NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday January 23
Welcome to the Tuesday 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!
Monday’s NBA DFS slate was basically – did you have DeMarcus Cousins or not? The Pelicans and Bulls went into double OT and Boogie simply went off as he racked up 44 points, 24 rebounds and 10 assists on his way to 102 fantasy points. No seriously – the dude topped 100 fantasy points. Sometimes we hear the term that a player will “break the slate” and this is one of those cases where you either had Boogie and cashed or you didn’t and you take your L.
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 on this slate?
We get an interesting five game slate tonight with some big totals, double-digit spreads and some early injury news that help us shape the slate so let’s dive right in!
Pau Gasol has already been ruled out tonight and will take a seat alongside Kawhi Leonard which will open up a ton of usage and value for a Spurs team taking on a Cleveland squad that just gave up 148 points to the Thunder. The last time Gasol sat out (against the Jazz) it was Joffrey Lauvergne ($6K) who drew the start, played 25 minutes and racked up 17 fantasy points which would put him right at target value at this price point. Dejounte Murray ($9.1K) looks like he has officially taken over as the Spurs starting PG and will now drive the ship that has been captained for nearly 20 years by Tony Parker. Murray is an explosive talent who has started 15 games for the Spurs this season and put up 40+ fantasy points in two of those 15 starts and will get an elite match-up against a Cavaliers defense that cannot seem to stop anyone lately. My only concern here is that Murray has only played over 30 minutes in one start this year and is averaging only 25 fantasy points across his 15 starts so the floor is not nearly safe enough to make him a core play at this elevated price point.
Tony Parker strongly suggested the torch has been passed now to Dejounte Murray: "Pop told me. He told me that he thought it was time. And I was like, 'No, problem. Just like Manu, just like Pau, you know that day is going to come."
— Tom Orsborn (@tom_orsborn) January 22, 2018
The Lakers will be without Lonzo Ball again tonight and it looks like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope could be sidelined again after missing the last two games which would put Jordan Clarkson ($12.5K) back on DFS players radar. I faded him on the last slate and I am not going to change course even though he has put up 59 and 51 fantasy points in his last two games with Ball and KCP out. Dig deeper than the game log and you will see that Clarkson is shooting 68% from the floor in his last two games and considering he is a 44% career shooter, I think it would be safe to say this is a hot streak. The fact that he will gain popularity due to his recent games and the fact he will take on a Celtics team ranked top 5 in defending both the PG and SG position makes him a strong fade candidate in my opinion!
NBA DFS – Which blowout can you build around?
The interesting dynamic with this slate is the two highest projected scoring game environments also have double-digit spreads so there is significant blowout potential surrounding the slates biggest stars which brings a considerable amount of risk to our roster builds – if you build around the wrong star who finds himself sitting out the fourth quarter you will watch the field pass you by!
The Oklahoma City Thunder will take on the Brooklyn Nets in a game with a 214 total, 10 point spread and the third fastest projected pace of the five games. The Thunder are coming off a 148 point whooping of the Cavaliers “defense” and will take on a Nets team ranked 27th in Def-Eff and they play at one of the quickest paces in all the NBA so this is a great spot on paper to attack the Thunder stars.
Russell Westbrook ($21.2K and $12.2K) is by far the most expensive player on the slate on both FantasyDraft and FanDuel but it is hard to argue with his recent form as he is sporting a 36% usage rate while putting up 1.6 FP/M over the last two weeks. Meanwhile teammates Paul George ($13.1K) and Carmelo Anthony ($12.9K) are coming off a pair of 50 point games against the Cavaliers and will step into a game environment where the Thunder get one of the biggest pace boosts on the board. Steven Adams ($12.2K) is averaging 40 fantasy points per game per game over his last four outings and gets perhaps the best individual match-up against a Nets team ranked 28th in DvP and 29th in Def-Eff defending the Center position.
I expect people will look at the spread here and point to the blowout risk but keep in mind that this is a Nets team that is typically in every game they play and have an average scoring margin of -2.9 points per game this season which means they tend to play teams closer than many would have you believe. The one caveat here is that the Nets tend to play closer at home, losing by an averaging margin of 2 points versus 3.8 on the road and with this game in OKC it adds additional risk beyond the metrics.
The Warriors on the other hand are the other high scoring squad on this slate and have a massive 14 point spread against the Knicks in Golden State. The Warriors on the season have an average scoring margin that is tops in the league at +8.7 points and when you combine that with the fact that the Knicks have the third worst scoring differential on the road (-7.5 points), this game to me feels like the one that blows out and keeps me away from the top end plays in my roster build.
The benefit of stacking around the Thunder core is that they tend to lean on their starters for heavy minutes and play a rather shallow rotation so I think this is a spot where you can stack up all four Thunder studs (and you could even add in Andre Roberson as a cheap punt play) as the core of your build.
The question then becomes can you run it back with any Nets players against a Thunder team ranked top 3 in DvP and Def-Eff in team defense this year? The tough defensive assignment combined with the Nets jumbled rotations makes this a risky spot to go all-in on but I love the correlation in GPP’s by stacking this game and hoping it stays close.
Spencer Dinwiddie ($11.2K) has to deal with the return of D’Angelo Russell who has played 14 minutes in each of his first two games back and remains on a minutes limit for Brooklyn but the reality is Dinwiddie has averaged 30 fantasy points over those two games while still playing 29 and 30 minutes. The threat of Russell here is going to soften he ownership on Dinwiddie for the foreseeable future but the reality is, Russell is playing immaterial back-up PG minutes at this point so taking the ownership discount on a guy with demonstrated 50 fantasy point upside is an interesting strategy on this slate.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ($12.4K) is really one of the only other Nets players you can count on for consistent 30+ minutes a game and he gets the most exploitable match-up of any of the Nets players as Carmelo Anthony ranks 24th in DRPM amongst all starting PF’s.
I firmly believe the Nets can keep this game close and if we can build our line-up around a core group of plays all logging 30+ minutes in a fast paced game environment, we could have the start of a GPP winning team!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
It would seem crazy to get through this article and not mention the team with the highest projected point total (Golden State) or the fact that LeBron James is on this slate but I view them as secondary pivot plays on this slate at first glance.
The one thing I will say and this is speculation only – would it shock anyone to see the Warriors as 14 point home favorites sit one of their big four and throw a total monkey wrench into this slate? If/when that happens we all know that the masses will flock towards the remaining Warriors and run it back with Porzingis/Hardaway Jr. so just be prepared for that possibility today!
Assuming Golden State plays it straight up that is a game I will likely avoid outside of a multi-entry GPP game stack which means we quickly run out of pivot plays to build around. The Kings-Magic game on the surface seems like a great play to pivot to as both of these teams rank in the bottom of the league in Def-Eff as they rank 23rd and 29th among all NBA teams.
The one player that stands out to me is Kings rookie De’Aaron Fox ($10.8K) who gets the best possible match-up against a Magic team ranked 30th in DvP, 28th in Def-Eff and 26th in DRPM against the PG position this season. Over the last two weeks, the Magic have given up an average of 42 fantasy points per game to opposing PG’s with 6 of the 7 PG’s putting up 34 or more fantasy points which would put even a floor game from Fox above his “target value.”
The Kings are on the tail end of a back to back so keep an eye on the injury/rest news for the remainder of that roster but Fox is one of the few young guns who should see his usual 30+ minutes regardless.
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: Russell Westbrook ($12,200)
PG: Spencer Dinwiddie ($6,200)
SG: Andre Roberson ($4,800)
SG: De’Angelo Russell ($4,700)
SF: Paul George ($8,000)
SF: Demarre Carroll ($6,200)
PF: Rondae Hollis-Jefferson ($6,800)
PF: David Bertans ($3,600)
C: Steven Adams ($7,500)
Slate Overview: This looks to be an interesting GPP slate as the high totals/spreads makes this a slate I am far more likely to stack up games then try to build a balanced cash game core as the studs on this slate are all in risky spots as a result of potential game flow concerns. The Thunder-Nets game is where I am focused on mostly because I think the Nets will be able to keep this game close and keep the Thunder “core four” on the floor for the entire game. I have this weird feeling we will get a random Warriors rest day which could throw this slate into chaos and make everyone rush to stack up the remaining players….which now that I think about it, would make me like the OKC-Brooklyn stack even more!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!