Welcome to the Sunday 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!
Saturday Night’s DFS NBA slate was a valuable reminder lesson for me about some of the common mistakes we make in DFS. As the day unfolded I kept my eyes on the news around the industry to see where most of the buzz was and it was not surprising to see it landed on the revenge narrative we spoke about with Victor Oladipo and once John Wall was ruled out it seemed everyone was rushing to roster as many Wizards as possible.
As you all know, I write this article at 6-7AM EST so many times things will change before we get to lock but the one thing that never wavered is that we had the Warriors and Celtics in the fastest paced game and highest projected total and it pitted two teams against each other that were top 5 in pace over the last 7 games. I stuck to my guns and stayed with the game stack and when lock rolled around was shocked to see Stephen Curry at 5% in GPP’s. Think about that – one of the marquee players in the NBA in the fastest projected pace and highest scoring game was owned at a mere 5%. The chalk became Oladipo, Wizards and for some reason Caris LeVert (which crushed most of the field it seemed) so when Curry ended the night as the best DFS performer with 69 fantasy points, it put anyone who stuck with that game stack way ahead of the field. Sometimes it pays to stick to your initial build and not chase the news with the rest of 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:
Welcome back to Picks and Pivots on this Sunday where we have a variety of different slate options depending on the site you play on including on FantasyDraft where they set today up as a seven game main slate which includes the games from 3:30PM EST to 7PM EST!.
The news that will dominate this slate today and many slates in the near term is the awful season ending injury to DeMarcus Cousins and how it impacts the rest of the New Orleans Pelicans. The obvious beneficiary here is going to be Anthony Davis ($21.4K) who sees a 5.5% usage bump and leads the team with a 34.2% usage rate while putting up 1.7 FP.M. Jrue Holiday ($14.5K) sees the largest usage increase at nearly 8.8% and has put up a 32% usage rate and 1.4 FP/M with Boogie off the court this season.
Over the last 15 games no team in the NBA has played at a faster pace than the Clippers while the Pelicans themselves rank 6th in that metric. So we have a fast paced game between two teams that rank in the bottom 10 in Def-Eff and a 1 point Vegas spread – let others get cute elsewhere and we can simply stack this game up!
The interesting thing to note here is Boogie had not missed a game this season prior to today so we do not have the ability to see any previous game logs that give us any further insight into life without Boogie this year. This will likely be the THE spot everyone in the industry writes and talks about today which will lead to inflated ownership but I actually think there is reason to fall in line here and build around the Pelicans as they take on the Clippers tonight.
This game has the highest projected game total and third fastest projected pace and both teams involved see a significant point boost over their season long average while simultaneously seeing material pace boosts. Over the last 15 games no team in the NBA has played at a faster pace than the Clippers while the Pelicans themselves rank 6th in that metric. So we have a fast paced game between two teams that rank in the bottom 10 in Def-Eff and a 1 point Vegas spread – let others get cute elsewhere and we can simply stack this game up!
Blake Griffin ($15.7K) and Lou Williams ($15.2K) are simply the entire offense right now for the Clippers as they both sport a 30%+ usage rate over the last two weeks while putting up 1.3 FP/M. I love the idea of stacking the top two options from each team here as the core build on this slate as we can focus in on the core four usage plays from an elite game environment but we can also use some of the secondary pieces as part of an overall game stack.
Rajon Rondo ($8.8K) sits at a price point that is incredibly intriguing for GPP’s but his recent game log is going to make people VERY reluctant to pull the trigger with his lack of consistent minutes but without Boogie on the floor the Pelicans are going to need him to shoulder a bigger offensive load. Rondo has put up 1.4 FP/M this season over 140 minutes without Boogie on the floor so if Rondo gets any sort of significant minute bump today he could pay off his price in a big time way!
The safer cash game option is E’Twaun Moore ($9.4K) who has played 30+ minutes in each of his last four games and sees a slight usage (1%) bump with Cousins out of the line-up. On the Clippers side, Wesley Johnson ($8.6K) has been playing 30+ minutes a night and is averaging 28 fantasy points per game over his last six outings which would put him at 3.2x value on a site like FantasyDraft.
This is by far my favorite game to stack tonight as the core four studs work perfectly in any roster format and you can easily mix and match the secondary pieces here to fill our your game stacks! My hope is we get some big news today that leads people to chase that news and we can stick to our first look in one of the best pure game environments on the slate. Remember what happened yesterday and how you were able to gain an edge – sometimes it makes sense to stay the course!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
There is no shortage of pivot plays today as six of the seven games on this slate have totals of 215 or higher and nine of the fourteen teams in action see a pace boost so if you want to move off the Pelicans/Clippers there are solid spots across the industry.
The Rockets have the highest team total at 120 points which is 6 points higher than their season average but we also have significant blowout risk here with a 13 point spread. Considering the New York Knicks just waxed this Suns team by 22 points on their home floor it would make me very nervous to invest in the Rockets stars today.
Instead, I love the potential value we could get on the Suns side especially in GPP’s where they burned the world (including me) on Friday night. We know that Alex Len and Tyson Chandler are both questionable to play which could mean we get Greg Monroe ($10.4K) as the starting Center for the Suns and since this game kicks off at 3:30PM EST we SHOULD in theory have this news before lock! Monroe has faced this team once before and in 26 minutes racked up 45 fantasy points which would make him an elite GPP target especially if the Suns are without Len and Chandler which would give Monroe all the minutes he can handle.
It will be interesting to see how coach Jay Triano handles the starting line-up as he opted to start Troy Daniels ($7.4K) at the SG position last time out and his high volume of shot attempts could be key here in keeping this game close and he would likely stay on the court in a potential blow-out as well!
I plan to get most of my action on FantasyDraft today where I can play the full slate instead of the 3-4 game mini slates on FanDuel and as a result will likely opt to go heavier on the earlier games in my core build due to the risk of late news impacting my line-ups. With that in mind, I love the idea of stacking the Bucks stars including Giannis Antetokounmpo ($20.4K) who will take on a Bulls team ranked 29th in Def-Eff. Giannis may get over-looked with everyone focused on the Rockets stars in a high total or everyone rushing to roster The Brow with Boogie sidelined.
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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FantasyDraft NBA DFS Sample Line-Up:
Guard: Jrue Holiday ($14.5K)
Guard: Lou Williams ($15.2K)
Guard: Rajon Rondo ($8.8K)
F/C: Blake Griffin ($15.7K)
F/C: Anthony Davis ($21.4K)
F/C: Wesley Johnson ($8.6K)
Util: Tyrone Wallace ($8.6K)
Util: J.R. Smith ($7.2K)
Slate Overview: As I mentioned, I am not messing with FanDuel today and the mini 3-4 games slate especially when you consider that I want my core build to be around the Pelicans/Clippers game so rather than play the Early Slate on FanDuel where it will be massively owned, I will opt to move to FantasyDraft and play the full seven game slate and let others move off that game which will dilute ownership. Keep your eye on the news but be careful to chase bad chalk today when we have big time games with high totals and fast paces staring us in the face!
Next: Early DraftKings NBA Picks
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!