NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday February 14
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.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Hope you all had a successful Tuesday Night in NBA DFS as we were held captive all day by the Russell Westbrook news which made building even a shell roster nearly impossible until we knew his status. Essentially all of the studs delivered on this slate as the top 5 point scorers on the night – James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns, Nikola Jokic, LeBron and Westbrook – were able to deliver big DFS nights! The biggest surprise from a performance perspective was punt play Joffrey Lauvergne, who at near minimum price was able to drop 26 points, 11 rebounds and 45 fantasy points which allowed you to easily pay up for the slates biggest stars!
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 – Last Slate Before the All-Star Break:
It is crazy to think we are just a few hours away from the last main slate of the first half of the NBA season as after a massive 12 game slate tonight, we only have two games on Thursday before a full week off from NBA DFS. For everyone who has read along with Picks and Pivots throughout the first half, I sincerely thank you for taking the time each day and for everyone who interacts with me on social media! It will be a long break but take advantage of it – get some time away from NBA DFS and get ready for the sprint to the finish before we head into MLB – it will be here before you know it!
If you are looking for some DFS action during the NBA All-Star Break – check out our Fantasy Hockey DFS analysis as we provide our top FanDuel NHL Picks and Plays each day!
First things first – with this being the last big slate before the break – BE. CAREFUL. Night’s like tonight are the perfect spot for players to get ruled out late due to “illness” as teams try to get their players some extra rest headed into the All-Star beak so play smart with your bankroll, especially if you are not going to be around near lock (possibly Valentines Dinner for that special someone who puts up with your DFS hobby) as tonight has the potential for whole lot of late news/scratches which could destroy your line-ups before the night even begins!
Draymond Green is listed as questionable tonight and although Steve Kerr has said he thinks Green will play, it would not shock me to see him take the last game off before the break and get fully healthy. With Kevon Looney also questionable it would open up massive minutes for Omri Casspi ($7.7K) who played 26 minutes against the Suns, dropping 19 points, 10 rebounds and 36 fantasy points!
Devin Booker remains questionable for tonight after missing four straight games and with the Suns going nowhere this season, I see no reason they will rush him back tonight when then can give him an additional week off. Elfrid Payton ($13.6k) has been running the Suns offense with great fantasy production, putting up 38 and 45 fantasy points over his first two starts. The match-up with the Jazz is not one I think we need to go out of our way to attack tonight with this being one of the biggest pace decreases any team will see and we have simply so many other spots to attack!
From an overall slate perspective – there are only five teams in action tonight that see a material pace boost of 2 possessions or more – the Pelicans, Blazers, Jazz, Lakers and Heat – so when trying to sort through a slate of this size I would try to simplify your process and focus on the fastest paced/closest games of the night and isolate a core build you feel comfortable with. Slates this large with so much potential late news can be impossible to manage so if you can find the few game environments you really like – stick to those and try to build your core around them!
NBA DFS – Core Build:
With so many games on tap tonight it may seem tough to cut through the noise but there are some clear-cut top games to target with no game standing out more to me than the Pelicans-Lakers. We have a game here tonight with a slate high 227 game total, in the fastest projected pace game of the night, with two teams seeing the biggest pace boosts on the slate and only a 5 point spread – seriously it checks all the boxes.
Anthony Davis ($21.1K) and the Pelicans are playing at the fastest pace in the entire NBA over the last five games and even after a massive Double-OT game against Brooklyn, we saw The Brow come right back out and drop 60 fantasy points against Detroit in 36 minutes. Tonight, AD will take on a Lakers team he put up 67 fantasy points against earlier this season (with Boogie on the floor) and although it may seem crazy to say – there is not a safer big-ticket NBA DFS player right now to build around than the Pelicans star!
Jrue Holiday ($15.4K) has seen his price continue to rise across the industry but after a brief hiccup, he has returned to being one of the highest usage players on the team with a 23% usage rate in three of his last four games where he has put up 40+ fantasy points in each of those!
Rajon Rondo ($12.1K) had a massive game versus Brooklyn with a 41 minute triple double in double OT but outside of that his game logs have been wildly inconsistent so there is merit to fading him with his inflated price and frankly it may be best to use him as a pivot off Jrue in this spot, playing the theory that KCP locks down Holiday which leaves Rondo to handle the ball more and potentially get matched up with the “defense” of Isaiah Thomas.
Nikola Mirotic ($13.6K) came off the bench for New Orleans against Detroit with the late news that Emeka Okafor would get the start which was largely match-up driven as the Pelicans looked to match the size of the Pistons front court. I would fully expect Mirotic to return to the starting line-up tonight after consecutive double-doubles, with 43 and 58 fantasy points.
Ian Clark ($6.8K) is an interesting punt option within this game stack as he played 29 minutes last game off the bench for New Orleans and we have seen Alvin Gentry willing to run him for major minutes off the bench as evidenced by his 31 minutes of court time versus Minnesota just five games ago. The Pelicans ran a tight rotation last game with only 6 players logging 28 or more minutes and if we see a similar rotation tonight it could lead Clark to be one of the best point per dollar bargains on the slate!
NBA DFS – Run it back with the Lake Show:
For every reason we like the Pelicans tonight, the Lakers have arguably the better match-up as not only will they see a significant pace boost but they will also have the advantage of attacking a New Orleans defense that has been markedly worse since the acquisition of Nikola Mirotic.
With the big time acquisition of Isaiah Thomas, the Lakers have a whole new look and a variety of fantasy implications to sort through. We got a chance to see what Luke Walton‘s new rotations would look like over the weekend and if they hold, it could mean the Lakers have a bit more DFS relevance as the Lakers chose to run a 7 man rotation with each player logging 25+ minutes.
Isaiah Thomas ($11.5K) came off the bench in his Lakers debut which may scare some people away but the reality is, we saw him play 30+ minutes, shoot the ball 12 times and most importantly, sport a team leading 28% usage rate. IT’s price is still affordable around the industry and we could see him carve out a role similar to what Jordan Clarkson had previously as the lead dog on the second team which makes him an intriguing GPP option!
With Larry Nance Jr. now in Cleveland it opens up a bit of the frontcourt log jam as we saw both Julius Randle ($14.2K) and Kyle Kuzma ($10.9K) play 37 and 32 minutes each while each player went over 40 fantasy points against the Mavericks. If Randle and Kuzma are going to get these many minutes each and every night then we better lock them in now before their prices rise and I think you can look to stack both players tonight, especially on FantasyDraft where you have the roster flexibility. On FanDuel, Randle unfortunately sits at Center so it is a tough sell to play the Anthony Davis fade which means Kuzma is the better target at PF.
Brandon Ingram ($12.5K) served as the “point guard” in the Lakers starting line-up and as he seems to do each and every night, played his 30-35 minutes and led the Lakers in FGA last game with 16. Ingram has now put up between 30-40 fantasy points in each of his last five games, making him a great foundation piece in cash games and because of the match-up and guaranteed minutes, he has the path to GPP upside as well!
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Josh Hart and Brook Lopez are all secondary plays to me as we saw Hart/KCP fail to log more than a 12% usage rate so their reliance on peripheral stats makes them better fill-in plays than core roster plays. BroLo is intriguing to me from a GPP perspective as we have seen him play 25+ minutes in three of his last five games and could be asked to log more court time guarding Anthony Davis.
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: Isaiah Thomas ($6,700)
PG: Ian Clark ($3,600)
SG: Jrue Holiday ($7,900)
SG: Kantavious Caldwell-Pope ($5,500)
SF: Brandon Ingram ($6,500)
SF: Maurice Harkless ($3,500)
PF: Nikola Mirotic ($7,500)
PF: Kyle Kuzma ($6,900)
C: Anthony Davis ($11,800)
Slate Overview: With so many games it is always difficult to narrow down your player pool on slates like this but when you have a game like Pelicans-Lakers that legit checks all the DFS boxes – sometimes the best bet is to stack it up in a few variations and let it roll in tournaments! With this game having the highest total, fastest projected pace and we get two teams that see the largest pace/point boosts on the slate we have the ability to go all-in on an elite game environment and when you layer on the fact that the Lakers/Pelicans played a 6-7 man rotation in their last games, it could result in massive DFS lines!
Enjoy your Valentine’s Day celebration this evening – and make sure to celebrate that special someone who puts up with your DFS craziness. I personally plan on playing really light tonight – locking in a few game stacks of LA-NO and staying away from my phone as I make a VDay dinner for Mrs. Picks and Pivots who puts up with my DFS research, writing and roster builds more than she would like to admit!
Enjoy the last big NBA DFS slate before the All-Star Break everyone, take some time away and get ready for a big time second half of the NBA season!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests acorss FantasyDraft and FanDuel and make sure to check back to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!