NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday February 5
Welcome to the Monday 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.
Sunday’s pre Super Bowl NBA DFS slate was a low scoring one as winning FantasyDraft GPP line-ups failed to crack 300 fantasy points and only four players on the slate managed to exceed 50 fantasy points on the day! Russell Westbrook was not only the highest scorer (54) but he was one of the highest owned players on the slate at over 50% owned as interestingly enough the majority of the ownership seemed centered on him and the Knicks/Hawks while players that I thought would be popular (Giannis for example) were less than 20% owned!
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 to the Monday after the Super Bowl NBA DFS slate where you can nurse your hangover and dive into an interesting seven game slate while you call out “sick” from work. As is going to become very common leading up to the Thursday Trade Deadline, we only have Vegas information for three of the seven games on the slate and some key figures that are questionable due to injury are also the center of trade talks for their respective teams.
The injury news in the Magic-Heat game is going to be critical to watch as we have Aaron Gordon and Hassan Whiteside both questionable for this contests and both players becoming hot topics to be shipped out-of-town! The Whiteside injury in my estimation will completely alter how you approach this slate as his absence would likely bring about another Bam Adebayo ($9.3K, $3.8K) chalk night and considering a match-up against a Magic team ranked 29th in the league in defensive rating over the last 15 games, all the Miami Heat players would be in play!
Last game the Heat played without Whiteside, what really struck me was how tight of a rotation they opted to utilize, playing only 8 players with no player seeing less than 21 minutes of court time! Goran Dragic ($13.7K) led the team with a 31% usage rate in their last game and we saw him drop 49 fantasy points against this same Orlando squad earlier this season so the upside is absolutely there with the Dragon tonight!
Adebayo and Kelly Olynyk ($10.2K) started alongside each other and would likely do so again if Whiteside is ruled out. This is really where the absence of Aaron Gordon would matter to me as you would replace an athletic wing defender like AG with Mo Speights or the Magic could choose to re-insert Mario Hezonja into the starting line-up. On December 26th, these two teams played in a game that AG missed and it was Hezonja who drew the start which is notable considering how Olynyk (15pts/12 rebounds and 42 fantasy points) was able to perform in that game!
I will be very interested to see how the Heat approach their starting line-up tonight as we saw Justise Winslow enter the starting line-up which moved Tyler Johnson to a bench role to pair him with James Johnson.
Seemingly again goes to preference not to have Winslow and James Johnson in same unit due to overlap. https://t.co/boqZmM1GzA
— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) February 3, 2018
The desire to keep Tyler and James Johnson together and preference to stagger Winslow/JJ could lead Miami to a similar starting line-up tonight. If the Heat plan to play such a short rotation in one of the few pace up spots on the board, I frankly can make the case to consider any and all of the 8 men in play for the Heat as the Magic defense is simply that bad. The Heat have scored 111 points per game in three meetings with the Magic this year which is a significant boost when you consider their season long average is 100 points – so keep an eye on the Whiteside news and how they intend to start this game and do not be afraid to go overweight on the Magic tonight!
NBA DFS – One Stud To Build Around?
I love the strategy on slates like this where there is really only one clear stud to pay up for as Anthony Davis ($21.1K) is priced over $4k higher than the next closest player on FantasyDraft so one of the biggest questions on this slate will be how you intend to approach his ownership. There is no doubt the ownership will be high considering he has exceeded 56 fantasy points in five straight games and there is always merit to fading a player at inflated ownership especially when his price point alone will drive a very specific type of roster construction. What I mean by this is that if you chose to fade a player like AD you are not only playing the player fade but you will have a totally different roster build than those who opt to force in his inflated price.
Game theory aside, I have a very difficult time fading The Brow in this spot as the Utah Jazz are not the slow-paced elite defense we have been used to seeing in previous seasons. In fact, over the last 7 games, this Jazz team is top 10 in pace and we have seen opposing Centers like Andre Drummond and Jonas Valanciunas put up monster games against them recently with 87 and 62 fantasy point performances.
It will be interesting to see if the Pelicans opt to slide Nikola Mirotic ($11.5K) into the starting line-up tonight after using him off the bench in his debut where he logged 35 minutes and racked up 48 fantasy points on the back of 18 points and 12 rebounds. Regardless of his line-up spot, it is clear Mirotic is going to play major minutes for this new look Pelicans squad and his upside relative to his price point makes him an elite mid-tier play on this slate.
What has been really interesting the last two games to watch is how drastically the usage for Jrue Holiday ($13.8K) has dropped, as he has failed to surpass 19% usage in either of those outings. immediately after the injury to DeMarcus Cousins, Holiday saw a spike in usage and FP/M production but the ceiling games have frankly not been there as he has been putting up 33-35 fantasy points per game which would not be enough to pay off this inflated price tag.
The guard position is going to be a GPP roulette wheel it appears as Rajon Rondo ($9.9K) and Ian Clark ($7.2K) have alternated who has received the minutes in the last two games as Rondo went from playing 42 to 20 and Clark went from 19 minutes to 31 in his last outing. There is obvious risk here but as a GPP player there is also significant opportunity as the Pelicans essentially only have three guards in their rotation right now and will get to take on Ricky Rubio‘s defense in this spot.
Rondo is someone I will have tournament exposure to tonight but understand the risk – this is a player who in two games against the Jazz this season has 37 and 19 fantasy points so there is a significant ceiling and a night crushing floor you need to account for when rostering him. Rondo and Mirotic have a history together and Mirotic has been on record saying Rondo is one of the best PG’s he has played with so there is a strong bounce back potential tonight if you are willing to stomach the risk and roll out the Pelicans PG tonight!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
As long as Mike Malone is willing to roll out his starting unit for major minutes every night, I am more than willing to go right back to them every single slate! The Nuggets are in an amazing spot right now from a DFS perspective as they are in the midst of a three game home-stand, had yesterday off and will not play again until Friday. Meanwhile, their opponent the Charlotte Hornets are playing their third game in four nights, on a tail end of a back to back flying into the Denver altitude. Do not overlook the importance of this travel as we saw the mighty Golden State Warriors struggle to score only 108 points on Saturday in a similar spot so the Hornets are a complete fade for me.
That doesn’t mean we cannot exploit some tired Hornets legs here by going right back to the Nuggets starters tonight. Frankly I would only focus on the core four here with a specific focus on Jamal Murray ($12.3K) and Will Barton ($12K) as the Hornets are top 10 in defending the SG and C position with makes Nikola Jokic and Gary Harris secondary plays for me.
Barton was tasked with running more of the point when Murray briefly left Saturday’s game which resulted in a 24% usage rate and his consistent 30+ minutes and double-digit shot volume will make him a high upside GPP target on this slate. Barton and Murray have put up 33+ fantasy points in three of their last four outings and the price points on Denver continue to feel depressed despite their expanded roles in a tight Denver rotation.
One additional player on this slate I do want to mention is Paul Zipser ($6k) who is a rare minimum priced starter on FantasyDraft where value is exceedingly difficult to come by. We already know Lauri Markannen is out for tonight’s game which means another Zipser start is likely and considering he has averaged 21 FP over his last two starts he makes for an interesting pure punt when you factor in his match-up with a Kings team ranked 29th in Def-Eff which is worst on the slate. If you want to fit in guys like AD tonight, Zipser is one of those punt plays that will allow you to open up the salary to build around a few studs!
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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NBA DFS FanDuel Sample Line-Up:
PG: Goran Dragic ($7,000)
PG: Jamal Murray ($6,600)
SG: Gary Harris ($6,400)
SG: Will Barton ($7,200)
SF: Paul Zipser ($3,700)
SF: Mario Hezonja ($4,800)
PF: Kelly Olynyk ($5,100)
PF: Nikola Mirotic ($7,500)
C: Anthony Davis ($11,700)
Slate Overview: At first glance I am a big fan of this slate and I think we could get some high scoring games tonight if we see the value break in Miami which will allow us to pay up for studs like Anthony Davis without much issue. Keep an eye on the news today as it relates to the Heat and do not be afraid to stack up the Nuggets tonight against a tired Hornets squad!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests on FantasyDraft and FanDuel and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!