NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday January 12
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!
Thursday’s NBA DFS slate was one I was actually excited for prior to lock as I built a core around a Cavs-Raptors game I thought would be high scoring and competitive and well, it was high scoring at least. The Raptors simply blew the doors off Cleveland and the starters played sparse minutes as a result which left a promising start dead in the water as Jonas, Miles and Delon all stayed on the bench for the majority of the second half! The highest scoring play on the night in NBA DFS was Lonzo Ball (48) while Lou Williams and Blake Griffin combined for 90 fantasy points against the Kings to round out the top 3 on 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 – Where to start on this slate?
Once again FantasyDraft has opted to shift the slate a bit tonight where the Main Slate starts at 7:30PM and ignores the three early games (Cle/Ind, Orl/Was and Utah/Cha) turning a nine game main slate on FanDuel into a six game slate. I actually like what FantasyDraft is doing here to differentiate themselves but if you want the full 9 game slate you can easily pivot over to FanDuel tonight.
Looking over today’s slate, we have a ton of high totals and fast paced game environments so I think it will be easier in theory to cross games off and focus our attention on the best DFS spots as on the surface this looks like a high scoring night! At this point we are only waiting on Vegas information for one game (New Orleans/Portland) which we will get to in a minute but we already can see that four of the eight games have game totals of 218 or higher and six teams on the slate see material pace increases (more than 2 possessions over their season average).
The Warriors have the second highest team total on the board and it looks like they will be back to full strength tonight after Klay Thompson sat out for rest and Stephen Curry injured his ankle. The fact that Curry was able to fully practice yesterday and the simple fact Vegas has released a line/total gives me confidence that Steph will be back on the court tonight versus the Bucks. When the Warriors are full strength they tend to be a team I avoid and with so many other stars on this slate, I am not sure I need to allocate the salary needed for a team that will share so much usage/volume.
Myles Turner will remain out for Indiana which means Damontas Sabonis is firmly in play tonight against a Cavaliers team that was absolutely mauled inside last night by the Raptors as Jonas Valanciunas and Jakob Poetl simply got whatever they wanted offensively, while pulling down rebounds and blocking shots with ease. The price is high on FanDuel at $7.1K but the upside is very real with 30 minutes a lock for the Pacers big man tonight!
The biggest injury news we are waiting on relates to Anthony Davis who is questionable to play tonight against Portland with an ankle injury that forced him to miss the last game against Memphis. There is optimism that AD will give it a go but this is The Brow we are talking about and it would not shock me to sit again – with an 8PM EST start time let’s hope we get news before lock as this will completely change my approach to the slate!
If AD is out, I am going right back to DeMarcus Cousins ($19.3K on FantasyDraft and $11K on FanDuel) who gets a 5.5% usage bump with the Brow off the court and leads the team with a 40% usage rate while putting up 1.6 FP/M. Cousins has faced Portland twice already this season, putting up 63 and 49 fantasy points in those outings and interestingly enough had his lower output in a game where Anthony Davis sat out. In that same game on December 2 where Anthony Davis sat out, Jrue Holiday and Rajon Rondo both had solid games as they put up 33 and 36 fantasy points respectively and are certainly in play again tonight!
In that same game, Damian Lillard ($15.9K and $9K) put up 49 fantasy points and I love the correlation you can get with Lillard and Boogie tonight. Dame is probable to play in this one but the fact he played 31 minutes last time out (when he was supposed to be on a minutes restriction) should give us all the confidence we need to fire him up here tonight. This New Orleans/Portland game has the fourth highest projected pace on the slate so utilizing this as a core game in our builds offers us upside and high projected usage for some of the slates biggest stars!
NBA DFS – Is Houston the top team of the night?
The Suns and Rockets have by far the highest projected game total (226) and highest projected pace while both teams see top 5 projected pace boosts on this slate! Chris Paul ($18.7K an $10.8K) is the premier play from this game and after dropping 70 fantasy points in his last outing we have seen his price spike in this high pace match-up against a Suns team ranked 30th in DvP and 28th in Def-Eff as a team. We have been waiting for CP3 to drop a big game ever since James Harden went down with an injury but prior to this 70 burger, he was only able to rack up 50, 45, 45 and 39 fantasy points so there is more reason in my mind to fade this spot than chase the big game from Paul. The match-up will surely lead some people down this path and for good reason – in my mind, Paul is a fall back option for me if Anthony Davis is ruled in and I am looking to pivot off DeMarcus Cousins as my high-priced investment.
Rather than pay for Paul, Eric Gordon ($13.9K and $8.1K) may be the better pivot where he has put up 44 fantasy points per game over his last four outings. At these price point, a similar output would deliver 3.1x and 5.4x value giving Gordon a steady cash game floor and flashing the same kind of 45 point upside that CP3 has shown in all but one game. In either case the match-up here for the Rockets back-court is elite as the Suns rank 28th in DvP versus opposing PG’s and 29th in DvP to opposing SG’s. Stacking both of these plays is certainly an option as well as we saw last game the amount of volume they could handle when they shot the ball 52 times out of the 100 FGA that Portland had on the night!
The rest of the Rockets on the surface may seem like good plays but I struggle to see any of them as must plays on this slate considering not a single starter had double-digit shot attempts due to the high usage of Paul and Gordon. Ryan Anderson has the best match-up on paper as the Suns rank dead last in defending opposing PF’s and with this game on the road it favors Ryno’s much maligned home/road DFS splits and we have seen Anderson drop 30 fantasy points against this Phoenix team already this year. I am much more inclined to play him on FanDuel where I need to play two PF’s and at only $4.3K he has the clear upside to smash 6x value if his shot is falling!
NBA DFS – Stack the Suns
It may sound crazy, but I actually like the Suns side of this game even more than the I do the Rockets as a result of some injury news that will open up some elite value across the Phoenix roster. Marquesse Chriss has already been ruled out for this game which means Dragan Bender ($8.2K and $3.5K) becomes an auto-play as the top value option on the board. Bender played 39 minutes last game out against the Thunder and put up 43 fantasy points on the back of 20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 blocks and 1 steal! Bender is going to be chalky, but I have no problem eating the chalk here as a result of the upside he has shown last game combined with the fast paced game environment and the salary savings that allow you to pay up across the rest of your roster!
With Chriss already sidelined and Josh Jackson (30 minutes last game) doubtful to play, the Suns are going to be extremely thin on the wings and I would expect Troy Daniels ($6.3K on FDR) to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this injury. With Bender in the starting line-up and Jackson out, Daniels is the only player on the Suns bench who played over 20 minutes last game, having played 23 and 31 minutes in his last two games which is about where I see him again tonight. What I love about Daniels (besides the salary relief) is that he will be tasked with running the second team and will get an added usage bump as a result. Add in the fact that Daniels gets a little revenge narrative as he was on the Rockets his first two years in the NBA, and we get even more DFS fun!
Tyler Ulis ($7.3K FDR) has played 34 and 31 minutes in his last two games and should be locked into the same run tonight but outside of the minutes security, I simply do not see the upside considering he has only put up 21 and 22 fantasy points in those games.
Tyson Chandler ($8.6K) feels like the safe cash game option as with this game not being a back to back we know the Suns will have him in the starting line-up and we can expect his usual 25-30 minutes and steady fantasy production. In the first meeting between these two teams, Chandler sat out and Greg Monroe went off for 40+ fantasy points but this seems like a spot where Monroe will garner another DNP Coaches Decision!
Alex Len ($8.9K) is an interesting tournament pivot who played 21 minutes in the last game against Phoenix and logged 9 points, 13 rebounds and 24 fantasy points. Len’s recent game log has been ugly including logging only 8 minutes last game out and racking up four personal fouls (that is some kind of efficiency) so the risk is clear here. However, with Chriss and Jackson out this could be a sneaky spot for Len who was the first man off the Suns bench in the second half of last game (in which Bender was forced to start due to Chriss’s injury) so do not be afraid to take some GPP shots with Len who has shown 50 point upside this year when given the minutes!
I feel like I am burying the lead here but we havent even mentioned Devin Booker or T.J. Warren who seem like obvious plays in a game stack here. With a short bench/rotation Booker and Warren are going to get all the minutes and usage they can handle and I love that we can easily stack them with all the Suns value to maximize our exposure to this stack!
NBA DFS – Slate Overview and Sample Line-Up
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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FanDuel NBA DFS Sample Line-Up:
PG: Damian Lillard ($9,000)
PG: Tyler Ulis ($4,900)
SG: Eric Gordon ($8,100)
SG: Devin Booker ($7,800)
SF: T.J. Warren ($7,500)
SF: Joe Harris ($3,900)
PF: Dragan Bender ($3,500)
PF: Ryan Anderson ($4,300)
C: DeMarcus Cousins ($11,000)
Slate Overview: – As you can tell, I am slightly in love with the Phoenix/Houston game stack and really its more a Phoenix stack than anything else! The injuries to the Suns open up so much value and allow you to easily pick and choose 4-5 higher priced studs to build around on FanDuel. Assuming Anthony Davis is out then DeMarcus Cousins is my top play on the board and running it back with Dame who is priced at a significant discount to Chris Paul is my preferred approach. Good luck all!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FanDuel and FantasyDraft and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!