NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday January 18
Welcome to the Thursday 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!
Wednesday Night’s NBA DFS started out with an unfortunate injury to Jordan Bell which sunk many line-ups across the DFS world including mine and overall for such a large slate the scores were relatively down. Seven players scored 50+ points on the night with Andre Drummond (57) as the high scorer on the night but the night really became more about who you didn’t have (ie. Bell) than anything else due to his incredibly high ownership which drive the cash lines lower across platforms!
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 do we start tonight?
Thursday’s four game slate actually looks to be a pretty interesting one as we have some big time stars to pay up for, some injury news which will open up value and some high projected scoring nights from the Vegas data.
He’s baaaaaack. James Harden ($21.6K) is expected back for the Rockets tonight but we already know that he is expected to be on a 25 minutes limit which makes paying up for the most expensive play on FantasyDraft on this slate nothing more than a crazy large field GPP flyer. What Harden’s return does more than anything is hampers the value of the remaining Rockets as we should see Eric Gordon return to the bench and Chris Paul lose a significant amount of usage. In fact when Harden is on the floor this season, Paul sees a 6% decrease in usage while Gordon drops over 4%.
The one silver lining here is that the Rockets will be short-handed as both Trevor Ariza and Gerald Green have been suspended for two games due to their altercation with the Clippers last time out. Green’s 25 minutes or so a night will be taken over by Harden tonight (in theory) so where I am really looking for value is in the 35-40 minutes a night that Ariza leaves behind. P.J. Tucker ($7.2K) and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute ($6.3K) are going to be the likely beneficiaries on the wing for the Rockets and although neither are high usage guys, the security of minutes makes them great “fill-in” plays that help you round out your roster. Assuming Harden goes back into the starting line-up, we should see Jimmy Butler match-up with him which would leave either starting SF to get Andrew Wiggins defense who is ranked 25th in DRPM amongst all qualified SF’s. My take here – jot both names down and mix and match them as “last men in” to your builds as you determine the salary needed across the rest of your roster!
The other big piece of news we need to watch is with the Celtics as Kyrie Irving and Marcus Smart are both questionable to play after sitting out practice yesterday. The sample size is small with Irving/Smart off the court this season but we see guys like Al Horford get a 16% usage boost while leading the team with a 35% usage rate! The Celtics actually have the second largest pace boost on the slate in this match-up with the Sixers while getting the second largest projected point boost so there is some great value potential here if either/both guards sit considering the game environment. Terry Rozier ($9.2K) could become a must play value guard if Kyrie and Smart are both ruled out as the last game Kyrie was ruled out (Smart played), Rozier played 28 minutes, shot the ball 12 times and put up 25 fantasy points!
NBA DFS – Top Game Stack: Cavs Side
As a tournament based NBA DFS player, I typically approach each slate with a tournament mindset so looking for game stacks, especially on a four game slate like this is appealing to me. I like to take the approach of “planting my flag” – finding the spot to go all in on and hoping the game goes off while the other spots dud leaving me in a spot to take down a GPP.
Tonight there is one game that easily stands out to me as the Cavaliers and Magic play in Cleveland in a game with the highest projected total (226) and second projected fastest pace. Vegas data aside what really stands out to me in this game is when you look at all the teams in play tonight all but two of them are ranked 17th or better in terms of team Def-Eff rating so we have a lot of solid defensive teams in play with two VERY obvious exceptions.
The Magic rank dead last in terms of team Def-Eff, ranking 24th or worse at four of the five positions on the floor while the Cavaliers are not much better, ranking 27th in terms of Def-Eff! So to summarize – we have two of the four worst defensive teams in the NBA going against each other tonight in a rematch of a game we saw on January 6th – final score 131-127! If this game does not scream stack then I do not know what will!
LeBron James ($21.2K, $15.K) is THE star to pay up for tonight coming off back to back 60+ fantasy outings and was off the charts in this spot against Orlando last time out when he dropped 33 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, 6 steals and 75 fantasy points! At this point you don’t need me to sell you on the talent of LeBron but this is a scary fade on a short slate considering the match-up!
Isaiah Thomas ($10.9K, $5.9K) is really the player that interests me the most in this game as he feels entirely too cheap considering he will take on a Magic team ranked 30th in DvP and 26th in Def-Eff and saw his minutes restriction lifted last time out when he logged 31 minutes against the Celtics. My biggest takeaway from watching that Cavs-Warriors game is that IT and LeBron are going to be where all the usage goes as Thomas led the team with 21 shot attempts and when combined with LeBron’s 18, that makes up 41% of the shot attempts for Cleveland taken by two players.
We are starting to get a big enough sample size where we can look at what IT3’s presence means to the Cavaliers as with Thomas on the floor this season in 127 minutes, Kevin Love gets a 6% usage decrease while taking a .22 FP/M hit and has become a clear third wheel in this offense. Interestingly enough, LeBron himself is taking an 8% usage hit while seeing his FP/M drop .14 which could lead us to balk at his price in future match-ups but I am more than willing to pay the freight tonight!
Thomas actually leads the team in usage at 30.1% while on the court and if you look at the stats with Thomas and LeBron on the floor at the same time over 86 minutes, King James actually only has a 24% usage rate but is still putting up 1.4 FP/M. Again, not something we need to worry about tonight but this is an interesting trend to monitor as Thomas gets more comfortable in the offense and starts to draw away fantasy production from the other two Cavs stars!
NBA DFS – Run it back with the Magic:
As much as the Cavs bring the star power in this stack, the Magic offer the ability to load up on their core starters in an elite defensive match-up. The added benefit you will notice across both FantasyDraft and FanDuel is that the pricing works perfectly in a game stack as the Magic are reasonably priced and can fit in quite easily around LeBron and Thomas tonight.
Looking back at the previous match-up between these two teams, it was Aaron Gordon ($13.7K, $7.5K) that dominated the usage, putting up a 40% usage rate and 1.4 FP/M on his way to a 44 fantasy point night which would put him at 3.2x value on FantasyDraft. The Cavs rank 24th in DvP and 27th in Def-Eff to opposing PF’s and Jaw Crowder ranks 27th in DRPM amongst all starting PF’s defensively so this is a great spot on paper for AG to put up another big game at a reasonable price point across both formats.
Although Bismack Biyombo ($13.2K, $7.5K) has seen his price push up significantly there is still ample upside here as the Magic big man has put up 45 and 50 fantasy points over his last two games and with the Magic without Nikola Vucevic and Mo Speights missing last game (and questionable for tonight), Bismack is going to get all the run he can handle again tonight!
The Magic used Khem Birch($6.2K) as their first big man off the bench and he went off for a double-double and 4 blocks for 34 fantasy points in only 18 minutes and makes for an interesting punt although we have seen “one game wonders” like this gain ownership in droves which could make him a better fade than a core play especially is Speights is back with the team.
Elrid Payton ($13K, $6.7K) is a GPP option only as although his price point is reasonable, this is also a player who has failed to hit 20 fantasy points in three of his last four outings. The issue with a full on fade of Elf is that we know he has massive upside as evidenced by his 46 fantasy points against the Wizards and he put up 35 fantasy points in this same spot just a few games ago. I would reserve Payton to GPP game stacks only but he seems like a guy on a four game slate who has the ability to “break the slate” if you do not have any exposure!
Evan Fournier ($11.5K) finally had that big game we were waiting for with 41 fantasy points against Minnesota and what is most appealing to me is the shot volume as Fournier put up 22 FGA and 12 three-point attempts in that game which added to his DFS ceiling.
Across the board all the Magic starters are in a great game environment against an awful Cavs defense and the price points are incredibly reasonable when you factor in the match-up and minutes security. The one draw back is the blow-out risk which is evidenced by the double-digit spread with this game being in Cleveland but considering how poorly Cleveland is playing right now on the defensive end, I think the Magic can keep this game close and we could see another game with a 250+ total as it was the last time they met!
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: Elfrid Payton ($6,700)
PG: Isaiah Thomas ($5,700)
SG: Evan Fournier ($5,700)
SG: Andrew Wiggins ($6,200)
SF: LeBron James ($12,500)
SF: PJ Tucker ($3,700)
PF: Aaron Gordon ($7,500)
PF: Ryan Anderson ($4,500)
C: Bismack Biyombo ($7,500)
Slate Overview: Looking over this slate I am leaning heavily towards a GPP only game stack mindset with my core around the high scoring Cavs/Magic contest. The Rockets should provide ample value on the wings with the suspensions of Ariza/Green and limited minutes for Harden so they make for easy plug and plays due to their depressed price points.
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!