NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday March 1
Welcome to the Thursday 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.
Wednesday’s NBA DFS slate played out about as poorly as I could have hoped considering I went heavy on LaMarcus Aldridge and the Clippers/Rockets plays. The scores were much lower than I expected across the industry as only 5 players topped 50 fantasy points with some relatively unexpected names at the top of the leaderboard including Otto Porter and Josh Jackson. On a night where so many stars were readily available considering how much value we had, only Russell Westbrook was able to land among the slates top scorers as his 59 fantasy points ended up as the best player point total on the night!
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 to a short four game slate with some mediocre games all seemingly centered around the national TV game in the Cavaliers and Sixers on TNT at 8PM EST.
There are some big time injury news items, the majority of which seem to focus on the first game of the night which is good for NBA DFS as we should have all the news from the Heat-Lakers before it tips off at 7:30 PM EST.
First on the Lakers side – Josh Hart has a fracture in his left hand which will take the Lakers starting guard and his 30+ minutes a night out of the rotation for a few weeks while he recovers. On the flip side it looks like Lonzo Ball ($12.7K) will have his minutes restriction lifted and will likely see 30 minutes of court time which frankly will be necessary with the injury to Hart.
The Heat list Wayne Ellington as doubtful for tomorrow’s game vs the Lakers with a left quad contusion. Tyler Johnson is listed as questionable with the same kind of injury.
— Will Manso (@WillManso) February 28, 2018
On the Miami side of this game it looks like Wayne Ellington AND Tyler Johnson could miss this game which would open up a massive role for Dwyane Wade ($9K) in the biggest pace up spot for any team on Thursday’s slate.
On the face of it, this game should be one we want to target and the fact that we have guys like Hart, Ellington and Johnson out should open up tons of minutes as each of these players is locked into nearly 30 minutes a night as key parts of their teams rotations.
The issue for me on the Lakers side is that whatever we lose with Hart will likely be soaked up by the increased minutes for Lonzo Ball and some extra minutes for Isaiah Thomas. With this being a massive pace down spot for the Lakers it may be best to wait and see how the rotation shakes out rather than going all-in on any one play here tonight.
For Miami it would seem like D-Wade is a lock and load play if Ellington and Johnson miss this game as we saw last game that it was Wade who got essentially all the court time in the second half versus the Sixers when Ellington/TJ were out. Wade is coming off a 38 fantasy point, 25 minute performance in his last game and we could see Miami opt to keep him on the bench but honestly I think his line-up position is irrelevant as his minutes would seemingly be locked in the same 25-30 minute range regardless of if he starts or not and with the added usage and extreme pace up spot, I would have no issue rolling him out in all formats tonight.
The other play on the Miami side that I love in this spot is Josh Richardson ($11.7K) as he is locked into massive minutes and simply thrives in these kinds of pace up spots. Take a look back at his game log in a similar match-up recently where he put up 40 fantasy points against the Pelicans and this is the kind of upside you are rostering with Richardson who has 4+ steals in three straight games and will get the benefit of a huge pace increase and a match-up with a Lakers team that is turning the ball over at the third highest percentage in the NBA over the last five games!
NBA DFS – Core Build:
Let’s not bury the lead here – the Sixers and Cavaliers game is THE game of the night as it has the highest game total (222) and the highest projected pace on the slate as the National TV game on TNT at 8PM EST. Over the last 10 games the Sixers and Cavaliers are both playing at top 10 paces and what is interesting about this game is that we can pretty easily stack the biggest stars with the underpriced players that sit on the fringe of this contest.
LeBron James ($20.9K) is the play of the night and a scary fade on a four game slate. The King has put up 53 and 68 fantasy points in his two earlier season match-ups versus the Sixers, has logged 60+ fantasy points in five of his last eight games and has not been below 55 fantasy points with his new look squad so this is the perfect high floor/high ceiling play to build around tonight.
Joel Embiid ($17.8K) will likely be the chalk pairing with LeBron even though his recent game logs (less than 50 fantasy points in three of his last five games) may give you pause to pay this freight. The Cavaliers are giving up the 10th most fantasy points to opposing Centers over the last 10 games and with this game being on National TV, i would expect Embiid to show up in a very big way in what could be an Eastern Conference Playoff preview.
Ben Simmons ($15.4K) is the player I see making or breaking this slate honestly as I expect the LeBron/Embiid duo to be massively owned and the choice to build off that stack with Simmons could be a true difference maker due to his volatility. Simmons is an elite talent but from an NBA DFS perspective the range of outcomes relative to his price point makes him a GPP only play as this is a player over his last five games that has flashed massive upside (57 and 62 fantasy points) with a floor of 27 and 33 points. Said simply – Simmons has the ability to win you this slate with a ceiling game or sink your line-ups by overpaying for a guy that barely hits 30 fantasy points.
Simmons tends to thrive in games against teams without elite rim protection as evidenced by his 60 burger against the Bulls a few days ago and when you factor in that the Cavs are giving up the 4th most fantasy points to opposing PG’s over the last 10 days, this seems like a spot to attack with Simmons.
Outside of the big three – there are some interesting fringe plays that are all priced fairly across the industry which allow you to easily build a game stack around the big stars in this contest. George Hill (9.2K) has played 30 or more minutes in three of his last four games as the starting PG for the Cavaliers and has hit/exceeded value in two of his last three games with 29 and 44 fantasy points against the Grizzlies and Nets. Rodney Hood ($8.9K) is another viable option as he played 31 minutes off the bench and put up 11 shot attempts for the Cavaliers against the Nets.
Robert Covington ($9K) has been a flat-out mess over the last few weeks, topping 30 fantasy points only one time in the month of February so there is every reason to fade him tonight based off his recent performance alone. The one intriguing part about Covington is the match-up with LeBron as we know RoCo will be locked into major minutes with the responsibility to guard LeBron and Covington was able to exceed value in his last game against the Cavs earlier this year with 39 fantasy points. It is worth noting that Embiid sat out that game which forced Covington into a larger role that game so this is a GPP play only.If you need a true punt play from this game take a look at Marco Belinelli ($7.4K) who has played 25-27 minutes in every single game for the Sixers off the bench so far this season scoring double-digit points in four of his last five games.
Ultimately my takeaway from this game is that you can easily build around LeBron, Embiid and Simmons and mix and match the fringe players in this game for a full on stack. Getting those fringe players right is ultimately what will determine your success tonight so there is merit to building 2-3 teams with different combinations of Hill, Hood, Covington etc in the hopes that one of your line-ups hits it big.
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: George Hill ($5,100)
PG: T.J. McConnell ($3,900)
SG: Dwyane Wade ($4,600)
SG: Rodney Hood ($4,400)
SF: LeBron James ($12,200)
SF: Josh Richardson ($6,100)
PF: Ben Simmons ($9,500)
PF: Bam Adebayo ($3,700)
C: Joel Embiid ($10,500)
Slate Overview: I have to be honest – I do not like this slate. The more I dug into the four games the less I had any interest outside of a game stack of Cleveland-Philadelphia with some Miami exposure mixed in. The Nets and Kings may be bad defensively but they are playing at slow paces with crowded rotations which makes them tough to trust on a four game slate. The Wolves and Portland could be an interesting pivot off LeBron/Embiid/Simmons as you can easily build around a KAT/Lillard duo at far less ownership. The issue for me is that KAT has been awful in this match-up so far this season, failing to exceed 40 fantasy points in any of the three games while Lillard has put up no more than 45 fantasy points in any of those games so the ceiling to compete with LeBron/Embiid is just not there in my opinion. Keep it simple tonight – build around the Cavs-Sixers, get some Heat exposure once we have final word on their injury situations and move on from there!
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!