NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday December 20
Welcome to the Wednesday 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!
Tuesday’s slate was all about which four man game stack core you planned to build around as my perspective was you either needed to anchor to the Cavs/Bucks or Pelicans/Wizards and go all-in. The four man Pelicans/Wizards stacks of Boogie, Brow, Beal and Wall put up 187 FD points but it was the Lebron/Giannis/Love/Middleton core that scored over 200 fantasy points driving some of the biggest fantasy performances of the 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 Guard Picks:
James Harden ($21.8K on FantasyDraft and $11.1K on FanDuel): We have a massive twelve game slate (that for some reason FanDuel is making an eleven game slate by ignoring the 7PM Raptors/Hornets game) with a ton of high totals and a whopping TEN teams that see pace boosts in their match-ups.
What if I told you that one of the highest scoring teams in the NBA was not only projected to score the most points on tonight’s slate, seeing a 4 point increase on their season average but also happened to get the largest pace boost of any team in action tonight? Would you have interest in that?
Well my friends, fire up the Rockets tonight as they take on the Lakers at home in the fastest paced and highest projected scoring game on the slate. Now listen, people will point to the 14 point spread, scream blow-out risk and run away and there is merit to that argument but the Rockets right now are playing essentially a seven man rotation, with their starters logging MAJOR minutes each and every night (go ahead and look at the recent box scores) so this is the perfect team to target as a core DFS play tonight!
Harden is the third highest priced player on either slate but I simply love this spot for him tonight when you consider the pace boost and one fact that may get over-looked by the casual fan. The Lakers best on ball defender, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is dealing with legal issues and is not allowed to leave the state so with this game being in Houston, that means Harden will have no KCP defense to deal with tonight!
PlayLine Play – Harden is one of the featured players in tonight’s PlayLine $1M Perfect line-up tournament challenge where we need to project his point total and considering the game environment I would look to use your three free entries to aggressively project his point totals. If you submit three entries, I would play a little game theory and put two at 30+ points but also put one in the low 20’s in case this game blows out early and CP3 is the one with the larger offensive night!
If you want to stay in this game but save some salary, you can easily pivot to (or stack with) Chris Paul ($18.1K, $10.2K) who comes into this game with 52 or more fantasy points in three of his last four games. I expect Eric Gordon ($10.1K, $5.2K) will be a popular option after his 40 burger last time out but keep in mind that was off 33 real life points on 67% shooting including going 7 for 12 from three-point range – don’t chase those points!
Depending on which site you play on, Jonathan Simmons ($12.9K, $6.6K) can be in play at Guard or SF on FanDuel, but regardless of the site this is a tremendous spot for him and the Magic against the Bulls tonight. The reasoning here is simple – the Magic will be without Aaron Gordon and will likely be without Evan Fournier again which means we simply go right back to Simmons who has put up 41, 41 and 47 fantasy points in his last three games with those two players out!
NBA DFS – Top Value Guards:
If you want to pay up for the James Harden’s of the world on this slate you are going to need some value plays and with such a large slate we can almost be assured we will get even more as the day rolls on. Early on in the day there are two guards that are essentially minimum price across both sites and should be in line for major minutes tonight.
Dejounte Murray ($8K, $4.3K) looks to be in line tonight for another start with Tony Parker already ruled out for the Spurs and with Kawhi Leonard also ruled out, Murray should be one of the key cogs in the offense for San Antonio. Murray has started two recent games for the Spurs in place of Parker, playing 24 and 26 minutes while racking up 31 and 28 fantasy points which would be him right in line for 3.5x GPP value on FantasyDraft and exceed 6x value on FanDuel.
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With Kentavious Caldwell-Pope unable to travel, it is going to open up a ton of value in the Lakers back-court and with Lonzo Ball being locked up by CP3, whoever draws the start at SG will have the much better individual match-up. In the last game that KCP missed (versus Cleveland), it was Josh Hart ($6k on FD and $3.9K on FanDuel) wh drew the start and played 32 minutes while racking up 11 points, 10 rebounds and 32 fantasy points which would put you at elite multiplier levels on both sites at a stone cold minimum price point on FantasyDraft specifically.
Many today may assume that Jordan Clarkson will move into the starting line-up but the Lakers like him on the second unit and Hart is seen as a “defensive stopper” that will be critical to slowing down James Harden. At this price point, Hart would be a lock for me as the minutes would be secure and outside of the foul trouble risk of guarding Harden would have massive upside considering the price point!
NBA DFS – Top High Priced Centers and Forwards:
On the last slate the Magic played, I saw that Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier were out again, wrote down Nikola Vucevic ($17.3K, $10K) as a top play but kept convincing myself that the price was too high and I could spend up on better studs. I was wrong.
I am now in the camp that when Gordon/Fournier are out, the price is not high enough for Vucevic who just continues to smash night after night, having racked up 46, 60 and 70 fantasy points in his last three games without those guys in the line-up. Over the last two weeks with those two off the court, Vuc is putting up 1.7 FP/M and tonight will take on Robin Lopez, who is ranked 27th amongst starting centers in DRPM rating this season! I am simply not passing on the upside here tonight as we could see another 60-70 fantasy point outing as he has done in two of his last three games without Gordon and Fournier on the court!
I am starting off all my rosters today with James Harden as I want to build around this Rockets/Lakers game but need to be smart about how I get my Lakers exposure. Although I love the recent form of Lonzo Ball, the defense of CP3 is NOT something I am going to attack here tonight so instead will continue to ride a guy that I simply love in real life basketball and for DFS and that is Brandon Ingram ($12.5K, $7.2K).
Ingram is always lower owned than he should be but just continues to deliver each night as he has now put up 40+ fantasy points in three of his last five outings and will take on a Rockets team he put up 38 FD points against the last time they faced off! Ingram is a high usage player, taking double-digit shot attempts in each of his last nine games, playing aggressive basketball which is allowing him to get to the line often (12 FTA last game) and racks up rebounds, assists, blocks and steals which contribute to his DFS ceiling!
If you are going to build around Harden/CP3 tonight then I want to run it back with the Lakers in the hope this game stays close and Ingram is a cost-effective way to do that while still targeting upside!
NBA DFS – Top Value Forward and Center Plays:
We mentioned already the value in the Lakers back-court with KCP out for this game due to legal issues but the injury announced yesterday to Brook Lopez that will keep him sidelined for the next few weeks is going to open up some big time minutes and free up the logjam at PF for the Lake Show!
Thankfully we can look back at the last game against Golden State to get an idea of how the Lakers dealt with the injury to Brook who left mid-way through the first half. Larry Nance Jr. was the one who actually got the start in the second half for the Lakers but he came out with 2 minutes left in the third quarter and NEVER saw the floor again, even in OT!
Kyle Kuzma ($11.3K, $5.4K) and Julius Randle ($10.2, $5.5K) are simply too cheap considering their expanded role and all you need to do is look at that game against Golden State to see the kind of upside they have. Kuzma started the second half along side Nance but once Randle checked in for Nance, it was Randle and Kuzma who played ALL the frontcourt minutes including starting the OT period alongside each other and neither ever coming out.
Kuzma put up 40 fantasy points while Randle logged 34 and if we can get confirmation of a similar line-up construction tonight, then I would load up on these two in all formats. Even if Nance draws the “start” again, Randle and Kuzma would still be in line for major minutes with Lopez out as we have seen this year with Brook AND KCP off the floor, these two produce at a FP/M clip with some of the highest usage rates on the team!
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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FantasyDraft Sample Line-Up:
G: James Harden ($21,800)
G: Dejounte Murray ($8,000)
G: Josh Hart ($6,000)
F/C: Nikola Vucevic ($17,300)
F/C: Brandon Ingram ($12,500)
F/C: Kyle Kuzma ($11,300)
Util: Julius Randle ($10,200)
Util: Jonathan Simmons ($12,900)
FanDuel Sample Line-Up:
PG: Dejounte Murray ($4,300)
PG: Jamal Murray ($5,600)
SG: James Harden ($11,100)
SG: Josh Hart ($3,900)
SF: Brandon Ingram ($7,200)
SF: Jonathan Simmons ($6,600)
PF: Kyle Kuzma ($5,400)
PF: Julius Randle ($5,500)
C: Nikola Vucevic ($10,000)
Slate Overview: It is always interesting to me to see how the same core roster build can be used across two different platforms and that is exactly what we have tonight so if you like this core build you can apply it to either site. Outside the high score/pace in the Lakers/Rockets game, one of the reasons I like the stack so much is that the prices seem to work perfectly together as the under-priced Lakers forward correlate perfectly with the higher priced Rockets guards. We will keep an eye out on the Lakers line-up news today as it could give us more insight into what we will see but digging into the last two games, I would expect value plays like Hart, Randle and Kuzma to play big time roles tonight!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FanDuel, FantasyDraft and PlayLine and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis across all the major sports!