NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday December 27
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 give you a first look at the day’s NBA DFS slate, including our top picks, plays and pivots, using FantasyDraft pricing as a reference, to help you build your best line-up and win big!
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 had some obvious plays at the top of the leaderboard (Giannis at 45 FD points) but it was a night dominated by low owned mid-tier plays like Kris Dunn (52), Andre Drummond (50) and Devin Booker (48) while a low owned punt play in Maxi Kleber (43) was key in delivering some big time DFS tournament winners!
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 – Slate Overview and Must Have Studs
On Tuesday night we were looking at a slate with really only one true stud in Giannis Antetokounmpo, but tonight we have a handful of studs we can choose to pay up for as LeBron James, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are all in action! What is interesting about this slate is that in the case of LeBron and Durant, they see two of the largest pace decreases of any teams in action as their match-ups with the Kings and Jazz also introduce double-digit spreads so does it make sense to pay all the way up on a night where LeBron and KD see possible blow-outs in a slow-paced game?
The one team that stands out on this slate both from a Vegas perspective and from a stars angle is the New Orleans Pelicans who by every possible measure seem like the can’t miss spot of the night against Brooklyn. The Pelicans have the highest team total on the board by 5 points while seeing the second largest point and pace boost of any team in action tonight!
DeMarcus Cousins ($20,200) and Anthony Davis ($20,000) are priced just below the level of LeBron/KD/Westbrook and I expect this pairing will be highly popular in all formats but is this a spot we should look to fade?
The biggest issue to me at over $20k on FantasyDraft and over $11k each on FanDuel is that both players need to be at roughly 60 fantasy points to return value at this price point. Since the beginning of November – care to guess how many times these two studs have hit that 60 fantasy point mark?
Boogie has only topped 60 fantasy points TWO times since the beginning of November while The Brow has only done it ONE TIME. Sure tonight could be the night they both hit that mark as interestingly enough – the only game Brow hit 60 (versus Indiana) was one of the two night’s Boogie hit as well so you can obviously stack them both in hopes they both deliver. The reality is, the numbers tell you the likelihood is slim that one of them will even hit value, let alone both, so fading is absolutely a viable strategy here.
If you can talk yourself into playing them tonight even with the lofty price totals and double-digit spread, then I think you need to run it back with some Brooklyn guys in the hope this game stays close. Herein lies the second issue – who exactly are you running it back with on the Nets side that you can count on? The Nets are on the tail end of a back to back and we saw their usual spread rotations in play last night as only one player, Allen Crabbe, played over 30 minutes against the Spurs.
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So at the end of the day, we have a handful of studs we could pay up for who are priced for their ceiling in blow-out spots and/or massive pace down match-ups. If I am paying up for anyone tonight, Russell Westbrook ($21.2K) is the one stud I would try to force in as he sees a slight pace boost in a close game against the Raptors and has delivered 60+ fantasy points in three straight.The issue I am seeing at least initially, is that there are no obvious value plays that make forcing in a stud “necessary” tonight and I am finding myself looking to a more balanced roster at first look.
NBA DFS – Pivot off Boogie and Brow:
If you are taking the approach to fade Boogie/Brow, the next “best game” from a Vegas perspective is Denver and Minnesota as this game has the second highest game total on the board. These two teams just played on the 20th so we have some clear indication of how they matched up against each other and where we can turn to when targeting players from this game.
Nikola Jokic ($15.8K) has the best possible match-up on the floor as he will take on a Minnesota team ranked 23rd in DvP and 26th in Def-Eff against opposing Centers while facing off with Karl-Anthony Towns who has the worst individual DRPM of any Center on the slate. Jokic has put up between 42 and 48 fantasy points in three of the last four meetings with Minnesota with his sole “down game” coming a few days ago where he only scored 36 fantasy points.
It is important to remember that the outing on the 20th was the first game Jokic came back from injury and logged 30+ minutes so the rust factor was very real as evidenced by his whopping 10 turnovers which deducted 5 fantasy points from his total. Jokic is back to playing 30+ minutes a night and even though he is on the tail end of a back to back, the Nuggets did us a solid and blew out the Jazz last night so Jokic got to sit much of the second haf and played only 25 minutes.
Wilson Chandler ($8.9K) has seen his price tick up a little but frankly it is not nearly high enough considering his steady minutes and recent production. At this price point, we only need 27 fantasy points to hit value which Chandler just continues to meet every night as he has put up between 27 and 36 fantasy points in each of his last five games including 28.5 against this very same Minnesota team a few days ago!
On the Minnesota side, the best place to attack the Nuggets is at the point guard position where they rank 27th in DvP and Def-Eff so locking in Jeff Teague ($11.6K) is a great way to get exposure to the Timberwolves at a reasonable price point. Teague put up 16 points, 8 assists and 4 rebounds in the previous match-up against the Nuggets, racking up 36 fantasy points which would deliver steady cash game value at this price point.
NBA DFS – GPP Stack of the Night:
So far we have looked at this slate and talked about high scoring games, spreads and various Vegas metrics to help us get a feel for the slate. It is not often that my favorite GPP stack of the night comes from the game with the LOWEST Vegas game total but hear me out.
The Memphis/Lakers game has by far the lowest game total on the board at only 198.5 so why on Earth would I want to stack this game? Forget the Vegas totals for a second and take a look at the projected pace – this game has the second fastest projected pace (behind New Orleans/Brooklyn) and Memphis in particular sees the largest pace boost of any team in action tonight.
Normally we see the pace/game environment mirror the Vegas totals but in this case they stand at opposite ends of the spectrum. Whenever you see a fast paced team like the Lakers take on a slow-paced team like the Grizzlies, I will look to see where the game is being played as the home team typically dictates the pace. With this game being in LA, I tend to lean more towards this game playing at the Lakers pace which would be a huge boost to both teams.
We saw a similar game environment last night for Memphis as they took on the Suns in Phoenix and had the same pace advantage. Although they only scored 97 points as a team, the fantasy points were still plentiful as Tyreke Evans ($15.9K) and Marc Gasol ($16K) combined for 80 fantasy points. As I mentioned yesterday, for as long as Mike Conley is out, the benefit of stacking Memphis is that all the usage and fantasy output is centered around these two players so I think we can go right back to the well here tonight in the same favorable game environment we built around last night!
Normally we do not go out of our way to target offenses against Memphis, but one night after seeing Devin Booker drop 48 fantasy points against this Grizzlies team, I think we can look to the under-priced and under-manned Lakers for an intriguing stacking option. The Lakers will be without Lonzo Ball and Brook Lopez tonight, although they are expected to get Brandon Ingram back from injury which kills the value of Josh Hart.
The two players that stand out to me are Jordan Clarkson ($11.3K) and Kyle Kuzma ($13.7K) as both should continue to log major minutes and soak up the majority of the usage/fantasy production. We saw again on Christmas Day, the Lakers played a tight rotation as four starters logged major minutes with Clarkson, Kuzma, KCP and Hart all playing 35+ minutes! With Clarkson taking over the starting PG role, if he is going to get 35+ minutes a night then he is simply priced too low and he showed what he is capable of as he racked up 42.5 FD points in his last start which would deliver GPP winning 3.7x upside at this price point.
Kuzma is priced like a mid-range talent but make no mistake about it – this is a 50 point a night stud that is not priced as such. Kuzma has put up between 48 and 58 fantasy points in three of his last four outings, putting up 1.2 FP/M over the last week and even in this slower paced match-up has the ability to be one of the top point per dollar plays on the board.
This game will likely be over-looked due to the low total, but as one of the fastest paced games on the board and such a concentrated level of usage around a small core of healthy bodies, I love the stacking options this game presents and will look to utilize it across GPP’s this evening!
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
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G: Tyreke Evans ($15,900)
G: Jeff Teague ($11,600)
G: Jordan Clarkson ($11,300)
F/C: Marc Gasol ($16,000)
F/C: Nikola Jokic ($15,800)
F/C: Kyle Kuzma ($13,700)
Util: Wilson Chandler ($8,900)
Util: Daniel Theis ($6,700)
Slate Overview: The more I look at this slate the more I like the idea of going more balanced and fading the studs tonight. The one spot I do like for value is in Boston as we already know Marcus Morris is our and Jaylen Brown is doubtful to play which could open up for time for Daniel Theis who has put up 20 and 37 fantasy points over his last two games at near minimum price!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!