NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday December 15
Welcome to the Friday edition of NBA DFS 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 NBA DFS 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 across FanDuel and Fantasy Draft!
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!
Thursday’s DFS slate was the perfect Stars and Scrubs night and we saw that play out in winning tournament line-ups that scored over 360 points on Fantasy Draft as LeBron James and Kevin Durant both put up 65+ fantasy points but it was Karl-Anthony Towns who had the best night with 69.5 FD points! When paired with the Golden State value plays like Jordan Bell (30) and Omri Casspi (39) you had an easy path to a winning line-up!
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 go position by position to help you identify the best slate strategy across your NBA DFS line-ups.
As always, we will look to update our final lineup thoughts 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!
NBA DFS – Top High Priced Guard Plays:
Damian Lillard ($17.2K on FantasyDraft (FD) and $9.5k on FanDuel): Although Dame is not the most expensive option at the position as we have players like Russell Westbrook and Ben Simmons ahead of him, he is the clear top option in my mind as his combination of match-up and price point give him elite upside tonight.
Lillard will take on a Magic team ranked 29th in DvP and 27th in Def-Eff this season to the PG position while Dame steps into this game with 50+ FD points in four of his last five games. Portland sees one of the largest pace boosts on tonight’s slate and we have seen opposing PG’s routinely shred this Magic defense in recent weeks as players like Dennis Schroder (36 and 46 FD points), Stephen Curry (50) and Kemba Walker (54) have all put up big time games in the same game environment. Lillard has massive upside in this spot and the price is reasonable enough on both sites tonight that you can lock him in and still have more than enough salary room to pay up elsewhere.
PlayLine Play: PlayLine.com – Lillard is one of the key players highlighted in tonight’s $1M Perfect Line-Up challenge which by the way – A HUGE CONGRATS to the lucky PlayLine user who took this down last night correctly predicting the point totals for the seven featured players and is now ONE MILLION DOLLARS RICHER! Wow. Anyways – for tonight’s contest I would projected Dame aggressively as he has scored over 30 points in three of his last four games and gets the perfect match-up for another 30+ point outing tonight!
Lou Williams ($13.8k on FD and $8.8k on FanDuel): Lou Will is a one of those players that every time you look at his price you have to ask yourself if you really want to pay the asking price which has risen from the mid-range to an elite level as the season has gone on. It may be tough to pay this much for him but take the name out of play for a second and just look at the recent game logs and the current game environment.
The Clippers tonight will be without Blake Griffin, Patrick Beverly, Danilo Gallinari AND Austin Rivers which when you dig into the metrics means that Williams sees an 8% usage bump – leading the team with a massive 37.2% usage rate and 1.2 FP/M.
One of the things I always look for when targeting players is that I want to find guys with high usage, high minutes and VOLUME which Lou Will has….and then some! Over his last four games, Williams has shot the ball 20 or more times in three of them with his “down game” being “only” 18 shot attempts.
Williams has scored 40 or more FD points in four of his last five games which would exceed 3x value at this price point on Fantasy Draft and even on FanDuel this is a guy who is becoming cash game viable with a solid 5x floor and the clear upside for more!
The match-up on paper versus the Wizards does not appear to be anything special but take a guess which team Williams has had his best recent game against – that is right – the Wizards! These two teams plays on the 9th and Williams dropped 35 points 8 assists and racked up 51 FD points and 48 on FanDuel. With all the usage available tonight, Williams looked to be in prime position to surpass those totals on this re-match tonight!
NBA DFS – Top Value Guards to Play:
Jamal Murray ($11.4K on FD and $5.7K on FanDuel): If you have read Picks and Pivots with any regularity this season, you know Jamal Murray is a DFS favorite of mine as his crazy volatility/floor/ceiling has won us a ton of money and left us searching for answers on plenty of nights.
The thing that always stands out to me with Murray is the usage/volume as shown over his last two games where he has put up 17 and 19 shot attempts while putting up 40-50 fantasy points in those outings, far exceeded his value at this price point as you are legitimately looking at a player with GPP winning upside in the mid-range.
Tonight, Murray will take on a Pelicans team in one of the fastest paced games of the night and against a defense that is ranked 24th in DvP and 25th in Def-Eff against the position. It looks like we could see Nikola Jokic back on the court tonight for Denver which would cut into the usage/FP for Murray based off his season long numbers but after a long injury lay-off and the fact that Jokic didn’t see the court last game even after being “available” tells me we should expect limited minutes for the Nuggets big man. Also keep in mind, Will Barton is also questionable for tonight’s game which is he sits again would give Murray another boost as he would be forced to carry even more of the offensive load in this game!
Milos Teodosic ($8.4k on FD and $6.3K): This is a great example of price discrepancy between the two sites as Milos is grossly under-priced on FD but has been raised to a level on FanDuel that I think we should stay away from. Milos was already starting at the PG spot for the Clippers and with the injury to Austin Rivers is going to be tasked with handling even more of the back-court load for the forseeable future.
Milos played 25 minutes (up from 20 in his first game back) while racking up 8 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 28.5 FD points which would return 3.4x value at this price point. The injury situation should further increase the minutes projection for Milos tonight which makes him a difficult fade on Fantasy Draft as his minutes security, demonstrated GPP level upside and salary savings makes him an ideal fit under any roster build!
NBA DFS – Top High Priced Forwards and Centers:
Paul George ($14.6K on FD and $7.6K on FanDuel): George let me and many others down in a big way in his return to Indiana as he shot dreadfully (21% from the floor) and the recency bias combined with the game log watchers will likely avoid him tonight and leave his ownership at some of its lowest levels in recent games.
Historically I have looked to avoid Robert Covington when taking players against the Sixers but attacking Philadelphia with wings has been a massively profitable strategy this season. Starting Small Forwards have absolutely shredded the Sixers in recent games as we have seen the last four SF’s all hit for 40 or more FD points including Andrew Wiggins (40), Brandon Ingram (40), TJ Warren (43) and LeBron James (68).
This looks to be the perfect bounce back spot for PG13 as the Thunder have the second largest pace boost of any team on this slate and I love the upside in tournaments as everyone jumps off and we can get him at low ownership.
PlayLine Play: George has failed to score more than 21 points in any of his last four games and his season long average of 20.3 PPG will likely lead people to stay in this range so I think projecting him aggressively (think 26+) could give you a massive edge over the field if the match-up and pace hold for PG13.
DeAndre Jordan ($13.9 on FD and $8.5K on FanDuel): When you take all the injured Clippers off the floor it is interesting to note that DeAndre Jordan sees a 6% usage bump while putting up 10 more fantasy points per 36 minutes! Jordan is playing at an elite level right now, putting up roughly 50 fantasy points per game over his last two outings putting him right at GPP value over both platforms.
The match-up with the Wizards is one I expect Jordan to dominate as he racked up 17 boards against them in their previous meeting last week when he put up 33-34 FD points. In that game, Gallinari and Rivers were both active which meant Jordan was utilized far less on the offensive side of the ball, with only 6 FGA in that game. Over the last two games Jordan has put up 9 and 13 FGA while continuing his rebounding onslaught so I would expect that increased shooting to continue on a night where the Clippers are short-handed and the FantasyDraft Double-Double bonus feels like an absolute lock!
NBA DFS – Top Value Forwards and Center Plays:
Carmelo Anthony ($12.1k on FD and $6.5K on FanDuel): Melo may not exactly fall into the “value” range but when you factor in his elite talent level, the fact he is priced in this mid-tier makes him a relative value when you consider he upside. The Thunder as I mentioned have the second largest pace boost on the slate while projected to get the third highest point boost in this meeting with Philadelphia and I expect many will look to jam in a player like Russell Westbrook which makes a pivot to a George/Melo stack an interesting tournament strategy. We have already mentioned the Sixers struggles defending wing players this season so the same upside we are targeting with Paul George can applied here with Melo at a much cheaper price point!
Wilson Chandler ($8.6K on FD and $4.6K on FanDuel): This one is a bit injury dependent as we will need to see if Will Barton is out again tonight and if Nikola Jokic actually plays but if they are both out/limited then I think Chandler vaults right back into play tonight for the Nuggets. Chandler is locked into major minutes, having played 36+ in two of his last three games and has returned cash game value in each of those contests with GPP upside shows as evidenced by his 33 FD point effort which would 7x value on a site like FanDuel!
Mike Scott ($7.6K on FD and $3.5K on FanDuel): If you need a true punt play, look no further than the Wizards PF who started in place of an injured Markieff Morris last game. Regardless of him starting or not, this match-up against an under-sized and injured Clippers team is one Scott can win as evidenced by his 22 point, 8 rebound and 32 FD point performance when these teams met just a few days ago!
NBA DFS – 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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Fantasy Draft Line-Up
G: Damian Lillard ($17.2K)
G: Lou Williams ($13.8K)
G: Jamal Murray ($11.4K)
F/C: DeAndre Jordan ($13.9K)
F/C: Paul George ($14.6K)
F/C: Carmelo Anthony ($12.1K)
Util: Milos Teodosic ($8.4K)
Util: Wilson Chandler ($8.6K)
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FanDuel NBA Line-up
PG: Damian Lillard ($9,500)
PG: Jamal Murray ($5,700)
SG: Lou Williams ($8,800)
SG: Justin Holiday ($5,200)
SF: Paul George ($7,600)
SF: Wilson Chandler ($4,600)
PF: Carmelo Anthony ($6,500)
PF: Mike Scott ($3,500)
C: DeAndre Jordan ($8,500)
Slate Overview: At first blush tonight I think this is a slate that it makes sense to go a bit more balanced as we can stay out of the elite price points while still capturing some big time upside with plays like Lillard, Williams, Jordan and our PG/Melo stack. The Thunder/Nuggets/Blazers see three of the top four pace increases on the slate so building around that core should give you some added GPP upside tonight across all DFS formats! Good luck all!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FanDuel, FantasyDraft and PlayLine and be sure to stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!