NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday January 25
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 was dominated by Andre Drummond (83 points) who took the All-Star snub narrative to a whole new level by putting up 30 points and 24 rebounds against the Utah Jazz of all teams! Ben Simmons led the Sixers charge with 63 fantasy points of his own and if you avoided the out of nowhere Marcus Smart/Al Horford late scratches you hopefully were able to have a decent 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:
After a crazy night of NBA action on Wednesday with a TON of late news and some always fun late scratches that sent DFS Twitter into an uproar – we return with a manageable four game slate that has some injury issues all its own!
Jimmy Butler is once again the big unknown heading into tonight after being ruled out again yesterday and the fact that the team’s beat writers are looking at this weekend for a return would make it seem likely he misses tonight as well. The interesting thing about this slate is that Minnesota is the only team of the eight in action that sees a projected pace increase so on paper this is a spot against Golden State that would seem ideal for fantasy production.
Rest easy, Wolves fans.. while it sounds like Jimmy Butler will miss his 3rd straight game tonight with knee soreness, the knee injury is NOT thought to be seriousness.
— Jace frederick (@JaceFrederick) January 24, 2018
He’s expected to be back in the lineup by this weekend
The issue for me with the Wolves is this is now three games in a four night West Coast road trip that took them from the Clippers to the Blazers and now IN Golden State on a back to back. It is interesting to note that no player on Minnesota got more than 31 fantasy points against Portland last night and no player topped 40 fantasy points in their earlier season meeting with the Dubs where they lost by 24 in Golden State without Kevin Durant even playing. I know it is never fun to play the blowout risk but if the Warriors are fully healthy and Butler sits, this game could get ugly – OR the Warriors could come out flat like they did against the Knicks and this game could stay close. For my money – I will take the Warriors at home against a short-handed, tired Wolves team and likely just avoid this game entirely in my roster builds.
No team sees a weaker defensive match-up than the Miami Heat against a Kings team ranked 26th in the league in Def-Eff but the issue with Miami is that they are likely to be at full strength tonight. The appeal of Miami in DFS lately has been the available usage due to injuries but it looks like Goran Dragic and Tyler Johnson will both return tonight which makes this a deep rotation we may just want to avoid.
On the Kings side, they may be without De’Aaron Fox who left his last game with an injury and underwent an MRI yesterday and although the results were negative I doubt that Sacramento is going to rush one of their few young core assets back in a meaningless game. When you add in the fact that Miami plays at the slowest pace of any team over the last 15 games, this seems like another game we just cross off and move on!
NBA DFS – Picks and Pivots Day!
If you are new to this article then you may think my giddiness for a Knicks-Nuggets game is a little odd but for those of you who are return readers (thank you by the way) – you will understand that a match-up of Tim Hardaway Jr. versus Jamal Murray is like Christmas, Super Bowl Sunday and my bachelor party all rolled into one glorious evening. There are literally no two players in DFS I seem to tout (mostly with horrendous results) than these two and the fact that I can stack them into my line-ups tonight is simply amazing – I cannot wait until tip-off when I sit down, crack open a beer in hopes this is the night they win me a GPP but ultimately shoot a combined 3 for 64 and I lose all my bankroll due to overzealous entries based off my blind loyalty/stupidity!
OK enough about my man crushes – the reality is – this Knicks/Nuggets game is my favorite on the slate especially if the injury news holds which would open up a ton of value and direct clear usage benefits to a core group of players.
On the Knicks side, Kristaps Porzingis is questionable to play tonight after sitting out against Golden State and the fact he was only able to make it through a limited practice tonight makes it seem likely he would sit out again tonight. With KP out, most people are going to lock in Michael Beasley ($12.2K) and Tim Hardaway Jr. ($13.3K) as they will see that they both have 30% usage rates when KP is off the floor but keep in mind this is where statistics can be mis-leading. If you take KP off the floor and put Hardaway, Beasley and Enes Kanter on the floor you will see that in 70+ minutes the two volume shooters actually eat into each other’s usage as THJ (20%) and Beasley (18%) both actually see material decreases in usage off their season long numbers.
In Tuesday’s game versus Golden State we actually saw these stats play out as Beasley sported only a 23% usage rate while Hardaway barely cracked 18% so these plays carry risk that needs to be outlined but in my mind on a short slate like this, the pure volume upside is worth exploring. These two scorers were responsible for nearly a third of the Knicks shot attempts against Golden State while both played 35 minutes and I will happily go back to the well here tonight as they would be tasked once again with carrying the load for New York.
On the Nuggets side, the questionable tag for Garry Harris not only benefits the remaining Nuggets players but it also gives a nice boost to New York as it would take one of the best on-ball defenders Denver has off the court!
Assuming Harris sits, it would seem likely that Will Barton ($11.4K) would remain in the starting line-up and either Wilson Chandler or Trey Lyles would come off the bench. My guess would be Chandler would be re-inserted into the starting line-up here but rather than focus on those fringe players you can simply build around the core studs in the Nuggets offense. With Harris and Millsap off the court this season all of Jamal Murray ($12.4K), Will Barton ($11.4K) and Nikola Jokic ($16.2K) see 2%+ usage boosts while seeing bumps in their FP/M outputs.
Murray is simply playing out of his mind right now, averaging 50 fantasy points per game over his last two outings while putting up a 30% usage rate and 1.4 FP/M over the last week. Murray is shooting nearly 60% from the floor over these two games so understand regression is likely from an efficiency perspective but considering the Knicks rank 26th in DvP and 23rd in Def-Eff versus the PG position, this is the optimal spot to attack the Knicks tonight!
Jokic put up 45 fantasy points against this Knicks team earlier this season and has put up 43 fantasy points per game over his last two outings. In that game earlier this season, the Joker sported a 33% usage rate and put up 1.4 FP/M so utilizing him as a core play tonight in this match-up would allow you to build around the most heavily involved players in this game!
One value option on FantasyDraft that gives you some solid salary savings with significant upside is Mason Plumlee ($8.9k) who has started two of the last three games for Denver and racked up 33 and 42 fantasy points over those outings which would simply crush GPP value as he only needs 27 fantasy points to “hit value” at this price point!
Keep an eye on the injury news here as if Porzingis, Harris and even Kyle O’ Quinn sit out, I would go all in on stacking the remaining core plays from this game!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
The Oklahoma City Thunder and Washington Wizards game may be a core play for some due to the star power they provide but the reality is that we have two of the top defenses in the NBA as the Wizards rank 11th in Def-Eff while OKC comes in at number 3. In the last month, the Wizards and Thunder rank middle of the pack in terms of pace so this may be a slower paced defensive battle that makes sense to pick and choose spots from then to try to force in the highest priced stars.
Steven Adams ($11.9K) let us down against the Nets shooting only 3 for 12 (25%) from the floor but I will chalk that up to simple variance in DFS as it would be unreasonable to think a 60% shooter would have another game at this low of an efficiency rate. The Wizards are a team that has struggled to contain opposing big men in recent games giving up 49, 52 and 58 fantasy points to Dwight Howard, Bismack Biyombo and Andre Drummond over the last two weeks. Even though Adams struggled from the floor against Brooklyn he was still able to put up 30 fantasy points on the back of 14 rebounds so any regression back to his usual efficiency against a Wizards team that has struggled to slow down opposing Centers could result in a big bounce back night!
Paul George ($13.7K) is probably my favorite play from this game as the Wizards have struggled to contain opposing wings all season, ranking 24th in DvP against the SF position which is by far the worst rating of any individual match-up on the floor. PG13 has really seen his shot volume increase lately with 20 and 19 shot attempts in his last two games while putting up 41 and 49 fantasy points.
The big name guards in this game are always in play although Russell Westbrook ($20.8K) may be a bit too pricey for me even on a short slate as he would need 62 fantasy points just to return value which he has only hit one time in his last five games. There is always something to be said about getting the top raw points play on a short slate but going more balanced on this slate would be my preferred approach. John Wall and Bradley Beal are interesting GPP pivot plays if you are game stacking this one but with Andre Roberson back this is a defense that ranks top 10 in defending both guard positions so it may be best to allocate their inflated salary commitments to other spots on your roster!
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: Jamal Murray ($7,500)
PG: Jarrett Jack ($4,900)
SG: Will Barton ($6,500)
SG: Tim Hardaway Jr. ($5,900)
SF: Michael Beasley ($5,900)
SF: Paul George ($8,100)
PF: Carmelo Anthony ($6,600)
PF: Markieff Morris ($4,400)
C: Nikola Jokic ($9,700)
Slate Overview: This four game slate is going to be VERY injury dependent as we await news on guys like Jimmy Butler, Kristaps Porzingis and Gary Harris. My going in position is that all three will sit which means I am going to heavily stack the Nuggets-Knicks remaining plays that will soak up all the usage and fill in the rest of my roster with the some of the starters from the Thunder/Wizards game.
Enjoy Tim Hardaway Jr. versus Jamal Murray night – go ahead and max enter the monster and count your money or just draft your angry tweets at me put them on auto-send for around 10PM tonight when you realize you will be eating PB&J for the next week because you used your grocery money on the two most volatile guards in the history of DFS (probably).
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis!