NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday February 25
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
Saturday Night’s NBA DFS slate was basically a mirror image of how my actual night went at home as right around lock my son announced he didn’t feel well and proceeded to “get sick” for roughly the next 6 straight hours. There was a point yesterday where I was very excited to kick back with a cold one and watch OKC-Golden State and instead my son went the way of Paul George last night and put on a “show” I was not expecting or hoping for. The Thunder-Golden State game underwhelmed for the third time this season as the Warriors won easily, holding an ice-cold shooting Thunder team to only 80 points. I certainly did not expect Paul George to put up fewer points than Cristiano Felicio in my line-up last night – that is for sure!
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?
First, a little house cleaning – normally we end the article with a sample FanDuel NBA line-up but today FanDuel has made NBA DFS completely unplayable on their site in my mind and I will have 100% of my action on FantasyDraft. I do not know why FanDuel is determined to split these Sunday slates like they do but I simply have no interest in playing two games slates as a tournament player so I will play completely on FantasyDraft today where they have a four game slate starting at 3PM EST.
For a four game slate this is actually a pretty fascinating set-up as we have four close games with a ton of stars to pay up for and a crazy amount of difficult choices to make so let’s dive in!
My favorite game on this slate is New Orleans-Milwaukee as we have a 222.5 total, a four point spread and a game with the second highest projected pace. The Pelicans are simply playing at another speed right now as they lead the league in pace by a significant margin no matter which data set you look at – last 5, 10, 15 games – it doesn’t matter.
Anthony Davis ($21.3K) is playing at an insane level right as he is sporting a 35% usage rate and putting up 2.02 FP/M over the last two weeks (over 100 minutes of court time). The numbers speak for themselves, the game log (two 90 point games in his last four) screams to play him and on a short slate like this he becomes a scary fade and the premium play in my opinion to build around.
On the other side of this game, Giannis Antetokounpo ($21.3K) steps into the perfect match-up for him as the Pelicans offer him an extreme pace up game environment as the Bucks see the largest pace boost of any team on the slate. In their first meeting this season Giannis went off for 65 fantasy points on the back of 32 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 5 steals and the thought of pairing him and The Brow together in line-ups is very tantalizing today!
Although most of the attention will go towards AD and Giannis, do not overlook the upside for the two key guards in this game as Eric Bledsoe ($14.5K) and Jrue Holiday ($14.3K) step into the perfect game environment for two high usage guards. Holiday specifically is coming into this game with 50 fantasy points in three straight games and I think stacking both guards with Giannis/AD is a viable tournament strategy which will soak up the majority of the games usage in what should be a fast-paced, high scoring and close game.
If you intend to stack this game you are going to need value and there are actually some very interesting pieces in this game – some much riskier than others. John Henson ($8.7K) feels like a lock and load at this price point as we can essentially guarantee 30 minutes of court time in this match-up and we saw him put up 30 fantasy points in this game earlier this season would easily pay off the value at this price point.
Ian Clark ($7.1K) has burned me before this season as a volatile option off the Pelicans bench but there is merit to using him as a GPP salary saver today. I am a big fan of looking through game flow trackers to see if any interesting rotations jump out at me and the Pelicans rotation last game (the first since the break) gives me confidence in rolling out Clark today. “Starting” Point Guard Rajon Rondo continues to play minutes in the 20-25 minute range and interestingly enough it was Clark who checked in with 5 minutes left in the 3rd Quarter and NEVER came off the court again. In fact, it was Clark who started the OT period alongside Davis, Holiday, Mirotic and Moore so the path to minutes is certainly there for Clark in this spot!
Speaking of game flows, Jason Terry ($6.1K) was one of the surprise recipients of major minutes in the Bucks last game, showing a similar usage to Clark as he checked in for Tony Snell in the 3rd quarter and was tasked with closing out the game at SG for Milwaukee. In fact, it was Terry, not Snell, who drew the start in the OT period and delivered a solid 22 fantasy points off the bench which would bring exceptional value for someone at near minimum price!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
The highest projected scoring game on the slate features the Houston Rockets and the Denver Nuggets in a game with a 228 total and a 5 point spread so in theory there should be a ton to like here but there are some major red flags for me in building around this game.
First off, these teams have played twice already this season with the Rockets winning by 30 and 26 points in both meetings in Houston. Secondly, would you have guessed that the Rockets are DEAD LAST in pace of play over the last 10 games? Yeah, the Chris Paul–James Harden Rockets are playing at THE slowest pace in the NBA over that stretch – certainly a metric that surprised me when I dug into this slate!
Because of the blow-outs in the first two games, the game logs and performance for the stars in this game is certainly skewed as James Harden and Chris Paul are averaging right around 40 fantasy points each against the Nuggets this season which simply is not enough at their price points. In fact, Harden at $22.6K is the most expensive player on the entire FantasyDraft slate and I simply do not see myself paying up for him over guys like Anthony Davis or Giannis Antetokounmpo (or LeBron James for that matter) who I can get for a discount!
The results on the Nuggets side have been just as ugly as only one player (Will Barton) has put up 40+ fantasy points in this match-up so far this year over two games. The reality is the price points for the key players in this match-up feel a bit too high considering how these games have played out so far this season and I certainly understand that this game being in Denver SHOULD help it stay close but with it being the highest total on the board, my gut says it goes a bit over-owned as a result. In tournaments, I am fine hanging my hat on the previous two games so far this season and the fact that the Rockets are playing at the slowest pace in the NBA in the last 10 games and looking to build around other games.
NBA DFS – Slate Overview:
The Wizards-Sixers game has the fastest projected total on the slate and with three previous match-ups already this season, including one on February 6th, we have enough data to sort through to identify our targets in this game.
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Joel Embiid has put up 55 and 60 fantasy points in his last two games against Washington while Ben Simmons has logged 40, 45 and 65 fantasy points against the Wizards this season. Bradley Beal meanwhile has put up 45 and 48 fantasy points in the last two meetings between these squads and with so much focus on the bigger name stars on this slate – stacking these three “second tier” guys together could make for an intriguing GPP roster build.
The one thing to keep in mind here – the Sixers played yesterday against the Magic so there is ALWAYS risk with Joel Embiid on the tail end of a back to back and with this game starting 5 hours after lock just be mindful of the potential late day downgrade/injury risk if you plan on building around him! Embiid played in only his second career back to back (think about that for a second) just before the break as he played 34 minutes against the Clippers and put up 62 fantasy points after playing the Pelicans the night before so he has shown his ability to produce in this spot if you are willing to take the risk.
Last but not least we have LeBron James in a National TV game against the Spurs coming off a string of 55-60 fantasy point performances with his new team. Considering the match-up against a slow-paced Spurs team, I will likely chase the upside of AD/Giannis at the same price point on FantasyDraft but if we get the sense LeBron could be the “over-looked” star on this slate there is merit to making the 1 for 1 switch in some of your line-ups if you are multi-entering as the price point being the same allows you that kind fo flexibility.
enjoy the slate today – if you are looking to avoid the “two 2 game slates” on FanDuel then head on over to FantasyDraft today and give them a try on a full four game slate!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!