FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Thursday November 9
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!
Wednesday’s wild DFS slate saw the winning Clutch Shot entry rack up 363.4 FanDuel points on the back a handful of 40+ FanDuel performances from players like Stephen Curry, Goran Dragic, Devin Booker, Tim Hardaway Jr., Evan Fournier and Hassan Whiteside utilizing a relatively balanced roster build in order to take down a $100k GPP!
Over the first 22 NBA regular season slates it has taken 376.8 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.28x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
Over the first 22 NBA regular season slates it has taken 376.8 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.28x 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:
OK before I begin today, I need to remind myself that I love the NBA for DFS and I love writing this first look piece. I love waking up early, grabbing my coffee and digging into a slate only to have my phone buzz hours later with countless alerts that players like Kevin Durant, Kristaps Porzingis and Al Horford are out and throwing my entire early day research into the trash! In all seriousness – yesterday was the first real crazy day of DFS we have had so far this NBA season and it literally left me pulling together my final line-up just minutes before lock due to all the news! It is a reminder to all of us – build your core during the day but be ready to adjust to news as it comes! OK enough belly-aching – let’s get in to today’s five game slate!
Lonzo Ball ($6,500): For all the pomp and circumstance that comes with the Ball family, Lonzo has been relatively under the radar with his on the court play so far this season and his price as gotten to a point where I think we need to enforce it a bit for DFS. Ball is coming off a solid game last night against Boston where he logged 38 minutes and put up 37 FanDuel points and has now topped 30+ FD points in five of his 11 contests this season.
The injury to Larry Nance Jr. has driven much more of the offense towards Ball as he has put up 13, 15 and 15 shot attempts in his last three games – with his continued issue being efficiency as he has not topped 30% from the field in any of those games!
The intriguing thing about Ball is that regardless of his point totals, he simply racks up the peripheral stats as evidenced by the last time he faced this Wizards team and put up 35.6 FD points while only scoring 6 actual points! If Lonzo’s shot is falling then you have a player with 50+ upside and on a short(er) slate like this, the price is simply daring you to take that chance!
T.J. McConnell ($5,400): The Sixers/Kings game has the lowest game total on the night by 10 points as this 204 game total may lead many to ignore this game, but I actually think it makes for a great GPP core/stack tonight and the reason is relatively simple – we have a core of players locked into guaranteed minutes at depressed price points relative to their ceiling.
With Jerryd Bayless out with an injury we saw the Sixers (without Joel Embiid for one game due to rest) employ essentially a five man rotation that all played 28+ minutes in an impressive road victory versus the Jazz.
McConnell played 30 minutes in that games, racking up 21 FanDuel points in a uncharecteristically quiet game on the defensive end which is where the Sixers guard can truly crush DFS value. Remember prior to these last two quiet games, McConnell was averaged 34 FD points per game over the prior four game stretch so do not let the last two games in his game log fool you – this is a player with big time DFS upside that may go under owned tonight as people who got burned last time out, shy away!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:
James Harden ($11,200): If there is one stud that is a must play for me on this slate it is The Beard who gets a DREAM match-up against a Cavaliers team that simply cannot stop anyone. Harden is coming off a monster 77 FD point effort against the Jazz and now takes on a Cleveland team ranked 29th in DvP versus opposing PG’s. The upside is massive in this spot for Harden and the Rockets who have the highest implied team total on the slate and Harden should be the focal point of this attack that I expect will deliver another big time DFS outing – he is fade at your own risk territory for me tonight!
Normal Powell ($4,000): Going high/low at Shooting Guard is my preferred route tonight and Powell stands out to me as a great point per dollar play both in terms of his guaranteed minutes and his match-up. Powell as the starting SF will take on a Pelicans team ranked 27th in DvP to opposing SF’s on the season and has hit 5x value in four of his last five games and has averaged 22.5 FD points over that stretch which would put him at 5.6x value at this price point.
If you have the salary, I think another viable strategy is to double up on Houston and play Eric Gordon ($6,300) at shooting guard as the Cavs are ranked 26th in DvP to opposing SG’s and you can essentially own all the usage in the Houston offense by pairing him with The Beard on this slate!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Picks:
If you want to pair LeBron James ($11,800) with Harden tonight and game stack the Cavs/Rockets game I think that is a really strong strategy as this game has the highest game total (228), is projected to be close (5 point Vegas spread) and you know that you have two offenses that are centered around their stars!
It is kind of crazy to type this but LeBron seems to be playing at an entirely new level almost replicating his pre-Kyrie days in Cleveland where he simply HAD to do everything to even give his team a chance to win. Over the last two weeks, the King has a massive 32% usage rate and is putting up 1.5 FP/M with 55+ FanDuel points in four straight games. I do not see LBJ as a “must” play on this slate but I love the idea of stacking this game and locking in the King and the Beard as your core!
Justin Jackson ($3,100) If you want to stack the stars you are going to need some scrubs and this is where the Kings Justin Jackson comes in as we can lock in a player who played 30 minutes in his last contest, racked up 21 FD points and simply crushed value. I am not saying this is an all-in play as this was Jackson high water mark for the year but considering he racked up 14 shot attempts in that game versus OKC, I am willing to gamble on the price point if he sees anywhere near those minutes and volume again!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Picks:
Let me start out with a guy I am not using (initially) in this build but once I simply cannot ignore – Ben Simmons ($9,900) who just continues to be a lock for 50+ FanDuel points per night and is an ideal cash game play. The reason I am hesitant to use him in tournaments tonight is twofold: first, allocating that salary to him means that stacking Harden/LBJ becomes nearly impossible and that is my priority at least initially in my build. Second, Simmons to me was a guy I used as the “under tha radar” star on DFS slates but it was interesting to see he had near 20% ownership even in his last game against the Jazz. Now he delivered (as he seemingly always does) but the ownership is getting to a level that it may make sense to pivot off of in GPP’s unless you are game stacking the Kings/Sixers (which I think is actually semi-viable).
Dario Saric ($4,100) is a much cheaper option you can pivot too tonight in the Sixers front-court as Saric has started the last five games for Philadelphia while delivered relatively steady 5x value. Saric had a monster game last time out against the Jazz putting up 25/10 but remember that was with Joel Embiid out for rest so it would be unrealistic to expect that output again with Embiid expected back but it is a good reminder of the ceiling he possesses at this price point.
Ryan Anderson ($4,300) is a cheap way to build off the Cleveland/Houston game stack and considering that Luc Mbah a Moute is questionable for this game, it should open up even more minutes for a player like Anderson on the wing in a match-up against Jae Crowder.
If you are building a game stack like I am proposing here, then your only other viable Cavalier option is Kevin Love ($7,300) who is coming off a monster 63 FD point performance against the Bucks with 32 points and 16 rebounds. The Cavs right now are essentially LeBron/Love and the corpses of D-Wade/D-Rose which is one of the reasons I love this game stack tonight as you can clearly lock in on the majority of the usage by building a core of James/Love/Harden/Gordon 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: Lonzo Ball ($6,500)
PG: T.J. McConnell ($5,400)
SG: James Harden ($11,200)
SG: Eric Gordon ($6,300)
SF: LeBron James ($11,800)
SF: Justin Jackson ($3,100)
PF: Ryan Anderson ($4,300)
PF: Dario Saric ($4,100)
C: Kevin Love ($7,300)
Slate Overview: Let’s hope we get a little less news today and can stay true to our core – but my initial take on this slate is to build a core game stack around the Rockets/Cavaliers, specifically LeBron and Harden. The reason is simple – we have two stars that dominate the usage for their respective clubs and have clear secondary options in Gordon/Love so we do not have to guess where the production will come from which makes it relatively safe for cash games with massive GPP upside as this game is expected to be close and high scoring – a good combo for DFS!
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis across all your favorite sports!