FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Sunday October 22

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’s slate continued our streak of high scores under the new FanDuel scoring as the winning GPP line-up in the $4 Clutch Shot amassed 384 FanDuel points to take home $50,000! The key on this slate was utilizing the value that was easily accessible and Picks and Pivots core plays like DJ Augustin (11x), J.J. Barea (7x) and Joe Ingles (7x) all crushed value and allowed you to pay up for the high scoring studs of the night!

Over the first five NBA regular season slates it has taken 376.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.3x 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:

Welcome to Sunday Funday FanDuel NBA and with many fantasy players focusing their attention on Week 7 in the NFL, we still have three games of NBA action to dive into and a surprisingly good small slate! Point Guard is by far the deepest position to sort through today with all six starting PG’s presenting viable options on this slate.

Dennis Schroder ($8,800) is set up for a monster game today against Brooklyn in which the Hawks see the biggest pace boost of any team on the slate! Schroder so far this season has essentially been the entire Hawks offense as evidenced by his massive 33% usage rate while chucking up 21 and 26 shot attempts in his first two games. For cash games, the Hawks PG is a lock but in GPP’s I actually think this is an interesting spot to fade.

One of the reasons I track winning score and GPP multipliers is that I like to check pricing each day ans ask myself can Player X get the required 6.3x needed to win a GPP? Now, let me be clear – it is not that EVERY player on your roster needs to hit this value but it is a helpful check sometimes when stepping back and looking at your roster.

So far this season, Schroder has put up 40.5 FD points per game with a massive usage rate and all the shot attempts he can handle but at this $8.8k price point, those numbers would not even return 5x value. As much as I like the player and the spot here, the price is simply too high for me and I think pivoting down at PG makes sense on this slate.

D’Angelo Russell ($7,500) on the other side of this game actually saw his price come down after a sub-par performance against Atlanta but without any Jeremy Lin, Russell is going to be the entire Nets offense all season long. The Hawks are coming off a game where they gave up 42 FD points to Kemba Walker and the Nets/Hawks have the highest paced game on the slate with a 220 projected game total. For a $1,300 price savings I think you can get the same high-tempo exposure to this game by moving down from Schroder and locking in the Nets PG!

Lonzo Ball ($7,100) rebounded after a tough first game against Patrick Beverley and the Clippers and nearly dropped a triple-double on his way to 54.7 FanDuel points against the Suns. Ball absolutely has the GPP upside we want here but on a short slate like this I think the recency bias is going to be off the chart and a strategic fade may be worthwhile. It is worth noting however that both starting point guards to face the Pelicans this season, Mike Conley and Steph Curry, dropped 40+ FanDuel points which would be 5.6x value at this price point with upside for more!

If you are looking for a pivot off Lonzo, Jrue Holiday ($6,700) feels underpriced considering his role as the starting point guard for the Pelicans. What intrigues me about Holiday versus Ball is the game log watching – people will see that Ball had a massive game and play the “name” value for $400 more and will see that Holiday has struggled so far this year. I am not willing to rely on a two game sample size to make my decisions and if Holiday is the lower owned of the two (fully expect that he will be) than you can pivot to him in GPP’s and play the game theory angle!

FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards:

Shooting Guard is UGLY – let’s just all ground ourselves going in here. I am not paying up at this pot because if I am shooting for 6x value then I do not see guys like Andrew Wiggins or Caris LeVert getting me there.

Instead I will look to pay down, potentially all the way down to a guy like Alex Abrines ($3,000) off the OKC bench who has the kind punt play advantage we are looking for – minutes. Abrines has played 24 and 29 minutes in each of the Thunder’s first two games, routinely coming in as one of the first guys off the bench as instant offense from behind the arc. Abrines has put up 5+ three-point shot attempts in each game, pulling down 3-4 rebounds and getting a steal per game. Last game, Abrines knocked down two threes (in line with his career average), pulled down a few boards and got one steal and returned 5.6x value with nearly 17 FanDuel points. You are not looking for a 40 FD point game here people – if he gets you 18 FanDuel points with his allotment of minutes then you got the value you needed from your punt play!

Jordan Clarkson ($4,200) is the other SG I am interested in on this slate as he is the clear leader of the Lakers second unit and the fact he has put up double-digit shot attempts in both games gives me confidence in a solid offensive floor with clear 6x upside as he showed in the opening games when he logged 26.4 FanDuel points. The Lakers-Pelicans games has the highest game total on the slate and with only a 4 point spread, this makes for an intriguing game stack for GPP play!

FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Plays:

Small forward is much stronger than SG on this slate as we can pay up for guys like Jimmy Butler or Paul George but with some other high dollar stars we need to prioritize, paying down at SF may be our best route on this slate.

Brandon Ingram ($5,400) has played at least 30 minutes in each of the Lakers first two games and put up 32 FD points against the Suns which would be good enough for 6x value at this price point today! Through the first two games, the Pelicans have given up 46 FanDuel points to Kevin Durant and 38 FanDuel points to Dillon Brooks of the Grizzlies at the Small Forward position so this is a spot we can look to attack the Pelicans with one of the few Lakers with guaranteed minutes.

The Nets trolled us (me) big time in the last game as last season’s Kenny Atkinson returned and decided to play everyone 20 minutes like he is a youth recreation coach who wants everyone to have a chance to play. I cannot confirm but there are rumors he handed out orange slices after the game too.

As much as I love D’Angelo Russell and I want to love guys like Allen Crabbe ($4,500) this minutes distribution is a troubling trend that makes the Nets a tough team to trust. On a short slate like this, the fact that Crabbe is a starting player at a punt price may lead people to flock towards him and admittedly it was a trap I fell into on Friday. If you need a punt play at SF, Corey Brewer ($3,200) makes for an interesting play as he started the Lakers second game of the season and logged 33 minutes while putting up 19.4 FanDuel points (6x value). If Brewer is confirmed in the starting line-up again then I think you can go back to him as a stand alone punt or as part of a Lakers/Pelicans game stack!

FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Plays:

It has taken us a while and I apolozige for burying the lead here but this slate simply should be called Boogie/Brow and whatever value you can fit in!

DeMarcus Cousins ($11,500) and Anthony Davis ($11,500) are the reason we need to save salary at other positions as this spot against an under-sized Lakers front-court could yield massive fantasy days. Boogie is coming off back to back 60+ FanDuel point games and Anthony Davis is coming off a 67 point outing in his last contest so locking in both Pelicans big men feels like a must on this slate. I will simply ignore ownership here and lock in the two best players on the slate.

Power Forward actually has some intriguing options but also some very risky ones as you are rolling the dice with the Lakers three-headed monster (Julius Randle a $4.3k is VERY VERY appealing) or you want to trust that Trevor Booker ($5,600) will log another double-double in under 30 minutes?

With so much value to be had, I actually like the idea of paying up for Carmelo Anthony ($7,500) as Paul George will be locked up by Jimmy Butler which means Melo will have Taj Gibson/Gorgui Dieng defense in a match-up that I feel he can exploit. The TWolves gave up 44 FanDuel points already this season to Lamarcus Aldridge so attacking Minnesota at the PF spot may be our best bet!

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.

More from FanSided

PG: Lonzo Ball ($7,100)

PG: Jrue Holiday ($6,700)

SG: E’Twuan Moore ($4,100)

SG: Alex Abrines ($3,000)

SF: Brandon Ingram ($5,400)

SF: Corey Brewer ($3,200)

PF: Anthony Davis ($11,500)

PF: Carmelo Anthony ($7,500)

C: DeMarcus Cousins ($11,500)

Slate Overview: The more I look at this slate, the more I like the idea of game stacking the Lakers-Pelicans as my core build. The spread of minutes for the Nets makes that a spot I will take a wait and see approach and let others try to figure out if any Brooklyn players will see more than 25 minutes of action. With the highest game total and a close spread plus the fact that Boogie/Brow will be at the core of my build, correlating that roster build with the Lakers makes a ton of sense today. Enjoy your Sunday all and best of luck!

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