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 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!
Thursday Night’s five game slate had some usual suspects at the top of the leaderboard as DeMar Derozan (63.75) and LeBron James (60) were the slates two highest scoring stars but it was the low owned plays that really made a big difference in tournaments. Dario Saric (52.5) was the third highest scoring player on the slate, getting a big boost with the pre-lock news that Joel Embiid would sit out. Michael Beasley (48) being the fourth highest scoring player in of itself is not a crazy thought considering we know what he can do when Kristaps Porzingis is off the court but when KP was ruled IN, it took a guy like Beasley off most people’s radar – however 1% of entries benefited from this high scoring night as a true large field tournament difference maker!
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 – High Priced Guard Plays:
Buckle up kids, we have a massive Friday night slate with some amazing match-ups and frankly boiling down our core to a few key plays was as tough as I can recall in recent slates. We have a ton of injury news which will open up value across the board and seven teams with significant (2 possessions or more) pace boosts to target and ALOT to break down so let’s get going!
The big news on Thursday was that Chris Paul will be sidelined for the foreseeable future which means we get Point Guard James Harden ($21.8K, $12K) back in our DFS lives. Let’s break it down – with Chris Paul off the court this season, The Beard sees a 4.4% usage boost, leading the team with a monstrous 42.5% usage rate and 1.8 FP/M. Harden averaged 55+ fantasy points per game with CP3 off the court this season flashing games of 75-80 fantasy points which is a realistic ceiling as a result of the massive usage in this game environment.
There is a TON of value already on this slate so I see no reason to get cute – I am playing Harden in every single line-up/format and simply moving on.
The other big injury news we got yesterday was that Damian Lillard would be OUT on Friday as Portland takes on the Denver Nuggets. We saw last season that when Dame is off the floor, Portland utilizes C.J. McCollum ($14.5K, $6.9K) as their primary ball-handler and the metrics this season show that no player sees a larger usage boost than McCollum who gets a 7.4% usage boost, leading the team with a 34% usage rate.
Last season, in five games that Dame missed, McCollum averaged of 45 fantasy points per game with games of 54 and 62 which should be considered his ceiling with all the increased usage/volume that will come his way. Add in the fact that his opponent tonight, the Denver Nuggets, rank 27th in DvP and Def-Eff against the PG position and will likely be without their top backcourt defender Gary Harris tonight which increased the upside for McCollum in this spot and makes him one of my favorite plays tonight!
NBA DFS – Loaded Mid-Tier at Guard:
With the injury news to Chris Paul, we should see Eric Gordon ($11.4K/$5.4K) re-enter the starting line-up tonight where he averaged 30 FD points per game earlier this season which is a 5 point increase from his season long average. With CP3 off the court, Gordon see the second largest usage bump on the team behind Harden at 3% and trails only The Beard in terms of usage with 30.3%.
The issue with a site like FanDuel tonight is that Gordon will take a back seat to SG eligible plays like Harden and McCollum so you will have a difficult choice to make. Instead of struggling with who to play, I will simply fire up FantasyDraft and lock in all three due to the flexibility in roster builds.
Assuming Gary Harris is out again tonight, we get to fire up Picks and Pivots favorite, Jamal Murray ($12.2K, $6.4K) who should continue to carry a major offensive load with Harris and potentially Emmanuel Mudiay out again tonight. With Harris out last game, Murray shot the ball 17 times, putting up 45 FD points in the process which would put him at elite GPP value (3.7x in FD). This ceiling has been something Murray has flashed with relative consistently recently, shooting the ball 17+ times in three of his last five games, putting up between 40-55 FD points in each of those high volume games.
One thing to note, if Shabazz Napier ($8.2K, 3.7K) were to draw the start, he ranks as a top 10 individual defender at the PG position based off DRPM so it could present some challenges to Murray. Speaking of Napier, assuming he gets the start for Lillard he makes for an exceptional value play on FanDuel where he would only need 18 FD points to hit 5x value which is a figure he has hit in four of the last five games WITH Lillard on the floor. With Dame out tonight, that expected boost should push him easily into GPP value territory at this price point.
On FantasyDraft, I actually think the price is at a point where you can fade it and I commend them for jacking up the price to make you have to think about using him tonight. At $8.2K he would need over 28 FD points in order to hit our GPP target value and considering this is a player who gets roughly .8 FP/M with Dame off the court this year, he would need to play more than 33 minutes tonight in order to hit value. While I do expect a bump in minutes, I do not think we can simply lock him in at this price on FantasyDraft and would limit my exposure to him on FanDuel.
NBA DFS – Top High Priced Forwards and Center Plays:
Nikola Jokic ($13.8K, 8.3K): When you play DFS each and every day, the grind of building rosters and keeping up with news can lead you away from certain players and situations. Today when I sat down and looked at this slate and immediately loved the spots for guys like McCollum and Murray, I thought – could this be a sneaky game stack I could build around? I haven’t played Jokic in a while admittedly as his injury and slow ramp back have kept him off my radar but tonight I am jumping back on to a player who should be priced at an elite level yet we can roster him for a reduced price!
Jokic played only 22 and 25 minutes in his first two games back from injury but ramped up to 36 minutes in his last game against Minnesota where he put up 36 FD points! When you take guys like Harris/Mudiay off the court combined with the continued absence of Paul Millsap, you see that Jokic has an elite 34% usage rate on the season which is nearly 11% higher than his season long average. The Nuggets are playing an insanely tight 7 man rotation right now so Jokic is going to be a focal point of this offense as long as the rotation/injuries continue and this price point screams profit potential tonight!
On the other side of this game we get a little revenge narrative as Jusuf Nurkic ($12.7K, $6.8K) will take on his former Nuggets squad and old pal Nikola Jokic. If you remember correctly, last season the first time Nurkic had a chance to take it to his old team he dropped a 60 burger on them so this is a very real revenge spot we can take advantage of!
With Lillard off the court, do not over-look the impact that has on Nurkic who ranks second on the team with a near 33% usage rate. Game log watchers may see the fact that Nurkic has been playing minutes in the mid-20’s most night and look elsewhere but because of the size of Jokic on the other side I would expect him to see more like 30 minutes+ tonight as he did the first time these two met up earlier this season!
On FanDuel you will have to choose one or the other but on FantasyDraft, I love the idea of stacking them together at the F/C spots as this game due to all the injuries we discussed, means we have tight rotations and tons of usage increases to go around for players priced at seemingly bargain prices relative to their upside.
NBA DFS – Top Value Plays at Forward/Center:
Take a step back to this point in our build – we are simply starting every roster tonight with James Harden. You want to fade? Have at it if you want to play the large field fade but I am simply locking him in.
What I wanted to do next is look at games I thought I could stack (with Harden as a one-off) but it becomes a challenge as a result of the Beards price. This is why I keep going back to the Nuggets and Blazers as the injuries to guys like Damian Lillard, Paul Millsap, Gary Harris and Emmanuel Mudiay are opening up a ton of value and usage and giving us a game we can stack around for relatively cheap price points that work perfectly around Harden!
In their last game with Lillard, the Blazers played their usual 9 man rotation but now we have 35-40 minutes of Dame coming off the court which changes things drastically. The reality is we can’t expect guys like McCollum (38 minutes last game) to take on any more minutes and to that end the same would go for Evan Turner ($7.4K, $4.5K) who played 32 minutes last time out. What we can expect for a guy like Turner is the usage on the court to increase and we have seen that this year as he sees a 5.4% usage bump with Lillard off the court which makes him a great value play on this slate!
The minutes for Lillard have to go somewhere and I would expect the primary beneficiaries are Shabazz Napier and Pat Connaughton ($6.2K, $3.5K). On FanDuel, playing Connaughton is a tough sell due to his SG eligibility and the fact we have three SG’s that I look at as core plays already but on FantasyDraft he gives you the flexibility AND salary relief we so desperately need. I expect the buzz to be around Napier today and on FanDuel he is certainly my preferred play as the price points are the same AND you can use him at PG, but on FantasyDraft Ill take the massive salary difference and use Connaughton who should see 20-25 minutes of action easy in this spot!
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: Eric Gordon ($11,400)
G: CJ McCollum ($14,500)
F/C: Nikols Jokic ($13,800)
F/C: Jusuf Nurkic ($12,700)
F/C: Evan Turner ($7,400)
Util: Jamal Murray ($12,200)
Util: Pat Connaughton ($6,200)
FanDuel Sample Line-Up:
PG: Jamal Murray ($6,400)
PG: Shabazz Napier ($3,700)
SG: James Harden ($12,000)
SG: CJ McCollum ($6,900)
SF: Brandon Ingram ($7,000)
SF: Evan Turner ($4,500)
PF: Kyle Kuzma ($6,800)
PF: Trey Lyles ($4,400)
C: Nikola Jokic ($8,300)
Slate Overview: This is an awesome slate and frankly I could write-up a 100 more plays as I didn’t even touch on the highest paced game of the night between the Warriors and Lakers which is another great stacking pivot if you want to build off KD/Draymond with the young Lakers core. For me though, my priority is fitting in James Harden and finding a game stack that allows me to keep Harden as my top one-off. The Nuggets/Blazers are a stack I doubt gets much traction (although a do expect guys like McCollum and Napier to be popular individual plays) and the price points are reasonable enough considering the increased usage due to injury that it makes for an easy build around The Beard.
On PlayLine tonight, unfortunately Damian Lillard (OUT) is part of the $1M challenge line-up so we know there is one player ruled but we have no shortage of stars, including James Harden who is primed for a monster night with no CP3 and I would make sure to be aggressive in my projection for his stat line tonight!
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Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!