FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Friday October 20
Welcome to the Friday 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!
The three game Thursday Night slate brough winning scores of 340 FanDuel points which although below our season average, was still exceedingly high for a smaller slate! The key stars on the slate came out firing as Russell Westbrook (53), Paul George (42), Blake Griffin (50) and Kristaps Porzingis (48) all put up monster nights and when combined with a 50 burger from Jonas Valanciunas and a variety of value plays, you had the making of a winning GPP stars/scrubs line-up!
Over the first three NBA regular season slate it has taken 360.7 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
Over the first three NBA regular season slate it has taken 360.7 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
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 – Top Point Guard Picks:
Going into the season we knew the Brooklyn Nets were a team that played at a breakneck pace based off what they did last year but watching them on opening night in a regulation game that totaled 270 points, we need to prioritize the Nets as a potential game stack any time they are on the slate!
Tonight the Nets and Magic square off in a game with the third highest game total and the second highest implied pace and with Jeremy Lin now out for the season, the Nets offense will be 100% focused on D’Angelo Russell ($8,000) who has been shifted to PG eligible (boo!) on FanDuel. Russell was as advertised in his opening game, putting up 42 FanDuel points and a team leading 22 shot attempts and now will be the sole ball handler on Brooklyn which means massive usage every night!
On the other side of this game we have Elfrid Payton ($7,500) who makes for an exceptional correlation play and after watching Darren Collison drop 45 FD points against this same Nets team on Opening Night, the ceiling is absolutely massive for Elf here who put up 45+ FD points in two of his three outings against the Nets last season!
Speaking of Darren Collison ($5,600), after a massive opening night he gets another up-tempo match-up this evening against Portland where the Pacers see a pace boost and have one of the highest implied team totals on the slate!
Keep an eye on how the Nets choose to shuffle their starting line-up as Isaiah Whitehead ($3,600) has the potential to take over the PG spot if Coach Kenny Atkinson opts to keep Russell at the SG spot which would make the former Seton Hall star an instant value play!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:
After a one game suspension, C.J. McCollum ($7,200) will re-enter the starting line-up tonight against the Pacers in a game with the highest game total as Portland has the second highest team total on the slate! McCollum is an electric scorer who dropped 48 FanDuel points in his last meeting against this Indiana team and with only a 3.5 Vegas spread on this game we should see the Blazers starters get a full complement of run after an Opening Night blowout of the Suns!
Speaking of the Suns, they let me down on Opening Night but I think this is a great spot to go back to Devin Booker ($6,700) as the Suns have the third highest team total on the slate in what should be a close, fast-paced game against the Lakers. The one thing to note here – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is coming off a one game DUI suspension but also took an elbow to the face last game so it is possible he misses this game tonight. If he does play, KCP is an elite on-ball defender who if matched up with Booker would make this a spot to pivot off of!
If you are looking for a pivot play, Marcus Smart ($6,600) makes for a solid SG play as the newest member of the Celtics starting line-up due to the injury to Gordon Hayward. Smart has put up 35 FanDuel points per game over the first two contests with a strong DFS mix of stats across the board and his ability to rack up steals (2.5 per game) in FanDuel’s new scoring adds another dimension to his ability to rack up FanDuel points!
If you want to expand on a Brooklyn-Orlando game stack, Terrence Ross ($5,100) is an exceptional value play who dropped 36 FanDuel points (7x value) in his opening game and his ability to rack up counting stats across the board (15 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, 1 block) gives him massive DFS upside in the game I intend to target the most! If Aaron Gordon misses this game (questionable due to injury), it is worth noting that Ross saw a near 10% usage boost last season with AG off the floor and led the Magic in usage while putting up just under a fantasy point per minute of production!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks:
Small Forward is loaded with top end plays tonight as LeBron James and Kevin Durant take the floor, but the mid-tier/value-tier is surprisingly strong which makes this an interesting spot to consider paying down at.
Evan Fournier ($5,600) continues our trend of fairly priced Magic players we are going to stack up tonight against Brooklyn as his ability to score in bunches (30.7 FD points in game one) gives him a solid floor but his lack of counting stats limits his ceiling a bit.
The sub $5k range is actually stocked with some intriguing plays tonight and I think taking two guys in this range is a viable strategy if you want to pay up for 1-2 studs tonight. Taurean Prince ($4,800) remains under-priced and a solid bet to return 5x in the Hawks up-tempo offense after dropping a double-double and returning 5.3x value in only 25 minutes of court time in the opener!
Joe Ingles ($4,500) is not the sexiest name to roster but he is a steady source of value in DFS and we saw that in the opener as he started and logged 32 minutes and 32 FanDuel points on the back of 11 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists which would equal 7.1x value at this price point!
One player I will be keeping an eye on today for news is Allen Crabbe ($4,600) who could be the biggest beneficiary of the injury to Jeremy Lin as he is one of the most talented offensive players remaining on the Nets. In the opening game, the former Trail Blazer out up 29 FanDuel points in only 26 minutes of action racking up 12 points, 7 boards and 3 combined blocks/steals and if he is to get extended run tonight would be one of my favorite GPP SF’s on the slate!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Plays:
Keeping with my theme of the Nets-Magic game stack (and assuming Aaron Gordon misses this game), my primary target in the Orlando front-court will be Nikola Vucevic ($8,400) who racked up 47 FanDuel points against the Hear in the opening game on the back of 19 points, 13 rebounds 4 blocks/steals. Tonight he will take on a Nets team he never had less than 41 FanDuel points against (old scoring) which gives the big man a solid 5x floor with clear upside for 6x or more with no Brook Lopez to draw him away from the basket in Brooklyn this year!
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ($5,200) is the final piece of my game stack puzzle and although he missed some time in the opener due to an injury, he still managed a solid 24 FanDuel points in 27 minutes of action so I would expect he gets 30+ tonight and will see a significant uptick in usage due to the Nets injuries.
One of the things I like about this Nets-Magic game stack is that it is fairly inexpensive to build as it leaves me $7.8k for the last two spots in my roster and after locking in C.J. McCollum at shooting guard, I actually have $8.4k left which fits perfectly for Draymond Green ($8,400). From a GPP perspective I love this play because the combination of a match-up with Boogie/Brow and his injury tag will likely lower ownership but this is one my favorite FanDuel plays this year especially with the new blocks/steals scoring! Draymond played only 27 minutes against Houston and still nearly managed a triple-double with 9 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists for 40 FanDuel points and with the big men inside for New Orleans, I expect him to be one of the highest minute plays on the Warriors tonight!
FanDuel NBA – Sample GPP 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: D’Angelo Russell ($8,000)
PG: Elfrid Payton ($7,500)
SG: C.J. McCollum ($7,200)
SG: Terrence Ross ($5,100)
SF: Evan Fournier ($5,600)
SF: Allen Crabbe ($4,600)
PF: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ($5,200)
PF: Draymond Green ($8,400)
C: Nikola Vucevic ($8,400)
Slate Overview: As you can tell – my GPP strategy tonight is to build a game stack around the Nets-Magic game and then mix and match guys like McCollum/Draymond into that build to get exposure to Portland/Golden State who have the two highest totals on the board. The Nets news is one I will be watching intently today to see who gets the starting nod for Jeremy Lin and will update the news on Twitter as I get it! Good luck all!
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your NBA DFS as well as our NFL, NHL and EPL coverage!