FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Saturday December 9
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 tournament line-ups scored over 420 FanDuel points as massive nights from Kevin Durant (74.5) and Dwight Howard (71) led the way as the Bulls back-court in Kris Dunn (53) and Justin Holiday (40.6) lit up the Hornets in a sneaky game stack!
Over the first 51 NBA regular season slates it has taken 382.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.4x per player to take down a big time tournament in FanDuel NBA!
Over the first 51 NBA regular season slates it has taken 382.5 FanDuel points on average to take down a GPP which means on a $60,000 salary cap, we need 6.4x 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:
Welcome to the Saturday Main Slate where we have 8 very interesting games with some top end stars we will want to pay up for in elite pace up games so it will be critical to find some value plays to make this roster build work!
Patty Mills ($4,000): I cringe as I type this but the Spurs may be the key to unlocking the stars on this slate as they get the best possible match-up with the Phoenix Suns. The key here is the Spurs are on a back to back so we have to see if Popovich decides to rest guys like Tony Parker (played 19 minutes last night) and they are also dealing with some significant injuries as we already know Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Anderson and Manu Ginobili will miss this game and it is likely Danny Green will also miss tonight’s contests after leaving Friday night’s game with an injury!
The Spurs see the second largest pace boost of any team on this slate and will face off with a Suns team ranked dead last in DvP and Def-Eff to the PG position. Even if Parker suits up, we know Mills will continue to get his 25-27 minutes of court time as he has in each of the last three games and would likely see an even bigger boost if Parker sits on the back to back. In the earlier match-up between these two teams, Mills put up 17 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 26.8 FanDuel points in 25 minutes which crush GPP value at this $4k price point. Keep an eye on the news but Mills looks like an early day elite value play!
Andrew Harrison ($4,100)/Mario Chalmers ($3,900): Staying in value town, the Memphis PG spot against OKC could be another great value position as Andrew Harrison was inserted into the starting line-up last night and responded with 6 points, 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 24.3 FD points over 29 minutes of action! If Harrison gets the start again tonight, you could conceivably double-punt the PG position tonight and look to allocate those savings to other positions on this slate while still targeting clear 6x upside!
FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:
Bryn Forbes ($3,500): With the injury to Danny Green on Friday night, we saw Forbes enter the starting line-up for the Spurs in the second half of the game and he logged a massive 35 minutes against the Celtics. Tonight with Manu Ginobili sitting out AND the injury to Green, Forbes could have a clear path to 30+ minutes against a Spur steam ranked 28th in DvP and 20th in Def-Eff versus the SG position. Looking at the game logs, there is obvious risk that Forbes could be one of those DFS players that has a ton of court time and fails to rack up stats but this is a simple case where I am willing to risk it in GPP’s as massive minutes plus match-up gives me everything I need to roll the dice on a minimum priced SG!
Nicolas Batum ($6,400): I wrote up Batum yesterday and have no issue going right back to the well after he delivered 35 FanDuel points for me last night. One thing I recommend often on these “larger slates” is to find a core group of games you want to target and block out the noise elsewhere – on this slate the Hornets/Lakers game should be one of the focus points as it has the highest projected pace and second highest game total on the board!
The Hornets see the largest pace boost on the board and with Jeremy Lamb injured, it could mean even more run for Batum tonight! The one thing to monitor here is how the Lakers intend to match-up as they could conceivably stick KCP on Kemba Walker which would leave Lonzo Ball on Batum defensively.
Batum is back to logging 35 minutes a night, has double-digit shot attempts in each of his last two games but it is the peripheral stats that give him the tournament upside I am looking for as he has games with double-digit assists/rebounds in each of his last three games which helps elevate his ceiling from a DFS perspective!
FanDuel NBA – Top Forward and Center Plays:
LeBron James ($12,000) and Ben Simmons ($10,500): Let’s not bury the lead here – the Cavs/Sixers game has the highest total on the board and is the second fastest paced game on the slate so stacking these two stars is going to be at the core of my line-ups tonight. With Joel Embiid already ruled out, we know the drill – Simmons sees a 5% usage bump, leading the team with a 30% usage rate while putting up 1.3 FP/M. Simmons struggled in this match-up earlier this year but without Embiid on the floor tonight, this becomes a prime ceiling game for the Sixers young star and you can easily stack him with LeBron as the Cavs have the highest team total on the board!
Dwight Howard ($7,800) and Marvin Williams ($4,400): This pairing was popular last night in tournaments and after they dropped over 100 FanDuel points between them, I see no reason they won’t be again tonight against the Lakers. With no Frank Kaminsky and no Cody Zeller, the Hornets front-court is incredibly thin which means these two will get all the run they can handle as evidenced by their 40 minutes each of court time last night.
Obviously you can play the ownership angle and the fact they are on the back to back but this Charlotte/Lakers game is one I think you simply need to build around tonight and the pricing is cheap enough that you can fit them in nearly any roster build! Add in the fact we get Howard revenge narrative and I see no reason not to lock in Superman tonight!
If you want some correlation on the Lakers side, Brandon Ingram ($7,300) is my preferred target as he has clearly grown into the offensive leader of this Lakers team and looks like he has taken the next step in his growth as a pro. Watching him against the Sixers, where he logged 21 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists for 39.4 FD points, you clearly saw a player capable of racking up stats across the board with an aggressive offensive style. Ingram’s price has gotten to a point where people may shy away but this is a player with 50 FD point upside that will likely be over-looked as people chase the Lonzo Ball 50 burger where he got 7 blocks/steals.
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: Patty Mills ($4,000)
PG: Andrew Harrison ($4,100)
SG: Nicolas Batum ($6,400)
SG: Bryn Forbes ($3,500)
SF: LeBron James ($12,000)
SF: Brandon Ingram ($7,300)
PF: Ben Simmons ($10,500)
PF: Marvin Williams ($4,400)
C: Dwight Howard ($7,800)
Slate Overview: Looking at this slate I am trying to boil it down to two key games – loading up on the two best game environments in Cleveland/Philadelphia and Charlotte/Lakers while using the Spurs value in an elite spot against the Suns. Let’s cross our fingers and hop Popovich helps us out tonight (always a fun roll of the dice).
Best of luck in your FanDuel NBA contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis!