FanDuel NBA Picks and Pivots – Sunday December 10

Welcome to the Sunday 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!

Saturday’s winning tournament line-ups scored over 400 FanDuel points as LeBron James (68.1) and Nikola Vucevic (65.6) put up massive nights while Atlanta’s role players Ersan Ilyasova (35.6) and Kent Bazemore (45.7) added big nights as nice correlation pieces to the Vucevic exposure!

Over the first 52 NBA regular season slates it has taken 38295 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:

As usual on Sunday’s we have an odd split slate with three early games and three late games so although we do have two chances to play NBA DFS today, the slates are not overly interesting. I will do my best to break down the top plays for each slate so you can either play them straight up or look to mix and match in the All-Day slate which covers all six games!

Early Games:

On the early slate we have some significant injury news to watch on the Indiana Pacers side as Darren Collison, Thad Young, Lance Stephenson and Bojan Bogdanovic are all questionable to play which could mean a player like Cory Joseph ($5,200) gets a big boost today even at his inflated price. If Joseph gets the start it not only boosts his value but it would also boost the value of Jamal Murray ($5,400) on the other side of this match-up as Collison is one of the best individual defenders at the PG position! The Nuggets/Pacers game is THE early stack spot as it has a 217 game total which is the highest of any of the early games while also being the fastest pace contest on the slate!

Kyrie Irving ($7,900) has seen his price drop below $8k and will match-up with Reggie Jackson who has one of the worst individual defensive ratings of any PG on the slate and the Pistons are ranked 21st in Def-Eff versus the PG position. Pairing Kyrie with one of the mid-range PG’s in the Denver-Indiana game is my preferred strategy if you are playing the early slate!

Main Slate:

Rajon Rondo ($6,100): Just as the Indiana/Denver game is the prime spot on the Early Slate, the Pelicans/Sixers game is the best game stacking spot on the Main Slate as it has by far the highest game total (223) and fastest pace of any game on the Main (or All-Day) slate. Rondo got the last game off for rest but prior to that had put up 36 or more FanDuel points in three of his last four games which would exceed 6x value at this price point!

Yogi Ferrell ($4,000): With the injury to Dennis Smith Jr., the Mavericks back-court becomes a great value source and with Ferrell stepping into the starting line-up at just above minimum price, he is a great way to build a roster on the Main Slate with some of the high-priced studs. Yogi struggled with foul issues in his last game so game log watchers may be hesitant to go back to him here against Minnesota but this is a player who had hit 5x value in two of his last three games and should be locked into consistent minutes tonight!

FanDuel NBA – Top Shooting Guard Picks:

Early Slate:

Victor Oladipo ($9,600): It is crazy to think that Oladipo is nearing $10k on FanDuel but this is a player who routinely puts up 50+ FanDuel points so the price is certainly justified and today the Pacers may be EXTREMELY short-handed which would put even more of the offensive load on Dipo’s shoulders. As I mentioned, this Denver/Indiana game is where I would look to build your core stack and pairing Oladipo with Will Barton ($7,600) gives you elite upside as both of these players are coming off 50 burgers in their last contest! Oladipo/Barton are both priced up, but the usage/volume for these two are off the charts and on a short slate, either of these players are capable of setting the cash line if they go off!

Main Slate:

J.J. Redick ($5,400): The Main Slate shooting guard options are not nearly as glamorous but there are some mid-range options that we can look to build around including Redick, to give us more exposure to the best game on the slate. Robert Covington left Saturday’s game with an injury and if he were to sit out, no player would see a bigger boost than Redick who sees a team leading 3.6% usage bump with RoCo off the floor this season!

Wes Matthews ($4,800): With DSJ off the court, Matthews becomes one of the best value plays on the slate as his combination of guaranteed minutes and increased usage makes him playable in all formats. In the last game with DSJ off the floor, Matthews show the ball 15 times, including 7 three-pointers and put up 33.3 FD points which would return nearly 7x value at this price point!

FanDuel NBA – Top Forward and Center Plays:

Early Slate:

Small Forward is my least favorite position on both slates so I will look toward extreme value in both cases to pay up for my priority plays at other positions. In the Early Slate, it will be key to watch the injury status of the two Pacers SF’s as if either Lance Stephenson or Bojan Bogdanovic sit out, it would give a massive boost to the other player. If both sit out, you can look to Wilson Chandler ($4,100) in the same game environment as a cheap way to get exposure to this contest with a starting player! Although I have minimal interest in the King-Raptors game, OG Aununoby ($3,600) is playing major minutes for the Raptors and attacking the Kings with wing players is the best possible match-up as they rank in the bottom 10 in DvP and Def-Eff.

Zach Randolph ($7,200) has amazingly hit fade at your own risk territory in DFS as he has logged 47 or more FanDuel points in three of his last four games. Over the last week, Z-Bo has a monster 33% usage rate while putting up 1.5 FP/M and even at this price point he seems like a steal given his role and recent production! Assuming we get some Pacers out today, Damonatas Sabonis ($4,900) seems like the ideal plug and play value at the PF position against a Nuggets team without Nikola Jokic in the middle, a double-double seems like a lock if Sabonis gets the minutes!

More from FanSided

Andre Drummond ($9,500) is THE play on the Early Slate to build around as he will take on a Celtics team he destroyed earlier this season when he dropped 26 points, 22 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals for 70 FanDuel points. Building around a core of Drummond/Kyrie/Oladipo and filling in with Denver/Pacers value is my preferred approach on this slate!

Main Slate:

Just like on the Early Slate, Small Forward is gross and I simply have priorities elsewhere so I am going to punt the position entirely. Lance Thomas ($3,700) is in play as a starter for the Knicks in a pace up spot against the Hawks and you can pair him with DeAndre’ Bembry ($4,300) on the Atlanta side who is locked into 20-25 minutes a night for an injury depleted Hawks frontcourt!

The big question on the main slate is how you intend to approach the Pelicans/Sixers game as this is where you want to spend. For my money, I love the build of pairing Ben Simmons ($10,300) and Joel Embiid ($10,700) with Anthony Davis ($10,500) – simply loading up at the position! Fading Boogie at $12k feels like the smart use of salary with The Brow back on the floor and although it is a scary proposition on a small slate it feels like the smart roster build!

Slate Overview: With so many injury questions in the Early Slate on the Indiana side, I would make sure to keep an eye on the news there as it could open up a TON of value and we need to be watching that news for our roster builds. On the Main Slate, it is simple – stack up New Orleans/Philly every way you can and move on! Enjoy your Sunday and all the NFL action, and make sure to get some FanDuel NBA in as well!

Next: FanDuel NFL Picks for Week 14

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