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 93 slates, we have seen the average winning GPP score at 378.9 a night which means we have needed 6.3x value to win big!
Tuesday’s Main FanDuel NBA action kicks off at 8:00PM 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
Kyrie Irving ($9,000) For those of you who read Picks and Pivots each day, my goal is not to just simply rattle off the top picks at each position – you can find roughly a million other articles that do that- my goal is to give you insight into my roster construction through the players I am slotting in.
First things first, we already know Kevin Love has been ruled out for this game which automatically puts Kyrie Irving in play. With Love off the floor this season, Irving sees a 4% usage increase, leading the team with a 36% usage rate while racking up over 42 fantasy points per 36 minutes.
The issue with Kyrie tonight is his inflated price point combined with the mid-range value PG’s options which I think will lead most to pivot off Kyrie so they can spend their salary on a big name Center and LeBron James.
I will be honest, that was my initial reaction as well – it is easy to slot in guys like Darren Collison and Ricky Rubio for $6k/each, build your 30-40 point basis from each guard and lock in the big name center. However on a three game slate, I think we need to try to think a bit differently and so I am going to pay the inflated price for Kyrie tonight as I expect he will under-owned relative to the other high-priced stars!
Ricky Rubio ($6,800) The Cleveland-Minnesota game has the highest combined team total at 218.5 tonight and the fact that these two teams just squared off a few games ago (also without Kevin Love) gives us the ability to see how the game flow turned out and apply it here.
Rubio was excellent in that game, putting up 14 points, 13 assists and 33.9 FanDuel points. Rubio comes into tonight’s game with 38+ FanDuel points in three of his last four games and seems to have hit his stride with Zach LaVine off the floor.
I expect Darren Collison will be the highest owned point guard considering he is cheaper than Rubio, so I will opt to pivot off him tonight and stack this Cavs-Wolves game with two point guards that struggle on the defensive end!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Michael Carter-Williams ($4,600) I expect Nick Young will be the popular choice at this price point so I am going to look to pivot to the volatile Bulls PG who I believe makes for a perfect GPP play on this slate!
MCW has been a highly volatile DFS commodity over his last few games but keep in mind this is a player who has two 40+ FanDuel point games in his last five contests. MCW has played at least 30 minutes in each of his last five games and with Dwyane Wade and Jimmy Butler questionable for tonight, it could lead to increased usage for the Bulls point guard!
Aaron Afflalo ($3,500) The one challenging aspect of this slate is we have very few ideal value plays to target and with so many high-priced stars, the stars-scrubs approach will be a difficult one to navigate. This slate has a similar look and feel to the Sunday four game slate where the winning lineups essentially cashed on the back of 2 to 3 studs and were able to skate by with 15-20 points from some of the punt plays.
When targeting Afflalo, that 15-20 point range is really the best we can hope for as he has 16+ FanDuel points in two of his last three games. The appeal with Afflalo is really his minutes security as he has played 32+ minutes in three of his last five contests and tonight gets to take on a Lakers team that is 26th in DvP to opposing SG’s!
If you are not comfortable with Afflalo, you can pivot to Brandon Rush who should continue to start for Minnesota and is playing 20+ minutes each night. the Cavs have been getting abused by opposing SG’s lately giving up 40 to Victor Oladipo and 60 to Bradley Beal while also surrendering 20+ to Gary Harris and Monta Ellis. This could be a spot where Rush is able to hit value and allow you to further stack this game!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
LeBron James ($11,500) We all know the drill by now – when Kevin Love is out we can simply fire up King James as he sees a 34% usage rate and puts up 50 fantasy points per 36 minutes played. Tonight he takes on a Minnesota team that he just dropped 58 FanDuel points against only a few games ago under the exact same circumstances.
I love the fact that Cleveland has not played since Saturday as a fully rested LeBron is capable of monster DFS performances. The last time LeBron has 3 days in between games he dropped 56 FanDuel points against Phoenix and I would expect another near 60 point outing tonight for a Cleveland team that has the highest projected point total on the slate!
Andrew Wiggins ($7,900) Similar to my approach at point guard, I am looking for ways to stack this Cleveland-Minnesota game and I believe attacking the Cavs and specifically LeBron at SF is a great way to get an upside correlation play on this slate/
With Zach LaVine out, Wiggins sees a 5% usage boost and puts up over 37 FanDuel points per 36 minutes of action. Wiggins has dropped 45+ FanDuel points in two of his last three outings and the shot attempts are simply off the charts in his recent game logs – 19,17,19, 20, 22 and 23.
With the increased usage that Wiggins is seeing, he could be a massive GPP difference maker tonight and I will have 100% exposure to this SF combination on FanDuel tonight!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Tristan Thompson ($6,400) Ok, before you send me a nasty gram on Twitter – hear me out! DeMarcus Cousins and Karl Anthony-Towns are in amazing spots tonight both with clear 50-60 point upside and I cannot in good faith tell you that either man is a bad play. The reason I am looking to roster Thompson in GPP play is two-fold – first, I think he has the potential to match their upside but second and most important, it allows you a completely different roster build.
Think about it this way – if you roster Boogie or KAT and then lock in a player like LeBron, your roster construction becomes very limited and it will be very difficult to differentiate yourselves in tournaments.
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Also – let me play a scenario for you. In the last match-up against Minnesota, with Kevin Love out, Thompson racked up 18 points, 14 rebounds and 41.3 FanDuel points. In Cousins, earlier match-up with the Lakers, he dropped 44.8 FanDuel points and Karl-Anthony Towns comes into this game being held under 44 FanDuel points in each of his last two games.
You may be shaking your head and thinking that I am cherry picking stats (and well that’s what you do to support your case), but these are real numbers in similar scenarios that put Tristan Thompson at a similar DFS output as two players priced $4-5k higher. This is NOT a cash game strategy but if the scenario above plays out, think of the massive advantage you have on the field in tournaments!
Channing Frye ($4,300) With Kevin Love already ruled out for this game, Frye has been confirmed as the starting PF and this is a match-up he excelled in last time out. In the previous game against Minnesota, Frye put up 30 FanDuel points which is nearly 7x value at this price point and although I expect he will be a popular value target, he has demonstrated upside in the exact same match-up and we can project a similar outcome.
Julius Randle ($5,700) Of all the plays I have listed before this is the one I feel most confident will be overlooked tonight and he makes for one of my favorite GPP targets. PF is a dumpster fire tonight so I expect most will look to punt with Frye and players like Bobby Portis, but there is no PF on the slate that has the upside that Randle has and we can take a shot for under $6k.
Randle’s game logs are littered with sub 30 point fantasy outings which will likely keep the masses away but the Lakers have been off since Friday and you only need to look back to January when Randle was fully healthy when he was putting up 40-50 FanDuel outings with regularity. If you are looking for a GPP pivot play on a three-game slate, Randle is your man!
Best of luck tonight in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!