FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Wednesday November 8
Welcome to the Thursday 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!
Tuesday’s winning tournament scores put up over 400 FanDuel points in the $4 Clutch Shot with a monster night from Nikola Jokic (73.9) and Anthony Davis (66.8) and surprising mid-tier value plays like Dennis Smith Jr. (44.6) and Harrison Barnes (46.3) at single digit ownership!
Over the first 21 NBA regular season slates it has taken 377.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.29x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
Over the first 21 NBA regular season slates it has taken 377.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.29x 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:
Stephen Curry ($9,500): Tonight we get a short(er) five game slate with one very clear marquee game as the Warriors and Timberwolves tango in Golden State! This game has the highest total (230), which is fifteen points higher than the next closest game on the slate and the Warriors not shockingly have the highest team total at 120 which is higher than their season average by 2 points!
If you are looking for a game to stack tonight this is where you should begin but with three of the four highest priced plays on the slate coming from this game, you will need some value in order to make that build work.
Curry has by far the best individual match-up on Golden State which makes him my top play as the TWolves are ranked 27th in DvP to opposing PG’s on the season, the only position ranked 20th or lower for Minnesota. These two teams played in the preseason in an exhibition series in Shanghai and Curry absolutely destroyed Teague putting up 40 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds so with the price being under $10k tonight on FanDuel, this is an elite spot to target a player who could be the highest raw point performer of the night!
Jeff Teague ($6,900): I have to be honest – I do not think I have played Jeff Teague once in DFS this year and frankly the only reason I clicked on him was as part of a game stack/correlation with Curry but after digging in, I think Teague is in play in almost any format tonight.
If you are not familiar with Minnesota for DFS purposes, they run an incredibly tight rotation and the starters play….ALOT. Teague has played between 33 and 39 minutes in each of his last five games putting up 34+ FanDuel points in all but one of those games. Teague is putting up double-digit shot attempts in almost every single game, while racking up double-digit assists and 2 steals per game over those last five contests!
At this price point, Teague feels like a cash game lock for 5x with the demonstrated upside for much more and can be deployed as a stand alone play or part of a game stack assuming this game stays close (currently an 11 point spread).
UPDATE: With the news that Al Horford is OUT due to a consussion, Kyrie Irving ($8,900) becomes a priority play for me as he sees a 7% usage boost with a massive team leading 41% usage rate!
I am not sure I will need to go here tonight but Frank Ntilikina ($4,400) is a guy we NEED to keep our eye on as the minutes trend is putting him in position to be THE PG to own for the Knicks. We brought this up in yesterday’s Picks and Pivots that the Knicks rookie got all the fourth quarter minutes against the Pacers over the weekend and we saw the same exact trend last night against the Hornets where Ntilikina comes in at the tail end of the 3rd quarter and never leaves the court. If you need a value play tonight then do not be afraid to take a shot on Frank who was 3-5% owned in large field GPP’s last night!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guards:
Dion Waiters ($6,000): After missing two games due to the birth of his child (CONGRATS!), Waiters returns for the Heat tonight and could not ask for a better match-up against a Suns team ranked 27th in DvP to opposing SG’s!
The Heat see the largest pace boost and point boost on the slate as they are expected to score more than 8 points higher than their season average so this is a spot we want to get exposure to! Waiters is a fantasy difference maker when he is on as evidenced by the 50 burger he dropped on Minnesota earlier this season with a whopping 28 shot attempts and considering the price point, this has the potential to pay off in a very big way tonight in the ideal match-up for a scorer like Waiters!
Klay Thompson ($6,900): Klay feels a bit too pricey considering his run of production as he would need 35-42 FD points to hit value, numbers he has only hit 4 times this season, but we have seen SG’s have success against Minnesota this season as I mentioned with Waiters monster game earlier.
When you step back and look at it – of the three SG’s that have played 30+ minutes against Minnesota this season – each and every one of them has put up a fantasy point per minute of production, scoring 30 or more FD points so the match-up here is one I believe we can exploit with a player who will likely be the lowest owned of all the big names here tonight!
With Victor Oladipo and Devin Booker sitting at price points just above Klay, you can easily pivot if you have the salary to do so and the fact they are all so jumbled together makes this a great spot to mix and match at if building multiple line-ups.
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks:
The Small Forward position tonight is essentially Kevin Durant – Jimmy Butler – and then value city – so if you are not going to pay up for the two stars then I think you can look to save some coin here and opt to spend elsewhere!
Jonathan Simmons ($4,800): The biggest injury news I am watching tonight is the status of Elfrid Payton who is questionable to return for the Magic as he is still experienced soreness which could lead to another PG start for Jonathan Simmons. Simmons got into early foul trouble in his last game as a starter which limited his minutes/production but if he gets the start tonight he should be able to flourish against a Knicks team ranked 25th in DvP to opposing PG’s.
Lance Stephenson ($3,300): The ultimate GPP punt, Lance is coming off his best game of the season as he played 27 minutes and logged 29 FanDuel points, largely at the expense of Victor Oladipo on this night. With the Pacers being short-handed in the front court, it was Stephenson who seemed to see the biggest benefit off the bench for Indiana and as a player whio has gone for 8x in two of his last five games, he could be the salary saving GPP punt that makes you a tournament winner!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks:
Kristaps Porzingis ($9,800): The Unicorn is the clear top option at the PF position tonight and will continue to be one of the best DFS plays on any slate he is priced under $10k as his recent run of 50+ FanDuel points in five of his last seven shows the kind of upside he has – especially on a short slate like this where raw points are critical.
The Knicks have to travel on the tail end of a back to back from NY to Orlando to take on a Magic team that is ranked 27th in DvP against opposing PF’s this season. KP had a “down game” last night and still put up 40 FanDuel points so jump off if you want to, this is one of the best DFS players in the NBA right now and if I can get him for under $10k again tonight I will gladly go right back to the well!
Anthony Tolliver ($3,000): An underrated piece of injury news tonight is the status of Stanley Johnson who is questionable to play for the Pistons tonight which could open up some significant value for Detroit. When Johnson went off the floor in the last game it was Tolliver who was the main beneficiary, logging 11 minutes and 11 FanDuel points so if Johnson is out again tonight, Tolliver makes for an elite PF punt!
Karl-Anthony Towns ($9,700): You can make the case for any of KAT, Drummond or Whiteside tonight, and I do think you should pay up at Center on this slate, but KAT is the one that I plan on using tonight! I want to game stack this Warriors/Wolves game and correlate my Warriors plays with the most dangerous DFS play on the Minnesota side and take advantage of the fact that the Warriors are ranked 26th in DvP to opposing Centers on the season!
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: Stephen Curry ($9,500)
PG: Jeff Teague ($6,900)
SG: Klay Thompson ($6,900)
SG: Dion Waiters ($6,000)
SF: Jonathan Simmons ($4,800)
SF: Lance Stephenson ($3,300)
PF: Kristaps Porzingis ($9,800)
PF: Anthony Tolliver ($3,000)
PF: Karl-Anthony Towns ($9,700)
Slate Overview: On short slates like this I tend to keep it simple and focus on a key core which on tonight’s slate is Golden State and Minnesota. The price points are not overly difficult to fit in with some potential value plays and we know the upside is enormous. Considering the Wolves short rotation and minutes security, they make for a great cash game core with GPP upside if they can keep this game in Oracle close!
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, NFL, NHL and EPL!