NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday December 17

Welcome to the Sunday 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 while breaking down our PlayLine strategy!

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!

Saturday’s winning tournament line-ups went very heavy on a Stars and Scrubs approach as the day unfolded with a ton of value popping up with made paying up for 2-3 studs easily achievable on any platform. LeBron James was the days highest point performer as he dropped 60.75 FD points and when paired with key value plays like Michael Beasley (46.25), Ekpe Udoh (40.25) and Yogi Ferrell (43.75) it made for a big time DFS night!

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 Guards:

Welcome to a little four game Sunday Funday slate as we have four games that play between 3:30PM EST and 6:00PM EST. FanDuel has made the comical decision to split these into two 2-game slate so I can tell you I will be playing entirely on FantasyDraft today where the Main Slate includes all four games. I will still write-up my FanDuel plays in the context of the All-Day slate, but if you want to give FantasyDraft a try, today would be a good day to do so and you can use my referral link for 10% rake back!

Victor Oladipo ($17.4K on FD and $9.7K on FanDuel) is the highest priced guard on the slate and a match-up against the Nets makes this an enticing spot to pay up for today. The Pacers have the highest team total on the slate and see by far the largest pace boost and with only a 3 point spread, Oladipo makes for a great core play on this four game slate.

The issue I have with Oladipo is simply his price point – both in isolation and within the context of this slate. In a vacuum his price point is going to need 50-60 fantasy points to pay off value and the reality he that he has failed top 50 FD points in five of his last eight games. On FantasyDraft you are going to need 3x plus from your players in order to get to tournament winning scores so Oladipo might simply be too expensive and when you factor in some of the other must have studs on this slate, this is not a spot where I think you should allocate your salary cap tonight.

John Wall ($16.2k/$9.5K) and Bradley Beal ($15.9K/$8.5K): The Wizards and Cavaliers game may not be the highest total game on the slate (213 versus Indy/BK which is at 217) and may not have the highest pace but there is some serious star power to be had in a match-up that we have seen go OFF for DFS purposes before.

Wall has now been back on the court for Washington for two games, playing 27 and 29 minutes over those two contests and with a home games against King James, this feels like the perfect spot to jump on Wall with a full complement of minutes at a reduced price point!

Wall always seems to get up for this match-up, having put up 48, 64 and 41 Fantasy points in his last three outings versus the Cavaliers. Beal is no slouch by the way as he has put up 46, 38 and 59 fantasy points over his last three meetings and gets the best pure match-up as the Cavs rank 26th in DvP and 22nd in Def-Eff versus the SG position.

The big injury news to watch here is the status of Otto Porter who is questionable for today’s game and if you look over the last two seasons, the biggest beneficiaries of Porter being off the floor lies with Beal and Wall as they both see 3-4% usage bumps! The price points are reasonable with room for profit potential and I think stacking them together, especially if Porter is out, makes for a great core strategy on this slate!

PlayLine Plays: If you guys haven’t checked out PlayLine yet – I HIGHLY recommend it – as they still have free games with cash prizes and have opened up paid/cash games as well! Oladipo and Beal are both featured players in today’s $1M Perfect Line tournament and both sit in spots where I would expect them to score well above their season averages. Beal has put up 36 or more points in two of his last three meetings with the Cavs so taking a shot on another high scoring affair could set you apart from those who project much closer to his season average scoring numbers!

NBA DFS – Top Value Guards

Mario Hezonja ($8.9K on FD) is SF eligible only on FanDuel and with two priority plays for me in that format already, I will look to get my exposure to him on FantasyDraft where I can use hit at the Guard position!

We already know the Magic will be without Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier in this game and players like Aaron Afflalo and Jonathan Isaac are questionable which means we could see a similar starting line-up to what we had just two games ago where Mario stepped into the Orlando starting line-up and played 35 minutes!

Hezonja was brilliant in that game, racking up 17 points, 9 rebounds and 41 FD points and would be an easy plug and play value option on this slate assuming the injuries hold for Orlando. With this game tipping off 30 minutes after lock, we SHOULD have the benefit of the injury news here to help guide our decision. Hezonja fell back to earth last game but that was with AG back in the fold, so hopefully people who may have gotten burned are hesitant to jump back on here and we can get reduced ownership on Super Mario!

If you have the salary, pivoting up to Jonathan Simmons ($11.9K on FD and Guard Eligible) is a great move as he is the clear beneficiary of Gordon and Fournier being out as he sees a team leading 7% usage bump with those players off the court and leads the team with a 32% usage rate. Simmons comes into this game with 41 or more FD points in two of his last three games (3.4x value) and gets one of the bets possible match-ups against a Pistons team that ranks dead last in DvP and 29th in Def-Eff against the SF position!

On FantasyDraft there are very few realistic punt guards but keep an eye on Isaiah Whitehead ($6.2K) as he logged 33 minutes in a blowout against the Raptors last time out and put up 23 FD points which would exceed 3.7x value. You could also put in Wes Iwundu ($6.2K) who played 33 minutes in his last start but you are simply hoping he claws to value as Iwundu barely hit 2x value in that start and is the definition of a low usage “stand on the court for 30 minutes” kind of DFS player.

On FanDuel, Ish Smith ($3.9K) is my preferred target as he is playing 20-25 minutes a night and gets the best possible match-up against a Magic team ranked 29th in DvP and 26th in Def-Eff versus the PG position!

NBA DFS – Top High Priced Forwards and Centers:

LeBron James ($21.9K/$12.5K): Let’s not bury the lead here people – this four game slate is ALL ABOUT LEBRON. He is the highest priced play on the slate by $4-5K on each site and what you decide to do with him will likely be the make or break decision to whether you fall above or below the cash line.

This match-up against the Wizards is one of the best possible spots for LeBron, one he has absolutely crushed in the recent past and simply he should be the first player in your lineups today.

Want proof? These two teams faced off earlier in the season and LeBron put up 57 points, 11 rebounds and 7 assists which was good for 92 fantasy points. You want to fade that?

This is not a one game sample size either – in his previous three meetings with the Wizards he put up 50, 52 and 72 fantasy points so you are looking at a 50 point floor with 70-90 ceiling? There is no other star that has the raw point potential of James on this slate so I think you need to simply find a way to make it work and my preferred approach is to correlate him with as much Wizards exposure as you can get.

On a site like FanDuel, I think you can make the case for stacking LeBron with Kevin Love ($8,000) who is priced at a slight discount on that site as compared to FantasyDraft. This is a simple correlation/stack play as we know the Cavs are essentially a two-man show and the stack works perfectly with the Wizards guards as you can essentially build off all the core usage in this game by building off those four stars!

NBA DFS – Top Value Forwards and Center Plays:

Assuming Otto Porter sits out this game, Kelly Oubre Jr. ($9.6k/$4.9K) is a lock and load play for me at the SF/F position on both sites as his price is simply too cheap for 30+ minutes in this spot. Oubre played well in this spot earlier this season, playing 33 minutes and racking up over 31 fantasy points and that was with Otto Porter on the court so getting the chance to take on a Cavs team that is ranked 26th in Def-Eff versus the SF position could pay big dividends on this at this price point!

Markieff Morris ($9.4K/4.5K) is another cheap way to get exposure to the Wizards today as part of a great game stack but reserve this one for GPP play only as Kieff is about as volatile as they come. We have seen this year Morris has GPP winning upside but this is also a player who has single digit fantasy points in two of his last three games so tread carefully but understand that this match-up with the Cavs is a good one he could exploit as they rank bottom 10 in all defensive metrics versus opposing PF’s.

Keep an eye on the injury news in Indiana as well as Thaddues Young is questionable which could open up minutes for Domantas Sabonis ($4.3K on FanDuel). Thad has been a lock for 30-35 minutes a night and if he is off the court, Sabonis sees the biggest usage boost of any player on Indiana making him an elite value play with a clear path to a double-double against the Nets!

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.

FantasyDraft Sample Line-Up

More from FanSided

G: John Wall ($16.2K)

G: Bradley Beal ($15.9K)

G: Jonathan Simmons ($11.9K)

F/C: LeBron James ($21.9K)

F/C: Kelly Oubre ($9.6K)

F/C: Markieff Morris ($9.4K)

Util: Mario Hezonja ($8.9K)

Util: Wes Iwundu ($6.2K)

FanDuel NBA – Sample Line-Up

PG: John Wall ($9,500)

PG: Ish Smith ($3,900)

SG: Bradley Beal ($8,500)

SG: Kyle Korver ($3,700)

SF: LeBron James ($12,500)

SF: Kelly Oubre Jr.($4,900)

PF: Markieff Morris ($4,500)

PF: Damonatas Sabonis ($4,300)

C: Kevin Love ($8,000)

Slate Overview: FIrst off – do not bother with two games slates on FanDuel today – play the All Day or not at all and if you haven’t yet, this is a great slate to try FantasyDraft! I am simply starting all my builds today wih LeBron and stacking the Wizards as my correlation. Wall/Beal are musts and Oubre/Markieff become elite value plays assuming Otto Porter is ruled out. The Magic are a great value source on this slate with AG/Fournier out so you can use them as fill ins around this Cavs/Wizards core. Good luck all – if you are looking for some NFL action today – make sure you check out our Week 15 coverage below!

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