FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – February 12
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 91 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 379.2 a night which means we have needed 6.3x value to win big!
Sunday’s Main FanDuel NBA action kicks off at 3:30PM EST with four 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 picks, my overall impression of this slate is to that I plan to play it carefully due to the timing of today’s games. With two games starting at 3:30pm EST and the other two not starting until 6PM and 9PM presents us with a ton of risk due to the early lock. I will look to play primarily GPP lineups and multipliers (tripe/quintuple) when presented with short slates and look to manage my bankroll!
Jrue Holiday ($8,200) The New Orleans-Sacramento game is the final one on this slate but presents us with an elite “late night hammer” in a game I intend to stack tonight! Holiday comes into this game in fantastic form with 50+ FanDuel points in two of his last three games and gets a match-up tonight against Darren Collison who has one of the worst individual defensive ratings of any PG on this slate!
Darren Collison ($5,400) On the other side of this match-up we can stack lock in Collison who should continue to see major minutes and increased usage with Rudy Gay and Garrett Temple off the floor. Ty Lawson is questionable for this game and assuming he sits out, Collison would continue to get all the run he can handle at PG!
Collison has played at least 33 minutes in each of his last six games and has put up 7x value over his last two games! The Pelicans are ranked 26th in DvP to opposing PG’s and the Kings see both a pace increase and projected point boost which makes stacking these point guards an ideal GPP strategy!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Dwyane Wade ($7,900) The big early news we need to pay attention to today is the status of Jimmy Butler who is questionable for today’s tilt with Minnesota and with this game being the first to kick-off, we will be able to get this critical piece of news before lock!
With Jimmy Butler off the floor this season, Wade sees a massive usage boost (over 7%) and leads the Bulls with a 40% usage rate while putting up 42 FanDuel points per 36 minutes of action! Wade has put up at least 30 FanDuel points in each of his last five games and makes for an elite GPP play if Butler is out. If Butler decides to play, I will likely pivot off Wade and look to punt the SG position with the Pelicans SG’s – Tyreke Evans and Buddy Hield and use the salary savings at other positions!
Aaron Afflalo ($3,500) If you are looking for a pure punt play on this slate at SG, Afflalo is one of the better options as he is one of the few minimum priced players with the amount of guaranteed minutes he racks up each night.
Afflalo has played 29+ minutes in three of his last four games and faces a Pelicans team that is 26th in DvP against opposing SG’s. When these two teams played earlier this season, Afflalo racked up 20.4 FanDuel points which would exceed 5.8x value at this price point – exactly the kind of upside we want on a short slate like this!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
DeMarre Carroll ($4,100) Carroll is one of those players on larger slates that I rarely look to roster but on these shorter slates he always makes for one of my top SF plays as his price point never seems to raise even with his starting role for Toronto.
Carroll comes into this game with two 30+ FanDuel points outings in his last three games which would exceed 7.3x value at this price point! Carroll has played 30+ minutes in four of his last six games and should see similar run tonight in a close game against the Pistons!
Shabazz Muhammed ($4,000) With the injury to Zach Lavine, the Timberwolves have primarily used Brandon Rush as the starting SG so far however Muhammed is the player I have the most interest in from a DFS perspective.
Take a look at Muhammed’s field goal attempts in his recent games – 8,13,11,11,11,16,10,11. I always want to target players that are seeing consistent usage and with that many double-digit shot attempts, it is only a matter of time before Shabazz breaks out! Muhammed has hit 6x value in three of his last seven games and if Jimmy Butler misses this game it will open things up tremendously for the Wolves wing players!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Anthony Davis ($11,100) Welcome to the part of our roster construction where we spend all that salary we have saved at SG/SF! On short slates like this, I am always looking to capture the highest raw points and am willing to veer off the 6x value framework when building my roster construction.
The Brow is the player I expect to end the day with the highest raw point total as he takes on a Kings team that he dropped 54 FanDuel points against in their previous meeting. Davis has 50+ FanDuel points in five of his last seven games and with a very underwhelming PF position, the opportunity cost is too high to fade Davis in my opinion as he will likely outscore the other PF’s by 20-30 points tonight!
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Jon Leuer ($4,800) Leuer is one of the better value options on this slate and his price point puts him in spot that will likely leave him over-looked tonight! Leuer just continues to play steady minutes for the Pistons, playing 34+ minutes in three of his last gives games and hitting 6x value in two of those six games!
From a DvP perspective, the best place to attack Toronto is at the PF position as they rank 18th against opposing PF’s and I think Leuer will be a low owned GPP differentiation play on this slate!
DeMarcus Cousins ($11,000) If you are paying up for Anthony Davis on this slate, I love the idea of pairing him with Boogie Cousins and getting full exposure to the two big men in the late game of the slate!
I expect most will look to pay down to Dewayne Dedmon ($4,800) against the Knicks based off his recent play and the earlier start time so Cousins may see lower than expected ownership on this slate! With Rudy Gay and Garrett Temple off the floor this season, Boogie has a massive 38.2% usage rate and puts up 50 FanDuel points per 36 minutes.
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests today and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!