FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Friday November 3

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!

Thursday’s winning GPP line-up on a two game slate as you would expect was relatively chalky as we saw four people tie for the win in the $4 Clutch Shot with 332.3 FanDuel points utilizing the big names on the slate like Stephen Curry (43.6), Damian Lillard (44.7), Klay Thompson (35.6), LaMarcus Aldridge (49) and Jusuf Nurkic (47.5). The key value plays like Kyle Anderson (38.4) at only 13% ownership were not only crucial to loading up on the studs but it was which value plays you used that ultimately separated you from the pack!

Over the first sixteen NBA regular season slates it has taken 373.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.22x 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:

After a two game Thursday night slate we are back to a massive 12 game slate like we had on Wednesday night and my first piece of advice – look back at those line-ups and see what worked for a slate that size. Looking back at the winning line-ups they were more or less balanced builds with one superstar play being used in many lineups in conjunction with the value that opened up late in the day as Mario Chalmers ($4k) started at point guard. Tonight I think it makes sense to start your builds in a similar fashion – living in a solid mid-tier and then reacting to value as it opens throughout the day!

Lonzo Ball ($7,500): I have yet to roster the polarizing rookie in DFS this year but tonight simply sets up as the perfect time to unleash Lonzo in a massive pace-up spot against everyone’s favorite Brooklyn Nets! The Lakers have the second highest implied team total at 113.3 which is a 10 point increase on their season average while seeing the biggest pace boost of any team on the slate.

There are two teams in the NBA that play at break-neck paces – the Nets and Suns – and lucky for us, Lonzo has already faced off against Phoenix which gives us an idea of how he could fare in this match-up. In that game on October 21, Lonzo went for 29 points, 11 rebounds, 9 assists and 54.7 FanDuel points, by far his best outing of the year and now gets to take on a Nets squad ranked 27th in DvP versus opposing PG’s.

Go ahead and look at his game logs, the stinker last night against Portland or the 18.4 dud against the Jazz and simply scroll right past him – I will instead look at his game against the Suns which is essentially a mirror image of the match-up tonight and watch him drop the late night hammer!

Darren Collison ($6,000): I never really though Darren Collison would become a tournament style PG for DFS but the reality is this is a player who has now dropped 45+ FanDuel points (7x value) in three of his eight games this season. The Pacers point guard will take on a Philly team that has given up 35 and 52 FanDuel points to the last two PG’s they have faced in Dennis Schroder and James Harden, and are expected to see one of the largest pace increased in one of the highest paced games of the night. Collison is a guy who will always be over-looked on these large slates as evidenced by his 5% ownership against the Cavaliers on Wednesday so his low ownership combined with demonstrated GPP winning upside makes him an ideal play tonight.

The one injury spot to keep an eye on tonight is in Orlando as D.J. Augustin has already been ruled out which leaves a questionable Elfrid Payton ($6,800) or Shelvin Mack ($5,000) left to run point against a Bulls team ranked 25th in DvP to opposing PG’s. If Elf plays I love him as a tournament play tonight and if he is ruled out that means Mack is the last man standing and we should so 30+ minutes from a guy priced at only $5k which would open up a ton of value for us tonight!

FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:

If you guys read Picks and Pivots with any sort of regularity, you know I try to keep things simple – I focus on core plays, key metrics and give you my honest take on how to attack a slate. When I build my teams I tend to look for players with high usage rates, high fantasy point per minute outputs and ideal game match-ups – no statistical models or algorithms – just simple key decision points.

Devin Booker ($7,600) would probably be my most heavily owned DFS player so far this season as a result of this though process and I see no reason to change my thinking today. Booker is the clear lead dog in Phoenix seeing his usage rate increase each and every week since the departure of Eric Bledsoe, putting up a 30% usage rate over the last week with 1.2 fantasy points per minute while playing 30+ minutes every night. Tonight the Suns/Knicks have one of the highest game totals on the board (right behind Suns/Nets) so getting exposure to this game is critical in my mind and if you need Suns exposure you simply need to look no further than their #1 offensive option who still remains priced under $8k!

D’Angelo Russell ($7,500): If Booker is my most heavily owned DFS player this season, it is likely that D-Russ is not far behind as his shooting guard eligibility is a game changer on FanDuel as we can roster a player with a 33% usage rate taking on a Lakers team ranked 21st in DvP to opposing PG’s.

Russell missed a few games due to injury but appears to be back to normal after dropping 33 points and 45 FD points against the Suns last time on the court. The issue with Russell is always the minutes from Coach Kenny Atkinson as he rarely pushes over 30 minutes but considering the Nets have not played since Tuesday and will not play again until Monday, this seems like the ideal spot for the Nets to loosen the reigns a but on their star PG!

FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks:

T.J. Warren ($6,200): Going into his last game against Washington I heard a lot of people talk about fading Warren who had put up 36+ FanDuel points in two of his previous games and he came in at only 13% ownership when he dropped a 60 burger against the Wizards. I frankly do not understand why people aren’t rushing to use a guy who is the clear #2 in the Suns offense and has seen his usage tick over 30% the last week as he takes on an expanded role. The Knicks are ranked 21st in DvP to opposing SF’s and considering his recent production this price point feels entirely too low as he feels like a cash game lock with clear GPP upside!

Brandon Ingram ($5,900) is one of my favorite players in DFS as he is locked into major minutes, double-digit shot attempts and has the ability to rack up steals as evidenced by his 10 steals over his last three games which is huge under FanDuel’s new scoring! The Nets are ranked 27th in DvP to opposing SF’s this season and Ingram makes for a great way to get exposure to a game stack here at a reasonable price!

If there is one superstar I would be willing to pay up for on this slate it is LeBron James ($10,600) who has put up 57+ FanDuel points in three of his last five games and will now take on a Wizards team ranked dead last in DvP to opposing SF’s. LeBron is simply doing everything right now for the Cavaliers with a 30% plus usage rate and 1.3 FP/M and if we get value to open up during the day, he is an easy plug and play at the SF position!

FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks:

Kristaps Porzingis ($9,400): The Knicks have the highest team total on the slate at 114 points which is 12 points higher than their season average while seeing the second largest pace boost of any team on tonight’s schedule. KP is listed as questionable for this game due to an illness but the fact we have a line/spread here leads me to believe that KP will suit up for this game and sets up in the perfect spot against a the Suns and Marquesse Chriss who has the worst individual defensive rating of any PF on the slate! If you are building your roster with guys like Booker/Warren, you simply need to have the correlation play here with KP in what should be a high scoring, fast paced shootout!

Kyle Kuzma ($4,700): With the injury on Thursday night to Larry Nance Jr. (fractured thumb), Kyle Kuzma is in line for a much bigger role as the Lakers three-headed PF is now down to Kuzma and Julius Randle. The Nets are ranked dead last in DvP against PF’s this season so the match-up/price point could not be much better here. The Lakers/Nets game stack is one of my favorite core builds on this slate as we do not have a single player over $8k which allows you to stack one of the best games on the slate and still gives you the salary to pay up elsewhere.

Brook Lopez ($5,200): The BroLo revenge game! The injury to Larry Nance Jr. may have also put more of the inside burden on the ex Nets center who dropped 33 FanDuel points last night against Portland in 29 minutes of action. I love the idea of adding BroLo to a Lakers-Nets game stack here as the price point is reasonable and in a massive pace up spot against a team with no real inside presence, BroLo cold put up a big time game against his former team!

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 ($7,500)

PG: Darren Collison ($6,000)

SG: D’Angelo Russell ($7,500)

SG: Devin Booker ($7,600)

SF: T.J. Warren ($6,200)

SF: Brandon Ingram ($5,900)

PF: Kristaps Porzingis ($9,400)

PF: Kyle Kuzma ($4,700)

C: Brook Lopez ($5,200)

Slate Overview: The Lakers/Nets and Sun/Knicks have the highest game totals and highest paced environments so stacking these games at the core of your build makes for a cost-effective way to build a high upside line-up. With a slate this large there is bound to be some injury news to react to so keep an eye on what value plays open up as they could allow us to pivot up to a stud like LeBron James within the same roster build very easily!

Next: DraftKings NBA Plays

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, NHL, NFL and EPL!