FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Preseason October 3

Welcome to the Tuesday 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 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!

PLAY FANDUEL: New users win first contest or get credited up to $120!

Over the first three preseason slates, it has taken 233 FanDuel points to take down a GPP which means we are roughly shooting for 4x value at this point in the season which once the regular season kicks off will ratchet up to 5-6x value!

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 – Monday Recap

Before we jump into today’s four game slate, I want to quickly touch on Monday night’s slate as it was a harsh reminder of the reality of NBA DFS, especially in the preseason! Playing preseason DFS can be a very profitable and valuable tool to get ready for the regular season but the lack of information makes predicting “best plays” an extreme challenge and it is critical you have a strong pool of options to pull from so that you can adjust prior to lock before news breaks.

Monday night, roughly an hour before lock, we got news that the Magic would not play their starters over 20 minutes(Bye Bye Vucevic), the Celtics Big Three would only play the first half(Take a seat Kyrie and Gordon) and the Bucks would only play their starters in the 10-20 minute range (So long Khris Middleton) which made me move to an all out fade of the guys I had as core plays all…day….long. It is frustrating to move off guys you spent all day selling yourself on but it is the reality of the FanDuel NBA and being ready to adjust in those precious minutes before lock is one of the only ways to be consistently successful.

FanDuel NBA – Top Guards:

James Harden ($6,900) and Chris Paul ($5,700) will get their first game action as teammates with the new look Rockets and I frankly cannot wait to see how this duo works together this season. The Rockets only play four preseason games and their next game is not until Monday so it would seem the starters minutes would be relatively safe here but I also said the same thing for the Celtics on Monday!

Although this match-up with the Thunder loses a little juice with the absence of Russell Westbrook, it does mean that CP3 will get to face Raymond Felton which gives an additional boost to his outlook (plus he won’t have to chase around the MVP on defense) and Harden is one of the best fantasy point per minute producers as he put up 1.5 FP/M last season with an absurd 36.4% usage rate!

Damian Lillard ($5,800) will take on a Suns team that he dominated last season, putting up 40+ FanDuel points in all four outings against them and with a team high 30% usage rate and over a fantasy point per minute of production, outside of any minutes limit this feels like a great spot to get exposure to a guy who averaged nearly 20 PPG in only 25 minutes of action last preseason!

D’Angelo Russell ($2,800) is perhaps the player I am most excited to watch this season as he steps into a role as the starting shooting guard for the Brooklyn Nets and should absolutely dominate the usage and offensive flow for a young Brooklyn squad. With Brook Lopez out of the picture, and the Nets already ruling out Allen Crabbe and Caris LeVert for this game, I expect Russell to get significant run and showcase his talent for his new team. The fact that he is shooting guard eligible on FanDuel, always the toughest position to find two likeable options, is the icing on the cake!

FanDuel NBA – Top Forwards and Center Plays:

It is somewhat fitting that on the first slate we get a chance to see the New York Knicks we also have the Oklahoma City Thunder in action, Carmelo Antony’s newest team! As I mentioned, with Russell Westbrook already ruled out this seems like the perfect opportunity to roster Carmelo Anthony ($3,600) and Paul George ($6,000) as Beastbrook’s massive 44% usage rate will be sitting on the bench and will allow for the newest members of the Thunder to soak up all the offense in their first real game action together.

With Anthony out of New York, Kristaps Porzingis ($4,500) is left as the centerpiece of a rebuilding Knicks franchise and although I will certainly look to use him tonight, I want to see if we get any real usage/production boost from him. Last season, Melo and Derrick Rose soaked up 58.6% of the team’s usage which in theory should mean we see Porzingis take a massive step forward. However it is interesting to note that Porzingis only saw a 2% usage bump when these two were off the floor and actually saw no change in his 0.9 fantasy point per minute output. I will certainly have shares of Porzingis tonight but we may not see the massive fantasy jump that most would assume and instead could look to roster players like Doug McDermott ($1,400) who is expected to start at SF for the Knicks and could be a sneaky beneficiary of the usage left behind by Melo/Rose.

Center is actually a tough decision tonight with DeMarcus Cousins and Jusuf Nurkic both elite options with massive upside but with Nurkic playing his first contest since a broken leg sidelined him, this may be a good wait and see spot for him. The Pelicans front court is going to be a fun spot to target all year-long and if you are new to NBA DFS, get ready to be tilted constantly by the Anthony Davis injury train. The Brow actually left the team’s public scrimmage with a shoulder injury over the weekend so I am just simply not taking the risk tonight and when/if AD is off the court, it means Boogie – FLAT – OUT – EATS! When AD was off the court last season, Boogie saw a 7% usage bump to a 40% rate and put up 1.5 fantasy points per minute which against Robin Lopez and the Bulls, could mean a monster night for Boogie’s preseason debut!

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. 

More from FanSided

• MLB Rumors: White Sox offer ‘small opening’ in Dylan Cease, Luis Robert trade talks
• LAST CHANCE: $250 Guaranteed Bonus for Your Week 1 College Football Bet at DraftKings and FanDuel!
• MLB Rumors: Justin Verlander has a clear suitor, but it comes with a catch
• MLB Rumors: Braves trade grade, Cardinals trade bait, Red Sox selling
• USMNT news: Turner to Forest, Trusty to Sheffield, Reynolds to Westerlo

PG: Chris Paul ($5,700)

PG: Damian Lillard ($5,800)

SG: D’Angelo Russell ($2,800)

SG: James Harden ($6,900)

SF: Paul George ($6,000)

SF: Doug McDermott ($1,400)

PF: Kristaps Porzingis ($4,500)

PF: Carmelo Anthony ($3,600)

C: DeMarcus Cousins ($5,900)

Slate Overview: For those of you reading this again – I apologize for the duplicate message – but for those of you reading this for the first time, please use this opportunity to play these slates. Play for money if you want or simply play free leagues to get practice and comfortable with the players/teams in the NBA prior to the season. Everyone knows the big offseason moves but diving into preseason NBA DFS gives you a chance to dig into some of the secondary moves that may not get the same press but will give you a big advantage come the beginning of the NBA season while others are going “Wow I had no idea Player X was on this team!”

Salary is still not a thing so simply play who you want but most importantly – WATCH THE NEWS BEFORE LOCK. I will consistently update the news as I get it on my twitter account – @2LockSports – so please follow along so you can see the news and any new thoughts that arise as the day unfolds!

Next: FanDuel NHL Picks - Wednesday October 4

Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis across the NBA, NFL and our NHL content!