NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday February 9
Welcome to the Friday 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.
Thursday’s NBA DFS slate was a wild one as a chaotic NBA Trade Deadline opened up some unexpected value in Orlando but strangely we had very few studs to pay up for on the night. Russell Westbrook was THE guy everyone wanted and it was interesting to see his ownership at 20-30% in tournament’s even with no confirmation he would play. Ultimately, Westbrook was ruled out alongside teammate Carmelo Anthony which left many teams drawing dead on the night. Only three players, Kemba Walker, Jusuf Nurkic and Paul George went for 50+ fantasy points on the night and I swear for the last time (until next slate), I will never play Tim Hardaway Jr. again!
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:
Go grab your coffee, open up your NBA DFS site of choice and get ready for an AWESOME nine game slate – no seriously, be ready to build multiple line-ups because it is shaping up to be that kind of day. Let’s jump right in with some of the big items to note and watch as we lead up to lock at 7PM EST.
Blake Griffin ($16.2K) and the Pistons get the ultimate #RevengeNarrative spot on national T.V against Blake’s former team, the Clippers, who are playing at a top 5 pace in the NBA over the last month. I love the idea of using Blake here but the reality is his price is just a bit too high for me as he has only met value at this price point once since his trade and although his chemistry with Andre Drummond has been impressive thus far, I do not see myself chasing the narrative here with so many other great spots on the board.
The news that dominated the headlines on Thursday was how the Cavaliers simply blew up the entire roster and made a series of moves that sent guys like Isaiah Thomas, Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose and Jae Crowder away for a host of new players including George Hill, Jordan Clarkson, Rodney Hood and Larry Nance Jr.
Cavaliers, post trade deadline:
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) February 8, 2018
PG: George Hill, Jordan Clarkson
SG: Rodney Hood, J.R. Smith, Korver
SF: LeBron James, Jeff Green, Cedi Osman
PF: Kevin Love, Larry Nance Jr.
C: Tristan Thompson
For tonight, the expectation is that none of the new acquisitions will be available to play which means a whole lot of minutes and usage will be up for grabs as LeBron James and company battle the Hawks. Against almost any other team I would be weary of playing the fringe guys on Cleveland but this is the Hawks playing on a back to back and we just saw players like D.J. Augustin and Mario Hezonja put up solid fantasy games in a similar short-handed spot.
Personally, I do not see myself paying up for LeBron James ($22.3K) although the spot against a Hawks defense ranked 28th in the NBA in Def-Eff is a certainly one James can post a monster stat line, especially when you consider the insane amount of usage he will soak up tonight. It will be interesting to see how the DFS community attacks James tonight as he is coming off his best game in weeks (72 fantasy points in a OT win over Minnesota), facing one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA and with only a 4 point spread, so if we get 4 quarters of LeBron here it could be another massive night, but he will need that at this price point.
Where I am finding myself looking on the Cavs, maybe for the first time all year, is at the fringe players as the depth chart is going to be completely barren tonight which means we can steal some value plays if we want to go Stars and Scrubs.
In looking at the depth chart for Cleveland, assuming the new players are all out – that only leaves LeBron, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, Cedi Osman, Tristan Thompson and Jeff Green (SIX PLAYERS) who will be active and saw ANY court time last game out. I suppose it is possible we could see guys like Jose Calderon and Ante Zizic get a few minutes out of necessity but there are going to be major minutes tonight on this Cavaliers team for guys we wouldn’t normally roster.
Smith is a near lock to play 30+ minutes tonight but he will have the toughest individual match-up against Kent Bazemore so this is not a must have spot although as a last man in, you could do far worse tonight. Interestingly enough in looking at the game flow from last contest it was Jeff Green ($8.6K) who started the overtime period and played essentially the entire fourth quarter with Jae Crowder on the bench so he looks primed to at least match the 29 minutes he play last game while scoring 22.5 fantasy points. Cedi Osman ($6.1K) played 21 minutes off the bench for Cleveland in that last game and most important in my opinion was he was on the floor in the OT period, playing 3 of the 5 minutes which tells me that LeBron and the coaching stuff trust the rookie in big spots. He could be a sneaky punt play today that gives you 20-25 minutes at minimum price which on a site like FantasyDraft rarely happens so we should take advantage while we can!
NBA DFS – Core Build:
On a slate with so many great spots it may seem difficult to zero in on one game to build around but this Pelicans-Sixers game is just screaming DFS goodness from every available metric. Not only does it have the highest game total (221.5) but it also has the fastest projected pace and the two teams involved see the largest pace boosts on the entire slate. What is really interesting to me is on paper we have polar opposite trends colliding as the Pelicans are the fastest paced team in the NBA over the last five games while the Sixers are ranked 29th out of 30 NBA teams.
Lost in all the roof leaking craziness of Wednesday’s slate was the fact that the Pelicans made a starting line-up change which shifted Rajon Rondo to the bench and moved DeAndre Liggins ($6K) into the starting SG position.
Gentry said they are switching the starting lineup up for tonight. Will bring Rondo off the bench to “provide a spark”
— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) February 7, 2018
What this move really does in my opinion is makes Jrue Holiday ($14.3K) a lock and load play as the starting point guard in this Pelicans pace up offense. This season with Rondo and Boogie off the floor, Holiday sees a massive 9.6% usage boost while putting up 1.3 FP/M and put up 52 fantasy points against this very same Sixers team earlier this season (note – Joel Embiid did not play in that game).
Anthony Davis ($19.6K) has seen his price drop below $20K on FantasyDraft but this is a player who has put up 60 or more fantasy points in three of his last five games and registered 59 fantasy points in the first meeting between these two teams when he still shared the court with DeMarcus Cousins. Nikola Mirotic ($12.4K) let owners down in his first start against the Jazz with only 12 fantasy points but with 30+ minutes locked in within this offense I am simply going right back to the well here and frankly the entire Pelicans starting line-up is in play for me tonight.
New Orleans has not played since Monday as a result of their “rain-out” so this is a squad that is well rested and frankly we could see them over-looked as the “new news” tends to drive the narrative in DFS ownership. For example, a player like Liggins at minimum price a few days ago created buzz because he was the new guy in a starting role but now a few days later people will have moved on to the latest news and may overlook the value that exists in the fastest pace, highest scoring game of the night.
On the other side of this game, the dynamic duo of Joel Embiid ($17.2K) and Ben Simmons ($15.7K) are priced up but I love the idea of stacking them up with the Pelicans starters in this game environment. Embiid has double-doubled in six straight games and is sporting a 36% usage rate while putting up 1.44 FP/M while Simmons looks to have rebounded from a minor rookie wall and is back to producing high ceiling well-rounded stat lines with 40+ fantasy points in four of his last seven games.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
We have already covered the top two projected fastest games on the slate between New Orleans-Philadelphia and Atlanta versus Cleveland but the #3 game on this slate has the potential to be every bit as good from a DFS perspective as the Nuggets and Rockets face-off.
The Nuggets continue to be fairly priced across the industry and with their starting core locked into major minutes this is a great slate to build around them in a pace up game environment. Jamal Murray ($13.4K) is averaging over 37 fantasy points per game over his last four outings in which he has played 30+ minutes and has double-digit shot attempts in all of those outings. Will Barton ($12.7K) has always been a GPP type target in DFS but with his recent run of 30+ minutes every night and 30-40 fantasy points per night he may even start to enter the cash game conversion alongside his teammate Gary Harris ($12.2K).
Nikola Jokic ($16K) is a player especially on FanDuel that may get completely over-looked with Anthony Davis and Joel Embiid at the same position and we have seen in his recent 75 fantasy point outing versus OKC, he has every bit the upside of the elite centers in the NBA. This looks like a great night to play on FantasyDraft with so many elite center options available as you can utilize the flexible roster construct to fit in 2-3 centers on this slate!
Th Pelicans were not the only team to get rained out on Wednesday as we can look back to the Indiana value as well tonight although frankly I would tread lightly due to a tough match-up with the Celtics. Joe Young was a guy who I had a ton of interest in on Wednesday and I will continue to utilize as a punt play as he should see 20-25 minutes a night with the Pacers being down Darren Collison for the foreseeable future. There were rumblings early in the week that Young could slide into the starting role over Cory Joseph but I actually would prefer Young in the second unit where alongside Lance Stephenson, they can dominate the usage against the second tier bench defense of Boston!
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: Jamal Murray ($6,700)
PG: Joe Young ($3,700)
SG: Jrue Holiday ($7,600)
SG: J.J Redick ($5,400)
SF: Robert Covington ($5,700)
SF: Cedi Osman ($3,500)
PF: Ben Simmons ($8,700)
PF: Nikola Mirotic ($7,000)
C: Anthony Davis ($11,700)
Slate Overview: For my money, the Pelicans-Sixers stack is where my core builds will center around tonight and I will look to utilize the expected value in places like Cleveland to make it work. On slates with this many games we could see ownership spread out but it is worth noting that 10 of the 18 teams in action see a pace decrease and only two teams (New Orleans/Sixers) see a material pace boost of two possessions or more which makes their game environment truly stand out above all else. My focus is always going to be on pace and added possessions and when you overlay that with two teams in New Orleans and Philadelphia that play a tight rotation centered around their starting unit, it makes build a stack a great DFS strategy!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!