NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday January 31
Welcome to the Wednesday 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!
Tuesday’s NBA DFS slate was the prime example of one of those night’s you hear people say that a single player can “break a slate.” Even on a nine game slate with SO many studs in play ultimately your success came down to – did you roster James Harden or not? Harden went absolutely bonkers, playing 46 minutes, racking up 60 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds on his way to 102 fantasy points which is the second time this month we have seen somebody put up a Wilt Chamberlain DFS score!
The numbers for Harden were staggering as he attempted THIRTY shot attempts, including 14 three pointers and an additional 18 FT attempts. Personally, I had 0 exposure to Harden and although I understood the logic with CP3 out, I was worried about the blow-out risk against an Aaron Gordon-less Magic team and frankly all the stars aligned here for Harden as the game stayed close and Eric Gordon was limited to only 10 minutes of court time which pushed all the usage in a close game to him – congrats on the wins for all you Harden owners last 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:
At first glance this Wednesday slate has a ton of injury news that will significantly alter this eight game slate and as we sprint towards the All-Star break we are seeing more and more time playing on consecutive night’s which adds additional rest risk across the league.
Take a look at the list below:
Cavaliers – Back to Back against Miami and 3 games in 4 nights
Nets, Knicks, Portland, Magic – All playing on the tail end of a back to back
Sixers – 3 games in 4 nights
Mavericks, Pacers, Memphis, Hornets, Hawks, Heat, Celtics – 2 games in 3 nights
Lakers, Bulls, Suns – Fully rested
We really have not seen this kind of schedule this season where we are seeing so many teams in action on consecutive nights so there is some legit risk of major players sitting out as we head to the All-Star Break!
Not only are the Cavaliers playing on a tail end of a back to back and three in four but they also will now be without Kevin Love for 6-8 weeks due to a broken hand. With Love out, the majority of the usage is going to fall to Isaiah Thomas and LeBron James as both players see a 3-4% usage increase while leading the team with 33-34% usage rates. IT is priced at only $6.1K on FanDuel which is incredibly reasonable and after playing 32 minutes last night (only 24 fantasy points) he will likely be a popular mid-range target due to the injury to Kevin Love. Dwayne Wade was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the injury last night to Love as he played 28 minutes off the bench and racked up 36 points and now gets the revenge narrative against his former Miami Heat squad. Wade put up 33 fantasy points in only 27 minutes in their first meeting this year so assuming he has no minutes issues, firing him up at only $4.1K on FanDuel is a great salary saving option.
The Knicks will play a back to back tonight traveling to Boston and it should be expected that minimally we see Tim Hardaway Jr. get rested after logging 25 minutes last night. If so, I would have no issue firing up Michael Beasley ($10.5K) who racked up 32 points, 12 rebounds and 43 fantasy points against this same Celtics team when they faced off in December.
Staying with New York, there is every expectation that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson misses another game today and with it being a back to back it would not be surprising to see the Nets rest D’Angelo Russell as well. Assuming Caris LeVert‘s groin injury keeps him out again we could see the same Nets rotation we saw against Minnesota where guys like Joe Harris and Spencer Dinwiddie were asked to play 30+ minutes.
Everyone loves a good revenge narrative and the Nets bring some interesting pieces to their match-up with Philly as Jahlil Okafor ($7.5K) and Nik Stauskas look for a little revenge against their former team. Narrative aside there is some legit appeal here as Stauskas played 30+ minutes the last time the Nets were without Russell and LeVert and has played 25 and 32 minutes over his last two games while putting up 20 and 28 fantasy points. At only $4k on FanDuel he would seem like a legit cash game salary saver with clear GPP upside!
Okafor and his teammate Jarrett Allen ($7K) are both in play for me tonight especially on multi-center sites like FanDuel as Brooklyn appears to have finally realized that staring and even playing Tyler Zeller is a gigantic waste of their season. Allen got his first start last night for Brooklyn, playing 20 minutes while Okafor came off the bench for 24 minutes and 26 fantasy points. Okafor has now played 23 and 24 minutes in his last two games and has put up 26 and 31 fantasy points and only $3.6K on FanDuel, he could be a massive GPP difference maker tonight!
NBA DFS – Core Plays
Although I just got done telling you how much I like the Center value in Brooklyn, do not overlook the fact that no team gives up more fantasy points to opposing Centers than the Nets and last night was a reminder of that as they surrendered 53 fantasy points to Enes Kanter as he put up 20 points and 20 rebounds against them!
Tonight is looks like Joel Embiid ($18.8K) will return to the court after getting Monday off and this match-up is simply primed for him to put up a monster outing! Over the last two weeks, the Nets have given up 50 or more fantasy points to three different centers – Kanter, Karl-Anthony Towns and Hassan Whiteside – and now Embiid comes in fully rested sporting a 33% usage rate and 1.3 FP/M with J.J. Reddick off the floor the last two weeks.
Oddly enough the Sixers and Nets have yet to play this season but Vegas expects this to be the second fastest projected pace game on the slate with both teams seeing some of the largest pace increases on the slate. With Reddick out the Sixers have really moved to a more condensed rotation with their starters which puts all of Ben Simmons, Dario Saric and Robert Covington in play for the Sixers.
If I had to prioritize these three, personally I would rank Simmons ahead of the other two as I love to target him in spots he can play aggressively and drive to the basket without fear of an elite rim protector. With RHJ on the sideline, Quincy Acy and the Allen/Okafor are not a match-up that Simmons should have an issue with and we saw him just drop 60 fantasy points in a similar pace up spot against a Bulls team that lacks the interior defense we typically want to avoid when using Simmons.
We saw Kanter and Kristaps Porzingis combine for over 100 fantasy points between them last night against this same Brooklyn team that without Hollis-Jefferson are going to really struggle to contain athletic front court players like the Sixers are loaded with so I have no issue building around the Sixers as a core play today!
Although we have a variety of stars on this slate to choose from, the one player I am looking to build around tonight is Damian Lillard ($15.6K) who gets an incredible match-up against a Bulls team playing at the fifth fasted pace and ranking 28th in defensive rating over the last 15 games! Dame had a similar fast paced match-up last night against the Clippers and returned 53 fantasy points which is where I would project him to be again tonight. The Blazers have the highest implied team total on the board and are projected to score over 6 points more than their season average which is by far the highest increase of any team in action tonight!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
The Bulls will be short-handed tonight in their battle with Portland as we already know Kris Dunn and Lauri Markkanen have been ruled out for this game. Over the course of the season, with both of these players off the court, both Nikola Mirotic ($10.8K) and Bobby Portis ($11.4K) are putting up 27-28% usage rates with 1.1-1.2 FP/M but the issue tonight is we do not know if Mirotic will even be a member of the Bulls after a trade announcement and immediate retraction left his status with the team in limbo.
Hearing Nikola Mirotic will be dealt to New Orleans Pelicans for Omer Asik and first round draft pick, sources tell @NBCSChicago
— Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill) January 30, 2018
New Orleans and Chicago had a deal for Nikola Mirotic, but it's fallen apart for now, league sources tell ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 30, 2018
Mirotic will travel with the team but considering his name is ankle-deep in trade rumors there is a very real risk he could sit out with an “illness” to preserve his health for a potential trade to another team. The reality is that with Markkanen off the court we have seen both players exceed expectations while sharing the court as in the last three games that Markkanen has missed, Portis has put up 43, 35 and 23 fantasy points (33.6 average) while Mirotic has racked up 44, 37 and 36 fantasy points (39 average).If both players are active I would have no issue rolling out both but with Mirotic questionable it would push Bobby Portis into near must play territory in the Bulls front line.
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: Damian Lillard ($9,400)
PG: Spencer Dinwiddie ($6,300)
SG: Nik Stauskas ($4,000)
SG: Dwayne Wade ($4,100)
SF: Michael Beasley ($6,000)
SF: Robert Covington ($6,200)
PF: Ben Simmons ($9,000)
PF: Bobby Portis ($4,500)
C: Joel Embiid ($10,500)
Slate Overview: With so many injuries and so many teams playing on short rest (back to back or 2/3 to 3/4 type situations) combined with trade rumors, if you aren’t watching the news today than simply take the day off! We have some great spots to attack and in my mind the slate starts with pairing Embiid/Lillard and then simply picking the pieces around them. I love the value options in Brooklyn and keep an eye on the Bulls PF situation as it could be a Free Bobby Portis night!
Best of luck in your DFS NBA contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel and stayed tuned to Fantasy CPR for all our DFS and fantasy contests across all your favorite sports!