Welcome to the first edition of FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots, a fantasy basketball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this slate of DFS action!
For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind NBA FanDuel 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!
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Looking back at opening night forFanDuel NBA, the winning roster ended up with 238.6 FanDuel points using a mixture of star power and 1-2 bench fliers to take home a big time score. The winning roster used a Golden State core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant sprinkled with Paul Millsap (36.2 FD points), Jeff Teague (31.1 FD Points) and Karl-Anthony Towns (32.7 FD points) to get their team off to some big time starts. What really set this line apart was the inclusion of Shabazz Muhammed who at 4% ownership dropped 22 points and 6 boards while playing over 30 minutes and tallying 31.2 FanDuel points! What we can learn from this winning roster build is that we do not need to get cute when building our rosters for the pre-season but rather build around the stars with a few GPP darts included to try to differentiate from the field.
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate! The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and give you a sample line-up as an example of what our core roster build could look like using the analysis we lay out in the coming pages!
As always, we will look to update our picks and final lineup thought prior to lock on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.
Without further ado, let’s get into this week’s slate!
FanDuel NBA – Two Game Sunday Slate:
Atlanta at Miami: The first game on the slate features the Hawks at the Heat and although Miami is essentially the same team we saw at the end of last year, the Hawks have a decidedly new look with the departure of Tim Hardaway Jr., Paul Millsap and Dwight Howard!
If you look at last year’s statistics Paul Millsap and Tim Hardaway Jr. were number 2 and 3 on the team in terms of usage rate with 24.4% and 22.5% respectively so there is going to be a ton of usage open for the remaining players! Dennis Schroder ($3,700) led the team in usage last season at 27.7% and it would seem reasonable to expect a similar role in the Hawks offense if not a more expanded role!
Taurean Prince ($1,000), last year’s first round pick, is the player I am most looking to target from the Hawks today though as he should see his role continue to expand as a result of the noted departures. Prince started for the Hawks at the tail end of last season and played over 31 minutes per game in the playoffs for the Hawks over their six game run. Ersan Illyasova ($2,200) is another player that should step into the starting rotation and soak up the usage left behind and considering he averaged over 14 points and 6 boards as a starter last season, he has the kind of sneaky upside we can target in the preseason!
The Miami side honestly is much less appealing to me as the back-court is over-crowded from a DFS perspective but locking in the clear top dog at center in Hassan Whiteside ($5,600) who should feast against the likes of Dwayne Dedmon and Mike Muscala is a great approach to lock down your center position on FanDuel.
Clippers at Raptors: This game is really interesting from a DFS perspective as you have essentially the same Raptors team from last year returning to take on a new look Clippers squad! The Clippers said goodbye to Chris Paul and welcomes in Patrick Beverley and Danilo Gallinari to a new look LA squad that I frankly can’t wait to see play.
Blake Griffin is going to be a usage monster this season with CP3 gone but he is still nursing an injury and even if he plays I would expect limited minutes. I will keep track of this during the day and tweet out any updates I find @2LockSports.
Assuming Griffin sits, I am going to have heavy exposure to Austin Rivers ($1,500) and Danilo Gallinari ($3,300) who will likely be the keys to the Clippers offense with players like Pat Bev and DeAndre Jordan playing secondary/defensive roles. With Chris Paul gone, and Griffin likely limited/side-lined, you are looking at 50% of the usage up for grabs for the Clippers which makes this a great place to target once we get line-up confirmation!
The Raptors are maybe the most steady DFS commodity as they are essentially a two man fantasy show as DeMar Derozan ($5,200) had an absurd 34.4% usage rate last season while Kyle Lowry ($4,900) was second with 24.8%. Locking in the Raptors back-court on this two game slate is a great cash game staple and tournament core and you can look to differentiate elsewhere. Serge Ibaka ($2,600) becomes an intriguing play if Blake Griffin is ruled out as the power forward position is relatively weak on this slate and as the clear third wheel in this Raptors attack should be a steady source of value all season!
FanDuel NBA– Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview
Please Note: This is NOT an optimized line-up, it is simply illustrative to show the type of roster build we can have using the logic previously laid out in Picks and Pivots. My actual line-up may differ from the line-up shown here.
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PG: Kyle Lowry ($4,900)
PG: Dennis Schroder ($3,700)
SG: DeMar DeRozan ($5,200)
SG: Austin Rivers ($1,500)
SF: Danilo Gallinari ($3,300)
SF: Taurean Prince ($1,000)
PF: Ersan Illyasova ($2,200)
PF: Serge Ibaka ($2,600)
C: Hassan Whiteside ($5,600)
Slate Overview: Remember that on these pre-season slates that salary is simply irrelevant, so play the roster you want and ignore salary/priced completely. Also, I cannot stress this enough – PLAY THESE SLATES! The best way to get comfortable with NBA DFS and the new scoring is to play the slates and get comfortable with players in new spots/new rotations etc. You can play free leagues on FanDuel just so you get comfortable with it but I would highly recommend playing before the regular season begins!
Next: FanDuel Week 4 NFL Picks and Pivots
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis across NBA and NFL!