Welcome to the Sunday 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!
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning’s NBA slate is still on going as we write this so we do not have final GPP winning data but let’s just say if you stuck with Picks and Pivots write-up on Saturday, you are likely starting out your Sunday in a pretty pretty good spot!
Over the first seven preseason slates, it has taken 262 FanDuel points to take down a GPP which means we are roughly shooting for 4.3x 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 today’s slate!
FanDuel NBA – Two Slates for Six Games:
We have six games on today’s NBA schedule and for some reason (ahem more rake), FanDuel has decided to take these six games and split them into two-three game slates on an NFL Sunday no less. As much as I love DFS, these kind of decisions frustrate me and although I will likely play a bit lighter today and focus on NFL, that doesn’t mean there isn’t profit to be made (see the Saturday overnight slate as an example).
Early Slate:
On the early slate the one team I am locked in on is the Los Angeles Clippers who will take the court on Sunday without starting SG Austin Rivers, SF Sam Dekker and likely SF Danilo Gallinari so there is going to be a TON of usage left for the remaining players. Blake Griffin ($8,700) is a lock and load play for me as over the last two seasons with Chris Paul and Austin Rivers off the court, Griffin has a monster 33% usage rate while putting up 1.4 fantasy points per minute.
The injury to Rivers is going to open up some intriguing back-court possibilities as we could see Milos Teodosic ($3,000) take on an expanded role for the Clippers as he started alongside PG Patrick Beverley in his last game against the Raptors and has played 22+ minutes in each of the Clippers first two games.
The other team I am going to focus in on for my core is the Denver Nuggets as the starting line-up for Denver continues to see a steady dose of minutes (20-25 per game) which gives us the solid floor we need when building a preseason core. Gary Harris ($5,400), Wilson Chandler ($5,200), Paul Millsap ($8,000) and Nikola Jokic ($8,700) are all priced incredibly fairly for their guaranteed minutes and we could look to Jameer Nelson ($3,500) as a pivot play at PG who is expected to see significant run in this game after seeing only 17 minutes of action so far this preseason!
FanDuel NBA – Main Slate
Looking over the Main Slate, there are three teams I am targeting to make up my core build as the New Orleans Pelicans, Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers have multiple players I am looking to build around.
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With this being the second to last preseason game for the Pelicans, Alvin Gentry has already been on record as saying he wanted to give his guys extended minutes with the expectation he would sit them in the final preseason game so you simply need to lock in Anthony Davis ($10,800) and DeMarcus Cousins ($10,200) on a slate where salary is really no an issue and just move on. With Rajon Rondo out due to injury, I am going to stack Jrue Holiday ($6,900) as the primary ball handler for the Pelicans with the added benefit we can play him at SG!
If the Nets are on a slate you know Picks and Pivots is going to have D’Angelo Russell ($6,600) locked in at shooting guard as the clear usage leader and team leader in shot attempts with 14.5 per game! Jeremy Lin ($5,300) looked significantly more comfortable in his latest contest alongside Russell as he put up 16 points, 4 assists and 3 rebounds over 24 minutes and with the increase pace of play for Brooklyn against a Knicks “defense” that allowed the Nets 32 three-point shot attempts in their first game, this is an exceptional back-court stack!
The Lakers will likely be without Lonzo Ball again today which is fine since he is clearly the second best rookie on this Lakers team. How in the world is Kyle Kuzma only $3k on FanDuel still? Kuzma is averaging a team high 13 shot attempts per game while racking up 21 points per game over three preseason contests and will be at the core of any and every build I have for the 7PM EST slate!
Slate Overview(s): Although I am not in love with either slate, I think there are clear cores to build around today and you can mix and match easily around them. As I have said all pre-season – do not get cute – play the guys with the clear minutes and simply sit back and count your money! Good luck today all!
Next: FanDuel Week 5 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, NFL, EPL and NHL all season long!