FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Wednesday December 6

Welcome to the Wednesday 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 line-up fell just shy of 400 FanDuel points as a massive night from Russell Westbrook (69.6) combined with big nights from Damian Lillard (49.1) and Bradley Beal (55.6) were at the core of the top line-ups on the night! The biggest GPP pivots that helped down home the huge pay days were found on the Utah Jazz as Donovan Mitchell put up 48.2 FD points at 12% ownership and Thabo Sefolosha dropped 38.6 FD points at near minimum salary and only 1% ownership!

Over the first 48 NBA regular season slates it has taken 380.8 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:

On large slates like we have today with 10 games, my going in position is to try to narrow down the slate to a few core games/players I want to target and build off that. It is easy to get lost in the noise throughout the day as you research more, read/listen to different ideas and then react to news and next thing you know you have 25 line-ups with every iteration you can think of!

Rajon Rondo ($6,000) and Jamal Murray ($5,600): Right off the bat one of the games that stands out to me is Denver and New Orleans which has a 218.5 game total, second on the slate, and the third highest pace of any game in action tonight.

Rondo comes into this game on quite a hot streak having put up between 36 and 37 FanDuel points in each of his last three games which would deliver 6x value in every contest and now he gets to take on a Nuggets team ranked 28th in DvP and 27th in Def-Eff against PG’s. With Anthony Davis still doubtful to play, the rest of the Pelicans roster will be tasked with carrying the load and Rondo has become the key facilitator in the offense (and perfect pairing with DeMarcus Cousins) as he has 10+ assists in each of his last three contests!

In pace up spots like this I love pairing my point guards together and the price points for Rondo and Murray make it easy to do so while saving salary for some big-ticket players! Rondo and Murray both rank in the bottom 10 for individual DRPM amongst starting point guards so this is a spot where we simply attack the fast pace and two poor defenders on both sides.

With Rondo back in the line-up, point guards have excelled in recent games against the Pelicans, putting up 40 or more FanDuel points in four of the last five games as Stephen Curry (2x), Damian Lillard and Tyus Jones have all eclipsed that mark!

Murray is a Picks and Pivots favorite (much to my demise on many nights) as a result of his high usage and high volume that gives him a massive ceiling on any given night. Over the last two weeks, Murray has a team leading 30% usage rate, a 5% increase on his season long average, and is putting up a FP/M with Nikola Jokic off the floor!

Murray has launched 12 or more shot attempts in four of his last five games and absolutely crushed in this match-up last time out when he put up 31 points, 4 assists and 39.4 FanDuel points which would exceed 7x value at this price point! Stack em up!

FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Plays:

Klay Thompson ($6,900): The biggest news on this slate is that Stephen Curry will miss tonight’s game and be out for “a few weeks” and from a DFS perspective we all know what that means – when one of the Big 3 is out, you lock in the other two and move on!

With Curry off the court this season, Thompson has the second highest usage rate on the Warriors at 29.2% which is a 4% increase over his season long numbers. Even without Curry on the court, the Warriors have the highest implied team total on the slate and get the added advantage of a pace-up game against the Hornets tonight. On the season, the Hornets are ranked 21st in DvP and Def-Eff against the SG position and although much of that was without Nicolas Batum on the court ( a better defender than Jeremy Lamb), the usage and volume is simply too high tonight for Klay to ignore and he makes for an elite play in all formats!

Jrue Holiday ($7,100): Speaking of high usage, high volume players primed to take on an expanded role with an injury to a team’s star player – Jrue Holiday gets many of the same boosts with Anthony Davis off the floor! Over the last week, Holiday has a 27.5% usage rate, a 2% increase over his season long numbers while logging a fantasy point per minute of production.

What stands out the most with Holiday is the sheer volume of shots as he has put up 20 or more shot attempts in three of his last five games with 39 shot attempts in the last two games with The Brow off the floor! In each of those games where Holiday put up 20 or more shot attempts, he eclipsed the 40 FanDuel point mark in every single game and with Davis off the court tonight I see no reason to expect that volume to drop which gives him the 40-50 FD point upside we want to target when building our tournament teams!

FanDuel NBA – Top Small Forward Plays:

Kevin Durant ($10,000): With the injury to Stephen Curry, Durant is going to be the first player in my (and many others) line-ups today! Over the last two seasons, KD sees a 4.4% usage increase, leading the team in usage rate at 34.1% while putting up 1.4 FP/M of production! In a game that is expected to be close, fast paced and high scoring, there is simply no reason to fade Durant tonight in cash games and I would have a hard time recommending the fade in GPP play unless you are playing a straight ownership fade!

Charlotte has struggled this year to contain opposing SF’s ranking 24th in DvP and 16th in Def-Eff and Durant put up 42 and 47 FD points in his two previous meetings against the Hornets (with Curry on the floor) so the upside for a 50-60 FD point performance is apparent today and with enough value in the Denver/New Orleans game, it become incredibly easy to afford the Warriors star!

Wilson Chandler ($4,800): The Nuggets have one of the highest implied totals on the slate and have one of the largest pace increases of any team in action which when combined with the absence of Nikola Jokic, presents an elite opportunity for some of the Denver value plays to step up and crush value!

Chandler returned to the starting line-up last game for Denver playing 27 minutes but struggling mightily with his shot as he went only 1 for 11 from the floor in that outing. Tonight he will take on a Pelicans team that is ranked 26th in DvP and Def-Eff against opposing SF’s and one that he crushed in their earlier match-up this season when he logged 15 points, 11 rebounds and 33.2 FD points which would approach 7x value at this price point!

If you want a pivot play, you can stay in this game and attack either of the value SF’s on New Orleans as Dante Cunningham ($4,600) and Darius Miller ($4,000) are both locked into 30+ minutes of court time with Anthony Davis out of the line-up. Neither player has the GPP upside that Chandler has but they make for a solid “last man in” kind of play in cash games or smaller field tournaments due to their minute stability!

FanDuel NBA – Top Power Forward and Center Plays:

DeMarcus Cousins ($11,300): If Kevin Durant is player #1 in your line-ups today than I think Boogie Cousins needs to be #1A with Anthony Davis off the court AND no Nikola Jokic to defend him on the other side of this game. Boogie is coming off a 59.7 FanDuel point game against and is sporting a team high 36% usage rate and 1.5 FP/M over the last week with Davis off the court!

The Pelicans got the doors blown off them the first time these two teams met, losing 146 to 114 which meant Boogie only logged 25 minutes of court time in that game due to the blow out so it makes sense to simply throw out that game for comparison sake tonight. The Nuggets without Jokic on the interior are going to get eaten alive by the Boogie Monster tonight and with all the salary relief that can be found in this game, it is easy to pay up for Cousins on this slate!

With Anthony Davis and Blake Griffin injured and Kristaps Porzgingis nursing an injury, the top of the Power Forward spectrum is a bit ugly tonight which means this may be a great place to live in the mid-range when building our rosters.

For as great of an individual defender as Draymond Green is (1st at his position), it is fascinating to note that the best place to attach Golden State this season has been at Power Forward as they rank 27th in DvP and 21st in Def-Eff. With Zaza Pachulia questionable after sitting out last game due to injury, it puts even more on the plate of Draymond Green but we saw in the last contest Dante Cunningham rack up 11 points, 9 rebounds and 27 FanDuel points as the Pelicans starting Power Forward!

Marvin Williams ($4,400) and Frank Kaminsky ($4,100) make for an interesting Hornets PF stack as any sort of similar production as we saw from Cunningham would far exceed 6x value at these price points! Both Kaminsky and Williams averaged 27 FD points per game last season over two outings with the Warriors which is the exact target we are looking for to return value at these price points and although Williams is the steadier starting option, Kaminsky is locked into solid minutes as the top back-up Center/PF for Charlotte.

We have seen this season the Warriors try to force teams to go small so if they can find a way to get Dwight Howard off the court, it could mean more run for Williams and Kaminsky so stacking these two players as essentially “one power forward” gives you 40-50 minutes of court time at $8.5k so if each player can get me 25 FD points then I found a back way to get my 6x at PF by attacking essentially the same exact match-up!

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: Rajon Rondo ($6,000)

PG: Jamal Murray ($5,400)

SG: Klay Thompson ($6,900)

SG: Jrue Holiday ($7,100)

SF: Kevin Durant ($10,000)

SF: Wilson Chandler ($4,800)

PF: Marvin Williams ($4,400)

PF: Frank Kaminsky ($4,100)

C: DeMarcus Cousins ($11,300)

Slate Overview: I wasn’t kidding when I told you my goal on these slates is to center my attention on a few key spots and tonight my goal was to build around two of the highest scoring/fastest paced games in Golden State/Charlotte and New Orleans/Denver. With my focus just on these two games, I can cut out the noise from the rest of the league and focus my build on getting the best plays/match-ups within these elite game environments. Obviously there are tons of other great players/games tonight you can target but this build gives you an idea on how to simplify a large slate like this!

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 fantsy analysis!