FanDuel NBA Daily Picks and Pivots – March 17
Welcome to the Friday FanDuel NBA edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for tonight’s eight game slate which kicks off at 7:00PM EST!
As a reminder, the concept behind FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots 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!
Thursday Night’s winning FanDuel GPP score landed right below the season average at 359.1 which seems to be a trend in recent night’s as scores have been consistently below 375 on most nights! Over the first 117 slates, the average winning GPP score has been 378.2 which would mean we need 6.3x value from our roster in order to win big!
Over the first 117 slates, the average winning GPP score has been 378.2 which would mean we need 6.3x value from our roster in order to win big!
Thursday Night’s Picks and Pivots lineup cashed across the board with 291.3 FanDuel points. The Denver/Clippers game blew up like we thought it would (call the crib same number same hood…I digress) as players like Chris Paul, Nikola Jokic and Will Barton all posted monster stat lines. With all the value we had, fitting in Russell Westbrook and his 60 FD point outing was no problem and we ended the night with a nice profit!
Tonight’s slate at first glance is very interesting and there is a ton of recent injury news we need to digest including the season ending injuries to players like Eric Bledsoe and Dwyane Wade as well as the status of John Wall which should/could open up major value tonight!
FanDuel NBA – Top Point Guard Picks
Elfrid Payton ($7,200) and Tyler Ullis ($5,400) My point guard duo tonight is a correlation play stack in a game I absolutely love for DFS purposes tonight as the Magic and Suns square off. This game has the second highest combined team total (220) on the board and with a three point spread, we should see major minutes played from the core players in this one!
Payton is one of those guys that when he has the right match-up can be the difference in DFS between landing above or below the cash line and tonight I think is one of those match-ups we need to push our chips all in on him. The Magic see one of the largest pace increases tonight of any team and are projected to score nearly 9 points higher than there season average which is the highest boost for any team on the slate.
Payton has hit 6x value in three of his last six games and with the top three PG’s on this slate out/close to out with injury (Isaiah Thomas, Kyle Lowry and John Wall), Elf may end the night as the top PG scorer on the slate!
Ullis is the newly minted starter for the Suns as Eric Bledsoe has been shut down for the season and comes off a monster 13 point, 13 assist, 39 FanDuel point outing last game which would exceed 7x value at this price point. FanDuel increased the price on Ullis but not nearly enough and I expect he will be HIGHLY popular tonight as a result. I love Ullis in cash games and I think you play him in tournaments as a stack with Payton to maximize the usage and pace of this game tonight!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks
Bradley Beal ($8,200) With John Wall looking closer to doubtful tonight, their becomes a massive amount of usage up for grabs and for my money, Beal becomes close to a must play in this environment. With Wall off the court this season, Beal sees a 2.5% usage bump, putting him at nearly 31% usage and averaged a fantasy point per minute in that scenario!
Beal has put up 20+ shot attempts in three of his last four and six of his last eight games WITH Wall on the floor so imagine the upside with Wall coming off the court tonight! Beal has 30+ FanDuel points in 12 straight games so you are rostering a player with an insanely safe floor and even if he draws Jimmy Butler‘s defense tonight, this is a spot where the sheer volume and usage could far outweigh any match-up concerns we may have!
Devin Booker ($6,900) Without Eric Bledsoe on the court, Devin Booker simply becomes the Suns offense. Per RotoGrinders Court IQ Tool, Booker sees a massive 9% usage increase with Bledsoe off the court, leading the team with a 37.8% usage rate and putting up over a fantasy point per minute of production.
The Suns/Magic game as I stated has the second highest team total and the price point on these players are reasonable across the board which makes a stack of this game my preferred strategy tonight while allowing you the salary to pay up for a few other big name players.
Booker let everyone down in his last game (including me) but realize he shot 6 for 26 from the floor against the Kings which was the main reason for his DFS dud. The fact he took 26 shots though should be all the reason you need to get back on board tonight! In fact, Booker has taken 20+ shot attempts in four straight games and has back to back games with 26 attempts.
The price points on Beal/Booker are very fair and with 40-50 shot attempts between the two of them tonight, this is a position that I feel comfortable could single handedly carry us over the cash line in DFS!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks
Jimmy Butler ($8,700) With the news that Dwyane Wade is out for the season, we all know the drill by now – we play Jimmy Butler when Wade is off the court! With Wade off the floor, Butler sees a 5% usage boost, leading the team with 33% usage and 1.22 fantasy points per minute.
Butler has been scuffling recently with three sub 30 FD point outings in his last four games but all that has done for us is bring his price down to a point where we have massive profit potential tonight. Butler takes on a Washington team he has dropped 64 and 37 FanDuel points against this season and I think tonight is a night where we see vintage Butler and a massive FD point performance.
Shabazz Muhammed ($3,700) News came out on Thursday that Nemanja Bjelica would be out for the rest of the season and savvy DFS players need to think through the ramifications of that injury for the Minnesota sixth man.
The Timberwolves play with one of the tightest rotations in all of the NBA limiting essentially their top 5-6 players to all the court time. Bjelica was routinely playing 30 minutes a night and with that time now up for grabs, I would expect Shabazz to be the primary beneficiary.
The last game against Boston is a perfect example of what we can expect as Bjelica left the game after only 12 minutes of action and Muhammed stepped in to play 31 minutes, scoring 21 points and 28 FD points (7.6x value). My hope is that the rest of the industry is slow to react here and we can get Shabazz at a low ownership tonight as my top value play on the board!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks
Gorgui Dieng ($5,300) For every reason I am rostering Shabazz Muhammed tonight, we can chalk the same thing up to Dieng this evening against Miami. Bjelica was essentially rotating in with Dieng depending on the opposing front-court match-up and with that player now out with injury, I think we see Dieng stay on the court for 30-35 minutes each and every night.
Dieng has played 31+ minutes in each of his last two games averaging just under a double-double and makes for one of the safest/steadiest plays at an underwhelming PF position!
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Marquese Chriss ($4,800) From the workmanlike Dieng to the tantalizing upside of Chriss, we can check both boxes tonight at our PF spot! Chriss has seen his price slowly rise due to his strong recent play including a 39 FD point outing in his last game against the Kings.
Chriss’s fantasy value is significantly tied to blocks (5 in his last game) so it is always dangerous to chase a player like him but it is interesting that with Bledsoe off the court this year, Chriss is a fantasy point per minute producer.
The upside with Chriss is very real and I love him within this roster build as part of a Orlando/Suns mini game stack!
DeMarcus Cousins ($9,400) The hardest part of this slate is finding that one stud you know you can count on for a monster night and the price points for guys like James Harden or Karl-Anthony Towns leaves much to be desired tonight. The player I am hitching my wagon to tonight (which is always a volatile decision) is Mr. Technical Foul himself – Boogie Cousins.
The match-up here against Houston is ideal as this game has the highest total on the board and Cousins just throttled them when they played recently. In that game Cousins put up 27 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals and 4 blocks for 68.3 FanDuel points.
The risk of a quick two fouls or a foolish technical are always in play for Boogie but so too are a quick injury to Anthony Davis which funnels all the usage to Cousins in a high paced match-up. Cousins could be the guy that makes or breaks this lineup tonight, but the upside and depressed price point make it worth a roll of the dice in my opinion!
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!