest and faces off against Damian Lillard who has one of the worst individual defensive ratings of any PG in the NBA! Westbrook was quiet in their earlier match-up this season with only 32 FD points but his previous two games against Portland he dropped 59 and 60 FD points.
The price is high on Westbrook but assuming Lowry and/or DeRozan is out, we have easy value that allows us to lock in the best raw point performer on the slate!
Austin Rivers ($5,900) If Kyle Lowry does play and we are not able to utilize Joseph, Rivers makes for a nice mid-range target who should get the benefit of playing a Celtics team without Avery Bradley.
Rivers is locked into major minutes, having played 36 minutes in four of his last five games and is averaging 29 FD points per game which puts him right at 5x value. Rivers is a lock and load cash game option but I would not hesitate to use him on this slate in GPP’s as small slates like this will typically see lower than normal GPP winning scores.
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards
Norman Powell ($4,800) I expect DeMar DeRozan to miss this game on Sunday and the fact that the line/totals are already out would lead me to believe that Vegas does too. Powell is a lock and load play for me at SG today as he gets to face a Nets team that is ranked 29th in DvP to opposing SG’s.
In the last meeting between these two teams, Powell put up 35 FD points in only 26 minutes of action in a game where DeRozan actually played so we should feel very confident about rolling out Powell if he is going to see 30+ minutes! Powell has hit 6x value in three of his last seven games and I want as much exposure as I can get to the Raptors in this game.
Toronto sees the biggest pace increase on the slate and is expected to score 5.2 points more than their season average while having the highest implied total on the slate. We will keep an eye on the injury news here but Powell will likely be the first player I lock into my lineups today!
J.J. Redick ($4,900) The return of Blake Griffin to the Clippers has allowed Redick to operate more freely on the offensive end and has responded with 26.9 FD points over his last two games which would put Redick right at 5.5x value at this price point.
Redick and Rivers are players that I will look to utilize if my roster construction calls for players in that price range as I do not believe they have massive GPP upside but they have very solid 5x floors which allows me to build a safe foundation in my roster construction especially if I am looking to play more multipliers than strict GPP’s on this slate.
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Jae Crowder ($6,500) Small forward is UGLY on this slate and I will happily lock in the safety of the Boston SF as he sits as the most expensive player at his position! Crowder has really stepped up his game in the absence of Avery Bradley and has 30+ FanDuel points in four of his last six games and no game with less than 26 FD points.
The Celtics have the second highest team total on the slate and the Clippers are ranked 24th in DvP to opposing SF’s which makes Crowder a fantastic play at this mid-range price point!
DeMarre Carroll ($3,700) Heading back to Toronto, Carroll will likely be the chalk small forward play on this slate as his price point is entirely too low for a match-up against Brooklyn. In three previous match-ups this season with the Nets, Carroll has averaged 24 FD points per game which would exceed 6.1x value at this price point.
If Kyle Lowry and DeMar Derozan are forced to miss this game, Carroll will likely be asked to carry even more of the load offensively and would make for an interesting all value stack with Powell and Joseph. Regardless of the status of the Raptors stars, I am happy to lock in a player who has played 37+ minutes in two of his last three games against a team that is giving up the most fantasy points to opposing SF’s this season!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Blake Griffin ($9,200) With so many value plays at SG/SF, paying the premium for Blake Griffin here against the Celtics feels like the best use of our salary cap space! Griffin has played 30+ minutes in each of his last two games while racking up 48 and 49 FanDuel points!
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The Celtics are a team we can attack inside as I do not expect Amir Johnson or Jonas Jerebko to be able to slow down a fully healthy Griffin. Simply take the free square here and lock in a player that has 50+ point upside for under $10k on FanDuel!
Al-Farouq Aminu ($5,300) The second PF spot on FanDuel is much more difficult to navigate which is why I am making sure I lock in Blake in every lineup where I need to roster 2 PF’s! Of all the remaining PF’s, Aminu is one of the steadiest options on the board as he has put up at least 25 FanDuel points in three of his last four games.
OKC is ranked 22nd in DvP to opposing PF’s on the season and Aminu has played at least 28 minutes in each of his last 6 games which gives us the stability we want on a short slate!
Brook Lopez ($7,200) Center is probably the deepest position on this slate with 5-6 legit options we can choose from. Of all the available centers, Lopez is one of my favorite GPP options as he has flashed the upside we are looking for in this exact match-up already this season!
In the two previous games Lopez has played against Toronto, he has posted 34.1 and 42.8 FanDuel points against the Raptors and with the early game “stability” as the sole 12PM EST tip, I am looking to get as many confirmed players into my lineup after back to back days of being burned by Jimmy Butler and Kyrie Irving!
Next: Super Bowl MVP Predictions
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests today and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!