NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday February 12

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 NBA DFS slate was frankly an underwhelming one and personally I am glad I played it light as it felt like outside of Paul George, I was mostly settling for guys in my roster build – focusing more on who I didn’t want to play then who I actually wanted to lock in! Only three players, Karl-Anthony Towns, Paul George and Chris Paul, managed to eclipse the 50 fantasy point mark while the best “low-owned” play was a 5% Joe Ingles who dropped 42 fantasy points largely due to the injury of Ricky Rubio which forced Ingles into a much larger offensive role.

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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:

After an underwhelming four game main slate last night we get a great DFS slate this evening with eight of the twelve teams in action seeing a pace boost over their season long numbers. Not only do we have a majority of pace up spots, we also have 5 of the 7 worst teams in terms of Def-Eff in action so to summarize – fast paced games, high totals and bad defenses – expect some high scoring NBA DFS totals tonight!

Speaking of fast paced and high scoring – we have the Spurs and Jazz taking each other on tonight! OK why would I start with by far the slowest paced game on the slate? The only reason to even mention this game frankly is that LaMarcus Aldridge has been ruled out which is going to open up major minutes in the front court for guys like Paul Gasol ($9.9K) and Davis Bertans ($8.2K). 

The last game that LMA sat out was a similar slow-paced game environment against Memphis where both Gasol and Bertans played 30+ minutes so there is some appeal in a game that may be otherwise ignored tonight. Gasol was dominant in that game, putting up 14 points, 15 rebounds, 8 assists and 47 fantasy points and considering the price points on these Spurs, it is tough to argue with the value you are getting for under $10k when 30 minutes plus seems like a foregone conclusion for both players!

It looks like the Bulls could have Kris Dunn back on the court as early as tonight as he has been cleared in the concussion protocol and will now enter a crowded Bulls backcourt with Jerian Grant, Zach Lavine and Justin Holiday! If Dunn is active, it would not be surprising to see him eased back in but even 10-20 minutes of court time is going to cap the upside of the rest of the Bulls and although I would love to attack this spot against the Magic, it may be best to take a wait and see approach on the Bulls rotations with Dunn back.

As we head towards the All-Star break you are starting to see more games each night and with that comes a lot more back to back spots and three games in four nights. With that in mind – I wanted to highlight some teams we may want to avoid here tonight as a result:

• Utah Jazz – Playing on the tail end of a back to back and 3 games in 4 nights
• Detroit Pistons – Playing on the tail end of a back to back and 3 games in 4 nights
• New York Knicks – Playing on tail end of a back to back
• Chicago Bulls – 3 games in 4 nights
• Pelicans – 3 games in 4 nights (and a 2 OT game in their last outing)
• LA Clippers – 3 games in 4 nights
• Philadelphia Sixers – 3 games in 4 nights

The Pelicans/Pistons game is one that on paper should be a place to build our core around as it has the highest total on the board and only a 3 point spread but the recent schedule of these two teams should give us a little bit if pause before we go all in on the high-priced players here. The Sixers are another team that I am a bit worried about, specifically the status of Joel Embiid who has been a questionable play the last two games only to be ruled in minutes before lock and now you want him to play 3 games in 4 nights?

I am not going to tell you playing Embiid, Anthony Davis or Andre Drummond is a bad idea but if these plays are going to be popular, their recent schedule could be the reason you need to play the fade game here and hope that tired legs bring down the production!

NBA DFS – What to do with the Warriors?

As of the time of this writing, we do not yet have a line/total on this Suns/Warriors game due to the questionable status of Devin Booker but we do know that this game has by far the highest projected pace and the Warriors and Suns have the top two projected pace boosts on the entire slate.

I expect the total and spread to be high in this one, especially considering this game is at home for Golden State but there is so much DFS upside here that I cannot seem to move away from the potential of this game. The Warriors have scored 120+ points in the last two games while the Suns have given up 123 and 129 points to their most recent opponents and the only real reason to avoid this game is the potential blow-put concerns because on paper, anytime we get the Warriors in a pace up spot facing a defense ranked dead last in DvP and Def-Eff, I do not know how we can avoid it!

The big news here is that Draymond Green is doubtful for this game which has a bigger ripple effect than just who will start at PF for Golden State. In the last game that Green missed (versus Chicago) it was Jordan Bell that drew the start which you may remember as the game Bell was hurt on the very first play which pushed Kevon Looney ($6k) into 30+ minutes of court time. If Looney draws the start for Draymond here at minimum price on FantasyDraft he is going to become mega chalk but this is a spot where eating that chalk may be the right approach due to the minutes upside in the best possible opposing match-up as the Suns rank 30th in DvP and Def-Eff versus opposing PG’s.

On the surface, I would not have expected Green being out to have changed the usage of Stephen Curry ($20.5K) and Kevin Durant ($17.9K) materially due to Green’s role as a “secondary” offensive option but it was interesting to run the numbers and see that Curry and Durant see boosts of 3% to their usage, the highest on the team while sporting similar 34% usage rates and putting up 1.4 FP/M.

The fact that this is the sole late night game, starting an hour and a half behind the Spurs/Jazz and the expectation that this will have blowout concerns written all over it could lead ownership away from Curry/Durant which makes them an interesting tournament pairing. When you add in the fact that their recent game logs show an overwhelming number of sub 50 fantasy point outings this feels like the perfect recipe to roster the two Warriors studs at deflated ownership!

If you are going this route then I think it makes sense to run it back with guys from the Suns side of the ball in the hope his game can stay close. Elfrid Payton ($12.1K) stepped right into a massive role for the Suns in his first start, playing 35 minutes, scoring 19 points to go with 9 assists, 6 rebounds and 38.5 fantasy points which would return over 3.1x value at this price point. Josh Jackson ($12.7K) continues to play major minutes, put up massive amounts of shot attempts – 19 FGA in two of his last three games – and his ability to rack up peripheral stats gives him significant upside in this spot. T.J. Warren ($12.7K) has put up 40 and 44 fantasy points in two of his last three games against the Nuggets and Lakers and with the emergence of Jackson and addition of Payton, he can settle back into a complimentary offensive role which is where he typically thrives.

The Suns across the board are priced reasonably considering the amount of usage that this trio will command and you can easily stack them with Curry/Durant tonight and hope this game stays close enough to maximize your minutes in the fastest paced match-up on the night.

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:

The Brooklyn Nets will again be without Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Caris LeVert tonight against the Clippers which will open more usage for the remaining Nets players. The one guy we simply cannot ignore, especially on FanDuel, is D’Angelo Russell ($5,400) who finally played 30+ minutes against the Pelicans on Saturday and racked up 37 fantasy points in that outing. Now that he shown the ability to handle “starters” minutes, my hope is thae Kenny Atkinson takes the training wheels off for good as Russell has as much upside as any SG in this price range.

The Knicks-Sixers game looks to be an interesting spot for GPP’s as a game stack as the Knicks and Sixers are both playing at top 5 paces over the last three games, which is a meaningful sample size as we can get a better idea of New York’s rotations without Kristaps Porzingis.

The duo of Tim Hardaway Jr. and Michael Beasley not surprisingly led the team with 16 and 17 shot attempts each it was the debut of Emmanual Mudiay that really drew my attention as he logged 29 minutes off the bench, sporting a 25% usage rate, racking up 14 points, 10 assists and 29 fantasy points which considering his $3,700 price point on FanDuel makes him an intriguing punt play.

The fact that Jarrett Jack was limited to 8 minutes and it was Mudiay and rookie Frank Ntilikina who played 30 minutes off the bench as well, it could be signaling a youth movement for the Knicks and this is something we need to keep an eye on. Mudiay specifically we have to remember is only 21 years old so there is massive potential here for him to carve out a role as the Knicks season moves on and the younger players get more and more run.

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: Stephen Curry ($10,200)

PG: Elfrid Payton ($7,500)

SG: D’Angelo Russell ($5,400)

SG: Tim Hardaway Jr. ($5,700)

SF: Kevin Durant ($10,900)

SF: T.J. Warren ($7,500)

PF: Kevon Looney ($3,500)

PF: Davis Bertans ($3,900)

C: Pau Gasol ($5,400)

Slate Overview: For a six game slate you can almost make the case for full on game stacks of five of the six games in action as we have a variety of pace up spots to take advantage of. Personally I am going to watching/listening to the buzz around the industry more so today than on most other slates as it will be fascinating to me to see where the “chalk” gravitates towards and with so many of the good spots being with teams that are in the midst of a back to back/3 in 4’s – we could see some letdown spots across the industry tonight.

Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel and stay tuned to all the latest DFS news and analysis across Fantasy CPR!