NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday February 7
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 Night’s NBA DFS slate honestly went about as according to plan as it could have possibly gone as the Thunder duo of Paul George (63) and Russell Westbrook (58) were the top two fantasy scorers in an impressive 20 point win over the Warriors. The worst part of the night was by far seeing the New York Knicks lose their franchise cornerstone for the season as Kristaps Porzingis tore his ACL which will absolutely have some significant DFS and fantasy implications for guys like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Michael Beasley but the most important part right now is to make sure KP heals as the Knicks and the NBA need a star like him on the court in one of its biggest markets! Get well soon Unicorn!
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 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 Wednesday’s NBA DFS slate where we have six games on tap, five of which tip-off between 7-8PM EST with the lone “late night hammer” coming at 10:30PM EST with the Spurs at the Suns.
As usual we have a ton of injury news to wait on with perhaps the most critical piece being in Indiana where we already know Darren Collison is OUT and Victor Oladipo is questionable which could open up another pair of starts for guys like Cory Joseph and Lance Stephenson.
Coach Nate McMillan says Victor Oladipo was not at practice today but will make the trip with the team. Asked if Vic will start tomorrow, Coach said, “We hope so. We’ll see how he feels.” https://t.co/ClMyIZRCTV
— Indiana Pacers (@Pacers) February 6, 2018
I am sure the Cory Joseph chalk will be far less than it was in his first start as anytime we get a cheap player locked into 30+ minutes he is going to continue to draw ownership but I will be happy to let others chase a guy who has put up a whopping 12 and 15 fantasy points in his two previous starts this year while playing 31 and 35 minutes in those games. Sometimes minutes does not equal money in DFS!
Oladipo and the Pacers on paper have a great match-up against a Pelicans team playing at the fourth fastest pace in the NBA over the last 15 games and just gave up 133 points to the Jazz but be wary of locking Dipo back in (if he plays) as we just saw Donovan Mitchell burn many of us (including me) in this same exact spot just a few days ago where the illness kept him on limited minutes.
This Pacers/Pelicans game should be a great spot to target as it has the fastest projected pace on the slate but it will be tough to really make a call here without knowing the status of Oladipo. Lance Stephenson ($11.7K) would be my favorite play if Oladipo were to sit as he led the starting unit last game with a 27% usage rate while playing 37 minutes, shooting the ball 14 times and racking up 35 fantasy points!
Joe Young ($6.3K) may not have gotten the starting assignment at PG but was the clear best fantasy option in the back-court, playing 27 minutes and logging 24 fantasy points which would far exceed value at his bargain price point. Keep in mind however that Young was essentially entirely scoring dependent as he had only 2 rebounds and 1 steal while shooting 60% from the floor including 5 of 8 from three point range.
If everyone runs to Joseph again then playing the cost-effective pivot in Young is a great way to differentiate from the field but my gut says Young will become increasingly popular throughout the day as DFS players are smart enough to dive into the box score/game log and my expectation is the industry buzz on Young will grow. Now at $6.3K on FantasyDraft and $3.7K on FanDuel, this may be the kind of chalk we are fine eating as the salary savings are substantial enough to allow us some big-ticket investments so do not dismiss him outright as his role on this Pacers team is going to be rock solid for the foreseeable future with Collison out.
The Pelicans side of this game SHOULD be interesting but I am a bit wary of going too heavy here as the Pacers are playing at the third slowest pace of any team in the NBA over the last 5 games making this an intriguing polar opposite match-up considering how fast the Pelicans are playing lately. We saw Nikola Mirotic enter the starting line-up last game against the Jazz and the most meaningful take-away for me was that all five Pelicans starts played 30+ minutes in that game which puts them all right back in play today!
Obviously it was a one game sample size but we saw the majority of the usage land on Jrue Holiday (30%) while Anthony Davis was at a pedestrian 27% and Mirotic dropped all the way down to 14%. This is a team I want to keep an eye on and may take a wait and see approach tonight to understand how their usage with Mirotic in the starting line-up is going to shake out as it could really start to steal value from all the core pieces here. What the Mirotic move most certainly did was killed any fringe value for guys like Dante Cunningham and Darius Miller so you can safely check those guys off your player pool for the time being!
NBA DFS – Lock Button
Yesterday I started my Picks and Pivots column with a fascinating Tweet from Swish Analytics about the importance of Andre Drummond in DFS this season mostly because I thought it was something we needed to keep in mind for future slates. Well take a look at it again because with a match-up on tap with a Brooklyn Nets team giving up the most fantasy points to opposing Centers, this may be a lock button in every format we come across today!
Andre Drummond has been eligible for 56 @DraftKings contests this season & factored into the perfect LU for said contests 37.5% of the time.
— Swish Analytics (@swishanalytics) February 5, 2018
As of today, that rate currently has him ranked 2nd in the league behind only Harden. pic.twitter.com/MM8500kGqr
Andre Drummond ($18.3K) has already dominated this Nets frontline this season with a monster 22 point, 20 rebound game which was good for 62 fantasy points and with his recent run of production this looks like a spot where you lock him in against a Nets team that will have no answer for him inside. Blake Griffin ($16.3K) feels a tad over-priced here as he would need 49 fantasy points just to hit value and has only hit that mark once since he joined the Pistons but his floor is relatively rock solid as he has put up 39, 41 and 50 fantasy points over his first three games in Detroit.
Drummond and Griffin are averaging just under 50 fantasy points per game between them in the first 3 games on the court together so by pairing them tonight you are looking at building your first 100 fantasy points with the upside for more against a Nets team that has simply does not have the personnel to slow them down.
In fact, the Nets look like they could be short-handed again tonight with Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Quincy Acy questionable after missing last night’s game and it looks like Caris LeVert could be out too as he is in the concussion protocol. The Nets news is going to be key for me on this slate as I see no way they can get away with starting DeMarre Carroll at the four with the Pistons size which may mean more court time for guys like Jarrett Allen ($9.9K) and Jahlil Okafor ($6.7K).
In tournaments on a site like FantasyDraft where you can play multiple centers, I like the idea of pairing Drummond/Blake with Allen and Okafor, in the hope this game stays close and the Nets are forced to match their bigs with the Pistons size throughout the game. The risk here is that Allen and/or Okafor pick up quick fouls and are relegated to the bench but there is merit to stacking the front court here if the Nets are again without RHJ/Acy as Brooklyn will have no other options to match the Detroit front-court.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
The Cavaliers are a total disaster right now and after losing by 18 points against the Orlando Magic last night, scoring only NINE points the entire fourth quarter, I do not even know what to expect from this team tonight as they take on the Timberwolves. Lucky for the NBA fans everywhere, the Cavs-Wolves will be the ESPN game of the night (is it too late to change it NBA?) so we get a national TV audience to watch LeBron and Co. self-destruct before our very eyes.
After watching Jonathan Simmons put up 45 fantasy points last night, it is hard for me not to simply lock in Jimmy Butler ($17.3K) who dropped 51 fantasy points against this Cavs team last month. The Cavs are ranked 28th in defensive rating over the last 15 games and the Wolves have the highest implied team total on the slate so you can pretty much lock in that the core starters on Minnesota will be some of the highest owned plays on the slate.
In the last game against Cleveland, we saw Andrew Wiggins put up 34 fantasy points in a #RevengeNarrative spot but as per usual with Wiggins it was a completely scoring dependent stat line so I would much prefer to zero in my exposure on Butler tonight but would not fault a full Minnesota stack considering how bad the Cavs defense is right now.
I am a little worried the Phoenix Suns were only able to score 93 points against the Lakers last night and will now take on the Spurs but I still think there is merit in playing the core pieces here, specifically T.J. Warren ($12.5K) and Josh Jackson ($11.3K) who put up a 30% and 26% usage rate respectively with Devin Booker out of the line-up. With Booker likely out again tonight, I think you can go back to both Suns player as the prices points are more than reasonable considering their role and on FanDuel I can even make the case for Dragan Bender ($3.8K) as a pure punt play after he logged 37 minutes as the starting PF last night!
Donovan Mitchell ($13.5K) burned the masses in his last game out as he was clearly not over his illness but with an extra day of rest I think now is a great time to jump back on in tournaments against Memphis. This Jazz/Memphis game is going to be completely ignored on this slate as it has the slowest pace and lowest total which could lead a player like Mitchell to be completely over-looked and we know he has slate breaking upside. My only caveat here – his two best games recently (61 and 50 fantasy points) came against the Suns and Cavs so his upside has been clearly tied to the match-up/pace which makes him a GPP only flier tonight against the Grzzlies.
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: Joe Young ($3,700)
PG: Dejounte Murray ($5,500)
SG: Andrew Wiggins ($6,200)
SG: D’Angelo Russell ($5,400)
SF: Jimmy Butler ($9,600)
SF: Lance Stephenson ($5,600)
PF: Blake Griffin ($9,200)
PF: Dragan Bender ($3,800)
C: Andre Drummond ($11,000)
Slate Overview: I use this article and my morning research each day to try to identify a core build and frankly this slate is a tough one with so much unknown. Personally the Drummond, Griffin, Butler trio looks like it will be my core and part of the reason is I find the guard position to be relatively weak. Overall, 7 of the 12 teams in action tonight see a pace decrease so it may be a night where you go overweight on a small core of plays and ignore the slow-paced games against top-tier defenses. Keep an eye on the Oladipo news and how the Nets plan to match-up with the Pistons and lastly, do not be afraid to get SOME exposure to the Suns/Spurs as the sole late night game which I expect will go largely over-looked in GPP’s due to its late start time!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!