FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Tuesday October 24
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!
Monday’s winning $4 Clutch Shot entry racked up 364.5 FanDuel points built behind another 60+ FanDuel point night from The Greek Freak and a balanced roster including Eric Gordon (40), Danny Green (40), Ben Simmons (49) and Dwight Howard (46).
Over the first seven NBA regular season slates it has taken 373.1 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.2x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
Over the first seven NBA regular season slates it has taken 373.1 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.2x 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:
One of the things I love the most about playing DFS is that each and every slate, especially in the NBA, is a completely different animal with an entirely new strategy. Monday’s slate was set up perfectly for stars and scrubs as we had early news which opened up a ton of punt plays (mostly at point guard) to massive minutes which allowed you to easily spend up on the night’s biggest stars.
This slate however at the face of it (remember, I write these very early in the day so things can change) looks like value will be tough to come by and although we have a ton of high dollar players we want to roster, is tonight the night we opt to go more balanced?
The point guard position has two elite options up top in Damian Lillard ($9,900) and Kyrie Irving ($9,100) who would both need 55-60 points to pay off their price tags on this slate which is interesting to note since neither has hit those marks thus far in the season. Now, both of these players clearly have that kind of upside but take Lillard as an example – in three games versus the Pelicans last year he put up 32, 32 and 49 FanDuel points which are certainly solid outings but will leave you in a hole if you opt to utilize $10k or 16% of your budget on him at this price point.
The mid-range is very solid on this slate with the best value probably being D.J. Augustin ($5,900) who will continue to start at the point guard position with Elfrid Payton on the shelf (Elf on the Shelf – ha, man I am hilarious). The Magic have the highest team total on the slate in the ideal pace up spot against the Brooklyn Nets who have already been lit up by opposing PG’s like Dennis Schroder and Darren Collison. Augustin put up an elite mark of 1.3 fantasy points per minute in his last outing, a start against Cleveland, and although his price has risen there is still plenty of value to be had in this match-up!
As much as I love Augustin tonight, I expect he will he highly popular so pivoting to a player like Patrick Beverley ($6,000) at the same price point is an intriguing strategy. In his last game against Ricky Rubio last season, PatBev put up 38.3 FanDuel points and has nabbed 8 steals over his last three games against Rubio which add even more value due to FanDuel’s new scoring.
If you like revenge narratives then you will be all over Jeff Teague ($7,000) in his first start against his former team, the Indiana Pacers, who have been gashed so far by opposing point guards. Over the first three games os the season, the Pacers have given up 1.2 fantasy points per minutes to opposing starting PG’s (D’Angelo Russell, Damian Lillard and Goran Dragic). Teague is coming off his best game of the season against the Thunder where he racked up 19 points, 9 assists and 6 rebounds for 39.7 FanDuel points against the Thunder.
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:
Shooting Guard looks like a prime spot to drop down in price point and take some shots on value plays with GPP upside and I will go right back to the well with two guys that have disappointed me and other DFS players early this season.
With the injury to Milos Teodosic, it opens the door for Austin Rivers ($4,500) to re-enter the starting line-up for the Clippers who logged 33 minutes of action for the Clippers once Milos went down with his injury. As a starter last season, Rivers averaged 25 FanDuel points per game which would return 5.5x value at this price point, making him an elite value play on this slate!
Speaking of players that have burned us so far this season – Tim Hardaway Jr. ($4,700) is back on my radar tonight against the Celtics! Hardaway has been brutal so far this season, putting up a paltry 11 FanDuel points per game but what is encouraging to me is the volume of shots – 26 shot attempts including 17 three-point field goals. As the clear #2 scoring option in New York, Hardaway averaged 27 FanDuel points per game which would exceed 5.6x value at this price point!
If you are looking for a slightly higher priced pivot in the same game you can look to Terry Rozier ($5,500) who should continue to fill a major scoring void for Boston in the wake of the injury to Gordon Hayward. With Marcus Smart now injured, Rozier should step into major minutes as evidenced by his 30 minutes in the previous game and with his 30 FDP/game average he is delivering 5.5x value at this price point already this season! Although it is a small sample size, Rozier is putting up 1.22 FanDuel points per minute this season with Hayward and Smart off the floor and if he can get 30+ minutes tonight, he is a lock and load play for me on this slate!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Plays:
Small Forward was absolutely brutal on yesterday’s slate but there is a ton of solid mid-tier value today we can choose from, assuming we do not want to pay up for LeBron James in his scrimmage/game against the Bulls tonight.
Jaylen Brown ($6,100) is the perfect mid-range target tonight at small-forward as his combination of minutes and volume make him ideal for cash games with clear GPP upside. Brown is second on the team in terms of minutes per game (35) and shot attempts per game (15.7) and with Marcus Smart likely out tonight, an already tight Celtics rotation will become even tighter.
So far this season, the Celtics have six players averaging 25 or more minutes per game, a reflection of the tight rotation Brad Stevens has employed since the injury to Hayward and with Smart out tonight the Celtics starting five should run major minutes against the Knicks tonight as one of my favorite team stacks!
Joe Ingles ($5,000) – my man, Joey New Balances! Keep the pricing on Jinglin Joe nice and low FanDuel and I will just keep playing the man! In three games this season, Ingles has averaged 30 FanDuel points per game – a per game average fo 6x value. I simply see no reason to fade this spot especially with Rodney Hood already ruled out for the Jazz. Just keep playing Ingles every slate until the price gets to $6k or higher people – this is a free square in my opinion.
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks:
Let’s be clear – this slate boils down to how you intend to approach Anthony Davis ($12,200) who comes into this game averaging 62.7 FanDuel points per game and is at the exact same price as The Greek Freak was yesterday. In my opinion this is where the similarities end – not only between the two players but more importantly within the context of the slate.
On yesterday’s slate we had massive value plays open up early like Malcolm Delaney and Mike James which made affording Giannis an easy plug and play. Tonight’s slate at least initially does not offer the same value plays which makes the decision that much tougher and when you add in the injury risk The Brown brings with him and the fact he has to share usage with DeMarcus Cousins, this seems like the perfect spot to take a stand and fade AD!
Just because I am fading Davis does not mean I am looking to drop down too far – in fact, I think paying up for the next two power forwards is the ideal roster build tonight! Blake Griffin ($10,200) has put up just shy of 50 FanDuel points in each of his first two games which is even more impressive considering that both games were blowouts which limited him to only 30 minutes a contest. With Chris Paul gone and now the Clippers down another guard in Milos Teodosic, Griffin is dominating the usage putting up a monster 39% usage rate and 1.67 FanDuel points per minute. The match-up with the Jazz will likely keep his ownership down but the usage is simply off the charts here and I love Griffin as a GPP pivot off the more popular Anthony Davis.
Kristaps Porzingis ($9,300) has been every bit as good as Blake Griffin so far this season, averaging 47 FanDuel points per game as the clear top dog in the Knicks offense. As I have mentioned throughout this column, I love the prospect of stacking the Celtics tonight as their players are priced reasonably and they are locked into major minutes. If I am going that route from a roster build perspective then correlating it with Tim Hardaway Jr. and Porzingis allows me to game stack a spot that will likely go overlooked tonight with bigger/sexier game totals available.
Al Horford ($7,300) rounds out my Celtics stack tonight in an elite match-up against a Knicks team that has given up 35 FanDuel points per game to opposing centers this season (Drummond/Adams). I expect Nikola Vucevic ($9,800) to be a popular target at center tonight considering he just abused this Brooklyn team for 55 FanDuel points but be careful here – with Aaron Gordon expected to return tonight, Vuc sees a 3% usage drop and loses 0.5 fantasy points per minute of production!
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: Patrick Beverley ($6,000)
PG: D.J. Augustin ($5,900)
SG: Terry Rozier ($5,500)
SG: Tim Hardaway Jr. ($4,700)
SF: Jaylen Brown ($6,100)
SF: Joe Ingles ($5,000)
PF: Blake Griffin ($10,200)
PF: Kristaps Porzingis ($9,300)
C: Al Horford ($7,300)
Slate Overview: Ultimately this slate breaks down to how you intend to attack the Pelicans front-court and with minimal value on the slate initially, I think building a more balanced roster is the way to attack tonight. The Celtics (outside of Kyrie Irving) are all priced reasonably and are locked into 30+ minutes a night in Brad Stevens rotation and I love the idea of stacking them with the 1-2 punch of Porzingis/Hardaway in a game with a middle of the slate game total that will likely be over-looked! Good luck tonight all!
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news across the NBA, NFL, NHl and EPL!