FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Monday November 20

Welcome to the Monday 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!

Sunday’s All Day winning tournament teams eclipsed 350 FanDuel points as players like Jimmy Butler (54) and DeMar DeRozan (58) put up massive days and the news that Kevin Durant would be out made Steph Curry a must play and he responded with 64.7 FanDuel points to lead all scorers.

Over the first 33 NBA regular season slates it has taken 377.1 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:

Russell Westbrook ($9,900): Have you ever wondered why so many big-ticket items get priced with .99? There is a psychological difference between paying $100 for something or $99.99 that a quick google search can help you read into if you are interested – but that is not why you came here today.

The reason I bring this up is that FanDuel is daring us to play Westbrook tonight at $9.9k. Westbrook under $10k – seriously think back to last year and tell me you ever expected him to be that low again?

The reality is, Westbrook is not the player he was last year when 50-60 FD points seemed like his floor as we have seen him eclipse 50 FanDuel points only 4 times this entire season. Tonight’s slate is interesting in that even with 11 games on the slate there does not appear to be a must-have game to target with the highest game total at 220 between the Magic/Pacers.

The Thunder/Pelicans game has the second highest total at 214.5 and plenty of star power to build around and this is a match-up Westbrook has dominated the last two seasons, going for 50+ FanDuel points in every single meeting. It is crazy to think we are at a point where Ben Simmons costs more than the reigning MVP, but this may be a spot we price enforce and lock in Westbrook at the cheapest price we have seen him months!

Jamal Murray ($5,600): The Nuggets were a team I stacked heavily last night against the Lakers and well, if you did not do that – you are welcome for my donation. Paul Millsap left the game early with a wrist injury and Nikola Jokic was ejected while the Nuggets were essentially blown out of the building by halftime which meant we saw 30 minutes of Mason Plumlee!

Murray sits at an interesting price point tonight, eye to eye with the popular value play in Mario Chalmers ($5,400), who while he is a great cash game play lacks the true upside I am looking for at this price point.

Murray is a guy I have been targeting each day over the last two weeks due to his increased usage and sheer volume of shots. Excluding last night’s mess, Murray had put up 18, 19 and 21 shot attempts over his last three games and tonight I would expect we see Millsap sit out as he awaits X-Rays on his wrist which would open up even more volume/usage for the Nuggets PG!

FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:

Shooting Guard is by far my least favorite position on this slate and one I think we look to punt when building our line-ups tonight. Bradley Beal ($7,900) would once again find himself in an elite spot if John Wall is out as Beal sees a 8% usage boost with Wall off the court this season, leading the Wizards in both usage and fantasy point per minute production. Victor Oladipo ($7,900) and the Pacers sit in the highest total game of the night against his former Orlando Magic squad so we can fire up the revenge narrative if we want to here but frankly both these guys seem over-priced relative to the slate. On a small slate like Sunday they were fine plays but with so much start power tonight, I do not see myself paying $8k for either of these guys this evening!

Andre Roberson ($3,800) and E’Twaun Moore ($4,600): From a tournament perspective, when I go through my roster build if there are positions I am looking to punt, the first thing I try to do is build off potential game stacks I have at the core of my line-up. I have already mentioned the Thunder/Pelicans have one of the highest game totals and I intend to use Westbrook this evening so using the SG spot to expand off this stack is an interesting build.

The Pelicans actually give up the second most FP/G to opposing SG’s on the season and this is a match-up Roberson performed well in last year, averaging over 23 FD points per game over 4 games which would return 6x value at this price point!

Moore has shifted back to the bench for the Pelicans with the return of Rajon Rondo who is slowly seeing his minutes tick up with 14 and 25 in the last two games which has kept Moore’s minutes steady with 27 and 31 over the last two games. Moore has put up 26 or more FanDuel points in four of his last five games which would exceed 5.6x value at this price point. Rondo’s return should cut into the value of Jameer Nelson more than it should for Moore and we can continue to expect 25-30 minutes off the bench for the Pelicans guard who will likely be completely ignored in tournaments tonight!

Bojan Bogdanovic and Garrett Temple ($3,700) are similar plays in the sense that they both will play minutes in the mid 20’s and flirt with 5-6xx value and could see expanded minutes tonight if Buddy Hield remains off the court for the Kings.

Alec Burks ($3,300) is a player I have been using as a GPP punt quite often lately as the injuries to the Jazz have forced him into a consistent role off the Utah bench, logging between 22-27 minutes in each of his last three games exceeding 6.8x value in two of those three games and can be used again as a punt option tonight!

FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Plays:

Wilson Chandler ($4,900) and Juan Hernangomez ($3,000): With the injury to Paul Millsap, the Nuggets are going to be a great source of value on this slate assuming the Denver PF sits this game out. Millsap is leading Denver in usage at 26.6% this season so any time we take the team leader in usage off it has a massive trickle down effect which should open up great DFS value for the rest of the Nuggets.

Wilson Chandler is probably the “safest” play of the Nuggets value as he is already locked into 30 minutes a night in the starting line-up and has put up 33 FD points in two of his last three games which would return near 7x value at this price point.

Hernangomez represents a much riskier option and unfortunately we have not yet seen a game this season where Millsap has sat out so it is tough to gauge who would draw the start but judging off last night’s game it was Hernangomez who saw the most run off the bench for Denver, logging 19 minutes and 16.3 FD points which would return 5.4x value at this bottom price point.

Stanley Johnson ($4,100): Johnson is one of those guys I rarely ever roster as although he plays alot of mintues, he typically struggles to do much with them – he is more of a stand in the corner and watch other people shoot kind of guy. You know who else is like that – Wesley Johnson of the Clippers.

Why do I bring this up? Well, Wes just went bonkers against the same Cavs team that Stanley faces tonight when the Clippers SF racked up 50 FanDuel points while racking up 15 points, 7 rebounds, 4 blocks and 3 steals and although it would be unreasonable to expect that output from Stanley tonight, it does reinforce the fact that we can heavily target players against the Cavaliers defense!

Dillon Brooks ($4,400): One team we need to keep our eye on tonight is the Memphis Grizzlies as they are already without their star PG in Mike Conley and could also be without Tyreke Evans who is questionable to play against Portland. Brooks is locked into major minutes and would be leaned on heavily to supply offense if both Conley AND Tyreke are out tonight!

FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Plays:

Anthony Davis ($10,800): A price point near $11k, an uninspiring recent game log and a game-time injury call for the most injury prone player in the NBA – sign me up! In all seriousness, this is the perfect GPP recipe for a low-owned Brow and pairing him with Westbrook tonight gives you an incredibly high ceiling, albeit volatile, tournament core. With Steven Adams locked on DeMarcus Cousins, do you really expect Carmelo Anthony to slow down The Brow tonight? Davis went for 50+ FD points in both meetings with OKC last year and I expect a major bounce back tonight at reduced ownership!

Kristaps Porzingis ($9,200): This is a contingent play completely dependent on the health of Tim Hardaway Jr. but if THJ is out, than I will be forcing The Unicorn into every single line-up I have as KP has a massive 42% usage rate this season while putting up 1.5 FP/M with Hardaway off the court. Porzingis has hit a rough patch which will keep game log watchers off his trail and has given us a nice price discount tonight in a prime bounce back spot where he will need to be the #1, #2 and #3 option offensively!

Marc Gasol ($8,200): One of the reasons I am looking to save salary at SG/SF is so that I can pay up across my front line and although we have a ton of great Center options, a Grizzlies team without Conley and Tyreke Evans could mean a massive outing for Gasol! With these two off the court this season, Gasol has a 31% usage rate and is putting up 1.5 FP/M and considering he just put up 38 FD points against this same Portland team (with Conley), a 40 burger seems like his floor here with massive upside considering the available usage!

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: Russell Westbrook ($9,900)

PG: Jamal Murray ($5,600)

SG: Garrett Temple ($3,700)

SG: Alec Burks ($3,300)

SF: Wilson Chandler ($4,900)

SF: Dillon Brooks ($4,400)

PF: Anthony Davis ($10,800)

PF: Kristapsg Porzingis ($9,200)

C: Marc Gasol ($8,200)

Slate Overview: As I mentioned earlier, this is an interesting slate as off the top I do not see a must have game or player we need to build around so I think we can take some chances tonight in our builds with an eye on the injury news which could open up much needed value which allows us to easily fit in top end stars at the PG spot and across the front court!

Next: DraftKings NBA Picks

Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!