NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday December 29
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 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!
Friday’s winning line-ups were built around much of the Picks and Pivots core we focused on early in the day as James Harden (60) and Andre Drummond (55) were the two leading scorers on the night. Joel Embiid (48) put up a top five performance however his in-day questionable designation pulled me off him due to the risk of a late scratch. The big “news” we got before lock was that Damian Lillard was questionable to play and if you took the risk that he would sit and played CJ McCollum (50) and Shabazz Napier (35) then you likely had a big time 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 – Where to begin on this loaded Friday slate:
Before we jump into our Picks and Pivots, there is a ton of news to break down on this slate and I thought it would be helpful to provide that context before we get started! We have a ton of injury news to break down – some we know and some we need to monitor – that will ultimately shape this slate and it is important to be aware of it all before we start falling in love with our rosters!
- Stephen Curry – OUT – It looks like Curry is on track for a return over the weekend so we get one more game of super usage Kevin Durant against a Hornets team he dropped 70 fantasy points against the last time they met up.
- Victor Oladipo – Already ruled OUT – Lance Time baby!
- Chris Paul – Questionable – CP3 looks like he is inching ever closer to a return. We all know the drill by now – if CP3 is out then you can confidently lock in Harden but if Paul returns there is enough of a usage drop to entertain The Beard fade.
- Blake Griffin – Questionable – This is a big one to monitor in my mind as even though I do not intend to roster Blake in his first game back from injury as he will likely have a minutes restriction, it is worth noting the negative impact he has on his teammates, most notably Lou Williams. With Blake on the floor, he leads the team with a 33% usage rate and players like Williams see a 4% usage drop as the offense funnels through Blake. Keep an eye on the news here – an active Blake, even with a minutes restriction, could have a negative impact on the rest of the team.
- Kyle Kuzma – Questionable – This is another injury that has massive implications on the slate and with it being one of the late games it will be critical to get news before lock. If Kuzma were to miss this game, it would give significant upticks to his teammates (more on that in a minute) so I will have my eye on the Lakers news all day!
When we have large slates like this with a ton of injury news, it likely means we will get value to open up and allow us to pick the high-priced stud of our choosing. Russell Westbrook ($20.2K and $11.5K) is the one stud I would look to anchor too, especially on FantasyDraft where he is the fourth highest priced player on the board versus the second most expensive on FanDuel.
Westbrook comes into this game with 60+ fantasy points in four straight and five of his last six games (his lone sub 60 point game being a complete dud at 56 points). Westbrook will take on a Bucks team he put up a triple-double against in only 27 minutes earlier this season and frankly he seems too cheap considering the floor he is showing us right now. Westbrook has hit cash game value in six straight outings on FanDuel (5x) which considering his elevated price point makes him one of the best plays on the board in my opinion whenever we have the value to make him work easily.
I am sure people will make the case for Kevin Durant when they see he put up 70 against the same Hornets team the last time out, but its important to remember that game was without Draymond Green so the game environment is not as favorable as it was the first meeting. On a site like FantasyDraft where Westbrook is priced below Durant AND we get the Triple Double bonus (3 points), I think you simply ride with the guy dropping 60 burgers left and right lately!
NBA DFS – Game Stack in LA?
The Lakers and Clippers game has the second highest projected pace on the slate, just a fraction of a point behind the Warriors/Hornets, so this is a highly attractive spot to stack on both sides. What makes this game even more attractive (potentially) is that we could have a handful of significant injuries that would open up more value and usage which equals fantasy gold!
Let’s start on the Clippers side as the only real “news” we are waiting on is the status of Blake Griffin who is questionable to return after practicing on Wednesday and Thursday. It is certainly possible that Griffin returns but let’s remember that this injury was expected to need an eight week hiatus and Griffin is coming back in only four weeks. Even if Griffin returns this feels like a spot where he plays something like 15 minutes just to get his feet wet but that is purely speculation on my part. As I noted, if Griffin does return it becomes a big hit to Lou Williams ($13.7K) who sees a 4% usage decrease with Blake on the floor but if Griffin misses we know the Clippers become the Lou-Will show as he leads the teams with a 33% usage rate.
No team on the slate sees a bigger pace boost than the Clippers and oh by the way Williams gets a little revenge narrative against his former team in the Lakers and we only need to look back a few weeks ago when Williams went off in this same match-up for 42 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 53 fantasy points and that was WITH Blake on the floor. Assuming Griffin is out or limited, I think Williams makes for a great core play in this pace up game environment.
The Lakers on the other side of this game are already without Lonzo Ball and Brook Lopez and now you add in the questionable tag for Kyle Kuzma which muddies the waters quite a bit. If you take all three of those Lakers off the court, you see Jordan Clarkson ($13.6K) gets a 9% usage boost, leading the team with a massive 37% usage rate while putting up 1.17 FP/M. Clarkson has started the last two games in place of Ball, putting up 17 and 24 shot attempts while logging 33 and 42 fantasy points and frankly is in play regardless of the status of Kuzma, but would get an even bigger bump if he is out.
Brandon Ingram ($12K) is another player that you can lock and load regardless of the status of Kyle Kuzma as he returned from a one game injury to log 44 minutes against Memphis. The Lakers are one of my favorite teams to build around in DFS right now as Luke Walton is playing his core 5-6 guys 30-40 minutes a night due to all the injuries and considering the Clippers rank 24th in Def-Eff against the SF position, this is a favorable spot for Ingram tonight.
The one player that would likely benefit the most from a Kuzma missed game is Julius Randle ($10.1K) as Randle has a 29% usage rate and puts up 1.1FP/M with Ball, Lopez and Kuzma off the floor this year. The last game Kuzma missed was against Golden State and we saw Randle log 31 minutes and 30 fantasy points in that outing (both Lopez and Ball were active for that game) so another similar outing would feel like a reasonable expectation with added upside due to the absence of Ball/BroLo.
NBA DFS – No Oladipo? No Problem!
With the news that Victor Oladipo is already ruled out, it makes the Pacers an elite spot to build around tonight against the Bulls. With Oladipo off the court this year, it is not surprising to see every single Pacers starter get a bump in usage due to Oladipos massive usage rate when he is on the floor.
We saw last game with Oladipo sidelined, the Pacers ran a tight six man rotation with all five starters plus Cory Joseph playing 30+ minutes against the Mavericks and each starter putting up double-digit shot attempts. Lance Stephenson ($12.1K) was the no-brainer value play last game when Oladipo got ruled out and he responded with 16 points, 15 rebounds and 46 fantasy points which would still deliver 3.8x value at this inflated price point on FantasyDraft. FanDuel has only adjusted his priced to $5.8K so he is an absolute LOCK for me on that site where a similar outing would deliver over 7x value at his price point. As an aside, it has been interesting to see how much quicker FantasyDraft seems to adjust pricing for injuries where FanDuel seems to lag a bit and make these “known” value plays a bit chalkier than they should be! The other play that really jumps out to me on the Pacers is Myles Turner ($12.3K) who put up 37 fantasy points against the Bulls the last time they met and will see an added usage and fantasy point boost with Oladipo out of the line-up.
Outside of the Pacers – there are a couple of quick hitting value plays I wanted to mention as I dove into my research:
- Wayne Ellington: Ellington is SUPER cheap across the industry and is a great way to solve for the dual SG’s needed on a site like FanDuel. The Heat get a massive pace boost against the Nets tonight and we already know Dion Waiters is out which further enhances the value of Ellington. Ellington has put up 11 or more shot attempts in four straight games and has put up 34-35 fantasy points in two of his last three games.
- Quincy Acy: Acy is the stone minimum on FantasyDraft ($6k), a site where it is MUCH harder to find punt value plays in my opinion, and considering his recent form he is a great point per dollar play. At this price point he would need only 18 fantasy points to hit value and he has racked up 21 and 27 over the last two games which would put him in elite GPP territory.
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: Russell Westbrook ($20,200)
G: Lou Williams ($13,700)
G: Jordan Clarkson ($13,600)
F/C: Myles Turner ($12,300)
F/C: Lance Stephenson ($12,100)
F/C: Brandon Ingram ($12,000)
Util: Julius Randle ($10,100)
Util: Quincy Acy ($6,000)
Let me take a moment in this spot to give you a FanDuel sample line-up as well and address what seems to be a ton of confusion. I am NOT ignoring FanDuel in these write-ups – I am simply looking to make Picks and Pivots a more broad based NBA DFS First Look (using FantasyDraft as a reference) where we can apply the same logic and strategy regardless of which site we play on. I have said this to countless people since the format change – the logic is easy to mix and match across sites and I use the same overall strategy to build my line-ups on both sites. Want proof? Here is a sample FanDuel line-up which will have the same basic core as my FantasyDraft line-up shown above.
FanDuel NBA Sample Line-Up:
PG: Russell Westbrook ($11,500)
PG: Jordan Clarkson ($7,000)
SG: Lou Williams ($7,100)
SG: Wayne Ellington ($4,600)
SF: Brandon Ingram ($7,300)
SF: Lance Stephenson ($5,800)
PF: Quincy Acy ($3,600)
PF: John Henson ($5,200)
C: Myles Turner ($7,900)
Hopefully this exercise is helpful to all those who have asked why I am not providing a FanDuel Sample anymore. The goal of Picks and Pivots has never been and never will be to provide canned line-ups. The goal each and every day is to provide a first look ( I write these at 6AM EST each day) and give you some overall picks, plays and slate strategy that can be applied to ANY SITE YOU PLAY ON! I do not plan on doing this everyday but wanted to outline very clearly what I mean when I say you can play the logic here in either format!
Good luck all!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!