NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday January 20
Welcome to the Saturday 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 Night’s NBA DFS contests were relatively low scoring as we only had three players put up 50 or more fantasy points and with a ton of post-lock injury news it made for some interesting roster decisions. Personally the news throughout the day that Jamal Murray was likely to play pushed me off Will Barton completely and I made the decision in my GPP roster’s to completely move off Barton and move over to Jamal Murray. There was risk since we did not have a confirmed line-up but Mike Malone had made multiple indications throughout the day that not only would Murray start/play but that he would likely move Trey Lyles and Wilson Chandler to the 3 and 4 which would have pushed Barton off the court. The move paid off as Murray went off for 47 fantasy points at 5-7% ownership compared to Will Barton who played only 23 minutes and was only able to get 8 actual points as a chalky play throughout the industry.
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:
The biggest injury news we have on this slate is that Giannis Antetokounmpo will miss Saturday’s against the Sixers due to injury but it is important to note – this is coming from the Bucks game notes and we have seen earlier this year where the game notes are wrong so PLEASE check back for official word from the Bucks that Giannis is indeed out.
According to the game notes both Giannis AND Malcolm Brogdon are out for this game which would completely change how you approach this slate as anytime you take two starters off the court for an NBA team it will have a massive ripple effect – especially when one of them is one of the best players in the league!
Giannis has missed two games this season – one on 12/23 versus the Hornets and one on 11/22 versus the Suns – so we have some clear indication of what this means for the rest of the Bucks. The tricky thing to weigh here is the added impact of Brogdon sitting out as he played 31 and 40 minutes in those two games so his absence on top of Giannis literally opens up 70-80 minutes of court time here tonight.
The very clear winners in this scenario are Khris Middleton ($14.8K) and Eric Bledsoe ($14.5K) who will end up becoming two of the most popular plays on the board but frankly, I will ignore ownership and play two players who are under-priced relative to this spot in DFS today. If you take Giannis and Brogdon off the court this year, Middleton has a 38.4% usage rate while Bledsoe sports a 31% usage rate with 1.34 FP/M.
In the two games this year that Giannis has sat out -Middleton has put up 48 and 64 fantasy points while Bledsoe has put up 33 and 47 fantasy points so building around these two tonight is a viable strategy in any format and other than playing the ownership angle, I simply see no reason not to lock them in and move on!
Brogdon sitting really opens up the POTENTIAL for some fringe Bucks value and I use the word potential because there is also some significant risk here as none of these options seem like ideal plays. This is going to be a spot where I wait on the news to see how the Bucks plan on approaching this game as we could see guys like Tony Snell, Matthew Dellavedova and Sean Kilpatrick all potentially enter the starting rotation. In the last game against the Hornets that Giannis sat out, Delly garnered the start alongside Snell but played less than 20 minutes as Brogdon played 33 minutes off the bench in that game so the question is – how much more run would he get if Brogdon is out too. This is THE spot you need to watch for news on this slate before you start locking in your lineups!
NBA DFS – Warriors versus Rockets
As much as the Giannis news will shape how you approach this slate, let’s not bury the lead here – this slate is all about getting as much Rockets-Warriors exposure as you can. We have two high-scoring fast paced teams in a projected game total that sits at 234 points which is 20 points higher than any other game on the Main Slate! Put simply – if you don’t have exposure to this game you are going to be in trouble.
The issue with a game like this is that the obvious top plays are also the priciest plays on the board so if you want any of Chris Paul, James Harden, Stephen Curry or Kevin Durant it is going to cost you dearly! All four are elite plays and I would not try to sell you otherwise but I do think that pivoting to the “secondary” options in this game is the best way to attack it.
Draymond Green ($14.9K) has put up 40 and 54 fantasy points in his two previous meetings with the Rockets and is no longer on the Warriors injury report heading into this game. Through two meetings with the Rockets this season, it is Draymond who actually has the best individual fantasy game with 54 points and he has averaged over 46 fantasy points per game over 6 meetings with the Rockets the last two seasons!
Klay Thompson ($12.5K) has put up 37 and 39 fantasy points in his two previous outings against the Rockets this season and has averaged 35 fantasy points per game against the Rockets the last two seasons. With everyone trying to “force in” the Curry/Durant type plays there is merit to taking the salary savings and stacking Klay and Draymond who have excelled in this match-up already this season!
The one value play we should keep an eye on is Kevon Looney ($6.2K) who with the injury to Jordan Bell will be the top big man off the bench for the Warriors. Although Zaza Pachulia will get the start here, this is NOT a game environment that will keep him on the court long as he only played 10 and 14 minutes in the first two meetings as the Warriors opted to go small. With Andre Igoudala questionable and Jordan Bell out, it would seem like Looney would get all that additional run and this is a player at near minimum price on FantasyDraft who has played 20+ minutes in three of his last four outings.
On the Rockets side the one player that stands out to me is Eric Gordon ($12.5K) who moves back to the bench with James Harden in the starting line-up but we saw last game out this actually benefits him. In that game Gordon dominated the second team usage and ended the game with a 28% usage rate while putting up 1.3 FP/M. Gordon put up 55 fantasy points against Golden State the last time they played (Harden was out) and put up 34 fantasy points in the first meeting when both teams were fully healthy.
NBA DFS – Pivot to the Process:
With all the high-priced stars to pay up for tonight in Golden State/Houston this seems like the perfect opportunity to pivot to other lower owned stars in GPP’s. Even with Giannis likely out tonight, we still have players like DeMarcus Cousins, Anthony Davis, Jimmy Butler and Karl-Anthony Towns we can pay up for. For my money, the best pivot is to pay up for Joel Embiid ($17.9K) especially in this roster build.
Take a step back for a moment – with Giannis and Brogdon out, we are going to make Khris Middleton and Eric Bledsoe core plays and what better way to correlate with them than to take the best player on the other side of that same game! Embiid is playing at an elite level right now with 50+ fantasy points in three of his last five outings and most importantly (to me at least) is that he has played 30+ minutes in seven of his last eight games. The issue with Embiid has always been the minutes as the Sixers eased him in and we always wondered what the ceiling would be if they just let him play starters minutes – well we are seeing that now each and every night out and I locking him in with the Bucks duo is my top build today!
Although I will not be using him, I would be doing you a dis-service if I did not talk about Rudy Gobert ($12.2K) tonight against a Clippers team that will be without DeAndre Jordan. Gobert returned last night with a bang, and although we were told he would be on a minutes limit, the Jazz center ended up playing 30 minutes, racking up 23 points, 14 rebounds and 47 fantasy points. At only $6.5K on FanDuel, Gobert is likely going to be popular as game log watchers see the big night last night but with Gobert coming back from a knee injury and this being a back to back, it would not shock me at all to see him sit tonight for rest – remember Tim Hardaway Jr. earlier this week? Yeah – let’s learn our lesson!
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.
More from FanSided
- Cardinals Rumors: Surprise extension, Dylan Carlson-Yankees link, Rays trade idea
- USWNT vs. Vietnam: Key takeaways before they take on the Dutch
- NFL rumors: 49ers trending toward contract drama with defensive star
- Steelers avoid any camp drama with latest roster move
- MLB Rumors: Potential Braves reunion, Lance Lynn no-trade clause and Orioles deadline intentions
FanDuel NBA DFS – Sample Line-Up:
PG: Eric Bledsoe ($7,000)
PG: T.J. McConnell ($5,100)
SG: Klay Thompson ($7,500)
SG: Khris Middleton ($7,400)
SF: Robert Covington ($5,100)
SF: PJ Tucker ($4,100)
PF: Draymond Green ($8,000)
PF: John Henson ($5,200)
C: Joel Embiid ($10,500)
Slate Overview: The way this slate breaks down for me leads me to a build where I am stacking Bledsoe/Middleton/Embiid and targeting the “secondary plays” in the Warriors/Rockets game. I mention this all the time but I always try to take a DFS slate and boil it down to a few game environments I want to focus on and I drown out the noise elsewhere – tonight for me it is all about the Warriors and Rockets for obvious reasons and the Bucks/Sixers as a result of the injuries and value that allow us to make plays for the stars on the slate! Good luck all!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for al the latest DFS news and analysis!