FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – February 24
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 96 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!
Friday’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
Kyle Lowry ($8,300) Friday Night is always a loaded slate in the NBA and tonight is no different, especially at the always deep PG position, but Lowry stands out as an elite play and tremendous value at a price point that feels almost $1k too low.
Lowry gets an ideal match-up against the single worst defender in the NBA, Isaiah Thomas, and this is a spot against the Celtics is has consistently delivered this season. In the previous match-ups against the Celtics, Lowry has dropped 49, 44 and 43 FanDuel points this season which gives him an easy 5x floor at this price point.
In case you were wondering (because I was), DeMar DeRozan played in two of those three games so Lowry was doing this all with this right hand man on the court with him! Fire up Lowry again tonight as the Raptors have the third highest team total on the slate and see a slight uptick in both pace and expected points scored!
Jameer Nelson ($5,600) Even with Emmanuel Mudiay back, coach Mike Malone has opted to stick with Nelson has his starting PG and tonight the Nuggets get the juiciest of DFS match-ups – a date with the Brooklyn Nets!
The Nets are dead last in DvP in every position except Center and the Nuggets will see the biggest pace increase of any team on this slate so we want to have Nuggets exposure here even on the second night of a back to back.
The wing players on the Nuggets (Gallinari, Chandler, Harris, Barton) are all in play but with all of them healthy, their price points lead me to get my exposure with Jameer. Nelson comes into this game having hit 6x value in each of his previous five games, racking up between 33 and 38 FanDuel points each night. Any time we can get consistent 6x value AND the single best match-up at the position, we have to simply take the free square and move on!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Monta Ellis ($4,000) Shooting guard looks like a spot I am going to opt to save salary at tonight and I am heading back to a guy I was riding each night prior to the All-Star Break in Monta Ellis. Although the match-up against Memphis is not ideal, Ellis is simply too cheap to ignore on this slate as he has played at least 30 minutes in each of his last four games while averaging over 23 FD points a night which would put him at 5.8x value at this price point!
Nick Young ($4,300) One of the biggest winners of the trade deadline from a DFS perspective may have been the remaining members of the Lakers back-court as with the departure of Lou Williams, it should free up the log jam of guards that Luke Walton has to juggle each night.
Williams, the Lakers 6th man, was averaging over 24 minutes a night and nearly 13 shot attempts per game so there is going to be a significant amount of usage that the remaining players have available to them! Swaggy P is a player I love to target in GPP’s as his scoring upside when hot can single handedly win you a tournament and he has shown that with 30+ FD point outing (7x value) in three of his last eight games!
The Lakers will see a nice pace increase tonight against OKC and looking back at Young’s performance this season, he has hit 5x value in both previous games against the Thunder – and that was with Sweet Lou on the floor. The upside here is immense and I think the floor at 5x is relatively safe so I am going to be utilizing Swaggy P across the board tonight in GPP play!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Jimmy Butler ($9,300) After a whole lot of talk leading up to the trade deadline, Jimmy Butler remains a member of the Chicago Bulls and steps into a perfect match-up against the Phoenix Suns! The Bulls are projected to score the second most points on this slate while scoring nearly 9 points more than their season average AND get the second highest pace boost. Translation – get Bulls exposure!
With P.J. Tucker headed to Toronto, Butler’s match-up gets even more enticing and for under $10k we can target a player with one of the highest ceilings on the slate! Butler has at least 43 FD points in six of his last eight games and at a weak SF position, I love the idea of paying up for Butler who I expect will be one of the highest raw point performers on this slate!
Otto Porter ($6,800) Small Forward is a spot I think we should look to pay up at on this slate and I want to get some exposure tonight as a correlation play to the Sixers front-court(more on that in a minute).
Porter comes into this game in solid form, having put up 35+ FanDuel points in four of his last five games which puts him right at a solid 5x floor at this price point. Porter also dropped 42 FD points against this Sixers team earlier in the season on the back of 15 points and 13 rebounds so the upside is very real for Otto tonight as well!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Nikola Jokic ($10,900) Oh Joker, you broke my heart! Our Picks and Pivots lineup on Thursday Night managed to get to 307 FD points and that was with an 18 point dude from Jokic! Coach Mike Malone had Jokic on the bench for much of the game against the Kings and voiced his displeasure with Jokic’s defensive effort after the game so why would we go back to him tonight at nearly $11k?
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Well first, I expect many of the 20% who rostered him in GPP play on Thursday night to jump off him tonight and with a larger slate we could be looking at a sub 10% ownership play so there is a bit of game theory here. Secondly, Jokic gets to face the Brooklyn Nets! Think about it – if Jokic had his normal 45-50 point outing last night, wouldn’t Jokic be the first guy you slot in tonight? Do not let one bad game fool you, the Joker is a GPP lock for me tonight!
Dario Saric ($6,200) and Jahlil Okafor ($4,500) The Sixers front-court is a spot I intend to target heavily tonight as with Joel Embiid out and Ersan Illyasova/Nerlens Noel traded out-of-town, there are two guys who stand to soak up a massive amount of usage and production!
Saric and Okafor should start at PF/C tonight and both players have 25% usage rates in this scenario while putting up nearly a fantasy point per minute! Saric has put up at least 34 FD points in each of his last four games and has hit 6x value in two of his last four games. Okafor meanwhile will be the lone man standing for the Sixers and put up 37.8 FD points against this same Wizards team the last time they faced off. I am locking in both players tonight in GPP lineups as they should both have massive upside at these price points!
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!