FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Saturday November 11
Welcome to the Saturday 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!
Friday’s winning GPP line-ups landed at 380 FanDuel points on the back of big nights from Paul George (69.3) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (63.9) at the heart of the roster. Picks and Pivots night was sunk before it even started as our Kyrie Irving play got us a big fat zero due to an injury that caused him to leave the game right off the bat but we move on to another day and another DFS slate!
Over the first 24 NBA regular season slates it has taken 378.1 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!
Over the first 24 NBA regular season slates it has taken 378.1 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:
Looking over this slate initially we have some interesting decisions to make as the top four projected scoring teams on the night are also favorites of 8 point or more, meaning we have some legit blowout concerns to factor into our roster builds tonight.
Dennis Smith Jr. ($6,000): It is amazing to think that prioritizing players against the Cavaliers is becoming a must DFS strategy but the reality is, their defense is just THAT bad! Point Guards against Cleveland is becoming one of those spots you simply have to exploit as 10 of 12 starting PG’s have eclipsed 30 FanDuel points against the Cavaliers this season with the only two failing to meet that mark being Jarret Jack and Malcolm Brogdon.
OK Brian, but maybe the Cavaliers have faced a bunch of elite PG’s – and sure Kyrie Irving, John Wall and James Harden are on that list but so too are Darren Collison (44), Spencer Dinwiddie (37), Jerian Grant (34.2) and D.J. Augustin (32.8).
At $6k tonight, Smith Jr. seems like a lock for cash game value (5x) with substantial upside for more in this match-up! The Mavericks rookie is coming off one of his best games of the season where he logged 31 minutes and racked up 22 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists for 44.6 FanDuel points!
Eric Bledsoe ($6,500): The new Bucks starting PG made his season debut last night and although it made sense to take a wait and see approach last night, I think we need to jump on the player and the price point against the Lakers tonight!
It terrifies me to count on Jason Kidd for minutes but the Bucks coach essentially ran an 8 man rotation last night and had 6 players log 29 or more minutes, including Bledsoe. Bledsoe was second on the team in shot attempts last night with 15 and racked up 7 assists and in a pace up environment like this against the Lakers, we should expect another solid game with the kind of GPP ceiling a player like Bledsoe offers!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:
James Harden ($11,800): Can you afford to fade The Beard right now? Over his last two games against Utah and Cleveland, Harden has put up monster fantasy games of 76.9 and 80.7 FanDuel points. I am sure that people will point to the match-up tonight with Memphis and the pace down environment and the fact that he has yet to top 40 FD points in either match-up against Memphis this season as reasons to fade the Rockets star, but all that does in my opinion is suppress his ownership and that is music to my ears!
Harden is back to the player he was last year in DFS with a 34% usage rate and with this game having one of the closer spreads (6), we should expect a full complement of minutes for the Rockets all world guard! Let others fade him and I will just continue to ride the best DFS player in the game right now!
Low Williams ($5,700): One of the most critical things in NBA DFS in my opinion is a simple one – you need to play every day. Now I am not saying you need to dedicate your life to DFS but keeping on top of the news each day will help you stay on top of the news that others will miss.
Yesterday the news came out that Patrick Beverley and Danillo Gallinari would miss the Clippers game which opened up an expanded role for Lou Williams who responded with 39 minutes and 45 FanDuel points! Now if you are not playing DFS each day, a player like Sweet Lou may not be on your radar but we should see a similar game environment tonight for a short-handed Clippers team so firing back up Lou Will makes a ton of sense again at this price point!
FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Plays:
Giannis Antetokounmpo ($12,200) or LeBron James ($11,800): The biggest question for me tonight is whether to pay up for Giannis or LeBron at small forward. The Bucks see one of the largest pace boosts of any team on the slate against the Lakers and with Vegas setting the spread at only 5, this Bucks/Lakers game makes for an ideal game stack environment.
LeBron on the other hand sees one of the biggest pace decreases of any star on the slate so I expect the masses will opt to pivot up to Giannis as their must have SF star which could lead to lower ownership in GPP’s.
With the price points being similar, I would look to mix and match your line-ups with both players tonight and utilizing a high/low strategy at the position with some of the cheaper options available. Jeff Green ($4,200) was a monster in his last game, playing 37 minutes, scoring 25 points and 45 FanDuel points and makes for an intriguing pivot off LeBron or a stack play alongside him tonight!
Doug McDermott ($3,200): Good ole Dougie Buckets! If you are looking for a cheap punt play with elite scoring upside, then look no further than the Knicks SF who has played 27 and 30 minutes in each of his last two games hitting 5x and 7.5x value over those two starts!
FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Plays:
With elite plays at SG and SF that I am prioritizing into my line-ups tonight, we will need to find value plays to make the build work and the PF/C position tonight is one of the best places to do just that!
Alex Len ($4,400): With Tyson Chandler sidelined, Len stepped into the starting line-up against the Magic, played 39 minutes and racked up 21 points, 13 boards and 41.1 FanDuel points, approaching nearly 10x value at this price point. Tonight assuming Chandler is out again, we can fire Len back up against the Timberwolves and Karl-Anthony Towns who had the worst individual defensive rating of any Center on the slate last season!
Bobby Portis ($5,000): I have been hesitant to roster Portis in his first two games back but after putting up 20+ points and 11+ rebounds in both games while racking up 36.7 and 40.6 FanDuel points, I am not sure you can afford to fade him at a price point with massive profit potential still available. The match-up against the Spurs is obviously not one we typically look to exploit but the price point on Portis is cheap enough where the risk/reward makes rolling him out again tonight a great GPP strategy!
John Henson ($5,200): The Bucks may be my favorite stacking spot tonight after seeing Jason Kidd roll out a tight 8 man rotation where the top 6 players all logged 29 or more minutes last night! Henson played 32 minutes last night against the Spurs (the same match-up Portis has tonight), and proceeded to drop 10 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks and 2 steals for a total of 39.4 FanDuel points!
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: Eric Bledsoe ($6,500)
PG: Dennis Smith Jr. ($6,000)
SG: James Harden ($11,800)
SG: Lou Williams ($5,700)
SF: Giannis Antetokounmpo ($12,200)
SF: Doug McDermott ($3,200)
PF: Bobby Portis ($5,000)
PF: John Henson ($5,200)
C: Alex Len ($4,400)
Slate Overview: Looking over this slate, my recommendation is to use the value in the front court to pay up for James Harden and either Giannis or LeBron at SF. The Bucks are my favorite stacking spot tonight in a pace up game against the Lakers so building around Giannis/Bledsoe/Henson is a great GPP core!
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis!