NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday March 2

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.

On Thursday’s short NBA DFS slate it really came down to which stars you chose to build around as something as simple as the choice between Karl-Anthony Towns and Joel Embiid was the difference between 20 fantasy points at the same position and price points. KAT was the night’s biggest fantasy performer as he dropped nearly 70 fantasy points on the back of 34 points and 17 rebounds. The night was all about the studs as the top scorers were KAT, LeBron, Lillard, Simmons and Embiid – who also happened to be the top 5 most expensive plays on the board. Also if you happened to avoid the Kelly Olynyk death trap of 2 assists and 3 rebounds (yes that was it) then you had a solid advantage over the rest of the field to start with – welcome to the list Kelly O – find another DFS home as you are no longer welcome here!

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:

Welcome to a loaded 10 game NBA slate tonight with some massive contests across the industry and with nothing bur rain/snow expected on the East Coast today this is looking like a great day to sit back, build some NBA DFS line-ups and watch some basketball. With so many games on tap for tonight we have a ton to get into so let’s dive right in:

Giannis Antetokounmpo ($17.7K) is the biggest name star with an injury designation as he left the left game with the Pistons due to an eye injury that he is expected to quickly recover from but it is worth noting he was experiencing blurred vision in the post game.

If Giannis were to sit we all know the drill by now – you do everything you can to lock in Eric Bledsoe and Khris Middleton with a specific emphasis on Middleton who sees a nearly 9% usage boost with Giannis off the floor this season. I am not going to focus too much of my early roster builds on this scenario but I certainly plan to watch the news here as if Giannis was ruled out it would push both Middleton and Bledsoe to elite plays.

The Memphis Grizzlies are a mess right now with a laundry list of injuries as we already know that Mike Conley, Tyreke Evans, Deyonta Davis and Chandler Parsons are out for tonight’s game and we have questionable designations on Wayne Selden and Andrew Harrison. With Evans and possible Harrison out tonight, Mario Chalmers ($6.8K) would become one of the best value plays on the board as he would be pressed into major minutes as one of the only healthy guards on Memphis as they take on the Denver Nuggets.

The Grizzlies went with an 8-9 man rotation against the Suns last time out and now could be missing Andrew Harrison who played 38 minutes in that game which would open up a ton of minutes and usage for the remaining healthy Grizzlies.

One interesting thing to note – against the Suns the Grizzlies opted to start the game with Ben McLemore but he only played 9 total minutes and Memphis came out of halftime with a bigger starting five which put Jarell Martin alongside both Marc Gasol and JaMychal Green.

Marc Gasol has performed well in this match-up already this season with 40 and 45 fantasy points and with all the injuries to Memphis he would be the clear lead dog from a usage perspective with a 33% usage rate while putting up 1.4 FP/M. JaMychal Green comes into this game with four straight double-doubles and although he has seen his price rise ($12K on FantasyDraft and $6K on FanDuel) he still makes for a solid mid-range cash play. Jarell Martin would be an interesting cheaper option as he has played 30+ minutes in three straight games for Memphis and could end up sticking in the starting line-up.

Ultimately this is a spot where we need to wait and see how the injury situations play out and sort through the value that remains. This is not the same elite match-up that Memphis had against the Suns last time out but the reality of an extremely short-handed Grizzlies team should open up some value plays (ie. Chalmers) that will give us roster flexibility to spend up in certain spots tonight.

NBA DFS – Spots to Build Around:

On a ten game slate like we have tonight there are no shortage of great games and teams to target as we have some high totals, big time pace up spots and some potential blowout risks (looking at you Golden State versus Atlanta).

There is perhaps no better NBA DFS game environment to attack than whoever is playing the Phoenix Suns as they rank 2nd in the NBA in pace over the last 15 games while simultaneously ranking as the 3rd worst team in defensive rating over that period. This is the same team that turned the Memphis Grizzlies into the super chalk the last slate they were on and gave up massive games to guys like Marc Gasol (51), Andrew Harrison (43), Jarell Martin (35) and JaMychal Green (31).

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the big winners of the Phoenix Suns sweepstakes tonight as they get the second largest pace boost on the entire NBA slate with the offensive firepower to absolutely break this slate against the Suns. Russell Westbrook ($22.1K) is by far the most significant investment on this slate as he costs $4k more than any other player on FantasyDraft but is priced in a similar range to Giannis Antetokounmpo on FanDuel at only $900 more.

I can hit you with all the statistics and metrics you want, spout off that Westbrook put up 55 fantasy points last time they played the Suns and that he now will face off with Elfrid Payton who he torched for 70 fantasy points as a member of the Magic earlier this season, but the reality is that if Andrew flippin Harrison dropped 43 against this Suns team than what exactly is the ceiling for a guy like Westbrook?

I personally love the idea of stacking Westbrook with Steven Adams ($13.5K) who continues to be a steady 30-40 fantasy point performer on any given night and can attack the same Suns interior that just gave up a 50 burger to Marc Gasol and a mere 96 fantasy points to Mr. Anthony Davis last time out. To say that attacking the Suns frontcourt is a good match-up would seem to be a severe understatement given their recent track record.

As much as I love the spot for Paul George ($16.4K) tonight, especially if Warren sits, I am worried about the backseat he has seem to taken in recent games with only a 25% usage rate over his last six games. Warren is one of the worst individual defenders at the SF position this season, ranking 82nd out of 86 SF’s in terms of DRPM which means there is only four SF’s who rate worse than him. Interestingly enough his replacement, Josh Jackson is one of those four, ranking 85th of out 86 SF’s in terms of DRPM this season. The pace up spot and match-up are screaming to take the shot on PG13 tonight and simply ignore the recent bump in the road in his production.

The Suns side of this game could get very interesting as T.J. Warren is questionable to play again tonight which would open up another start for Josh Jackson ($12.2K) who is coming off a monster 50 fantasy point game after logging 40 minutes against the Grizzlies and dropped 40 fantasy points against this same OKC team earlier this season off the bench.

What is most interesting to me with the emergence of Jackson in the starting line-up is how that adversely effects someone like Elfrid Payton who sees a 2% usage decrease when sharing the court with Jackson and Devin Booker in his time with the Suns. Last game, Jackson sported a 26% usage rate while Elf was limited to a 22% metric but considering the minutes Payton is playing and his ability to rack up peripheral stats I think his price on FantasyDraft at only $12.4K is more than reasonable as he would only need 37 fantasy points to hit value which he has done in two of his last three games.

Devin Booker ($15.7K) is the obvious correlation play here if you are running Westbrook back on the other side as Booker is sporting a 35% usage rate in the five games since his return from injury with the following shot attempts – 20, 20, 28, 28 and 29. The upside is simply massive here and the fact the Thunder are missing Andre Roberson (see impact below), puts Booker in a spot to put up a ceiling game tonight.

I already hate myself for writing this but do not overlook this spot for Dragan Bender ($7.8K) who although he continues to rack up fouls at an incredible pace (fouling out in both previous games), I did find the Suns rotation against the Grizzlies to be very interesting as Bender played 34 minutes as compared to Marquese Chriss‘s 6 minutes off the bench. Bender put up a big time game against this OKC team earlier this season with 43 fantasy points in 39 minutes off the bench and if he can manage to stay out of foul trouble has exceptional upside relative to his price point here tonight.

We will need to wait to see what Vegas comes out with for a total here as they are waiting on the Warren injury news but this game to me is the spot to build around as we have a solid mixture of high-end stars with Westbrook/George and Booker that can be easily stacked with some of the mid-range plays like Jackson, Bender and Adams for a great game stack!

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:

With so many stars on this slate and a high scoring game stack in Phoenix we want to build around we are going to need value which thankfully we should get easily with a 10 game slate ahead of us.

One spot it looks like we will have some potential value is in Minnesota as in addition to the loss of Jimmy Butler, it looks like Taj Gibson could be sidelined tonight after leaving last night’s game with an injury.

The Timberwolves are one of the easier teams to figure out when it comes to DFS as I wouldn’t expect any crazy line-up shenanigans tonight as they simply slide Gorgui Dieng ($6.8K) into the starting line-up in place of Gibson. In fact, last night when Gibson left the game in the third quarter, it was Dieng who checked in for him and played all but the last 90 seconds of the fourth quarter. Gibson has not missed a single game this year so there is no easy game to look back at to understand Dieng’s role in the starting line-up this season but last year as the starting PF, Dieng averaged 32 minutes a game and 28 fantasy points per contest which would more than pay off his value at his value price point.

Last year in four starts against the Utah Jazz, whom he will face tonight, Dieng put up 29, 28, 24 and 22 fantasy points for an average of 25.75 FP/game which would equate to 3.7x value on FantasyDraft and 6.4x on FanDuel where he is priced at only $4k tonight.

There are two spots that look like complete stay aways for me tonight – first, Golden State and Atlanta should be an absolute thrashing and the only way (which would not shock me) I would even consider playing someone from Golden State here is if we get a random rest day for Curry or Durant. If that happens it would be hard not to push the other into your line-ups so just keep that in the back of your mind today before you cross them off completely.

The other spot I am avoiding is in Denver as the return of Paul Millsap has thrown a monkey wrench into this rotation and we saw Millsap lead the team in usage off the bench last game which adversely affected the remaining Nuggets starters. With a poor match-up against Memphis, I would let other sort through this mess and focus your roster builds on other better game environments.

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: Russell Westbrook ($11,900)

PG: Mario Chalmers ($3,500)

SG: Devin Booker ($8,800)

SG: Evan Fournier ($5,800)

SF: Josh Jackson ($5,700)

SF: Paul George ($8,700)

PF: Dragan Bender ($4,100)

PF: Gorgui Dieng ($4,000)

C: Steven Adams ($7,300)

Skate Overview: On ten game slates like this my recommendation is to always narrow down your player pool, try to block out as much noise as you can and dig deeper into the best pure game environments. There is no secret that OKC-Phoenix will be a track meet with some insanely high potential but spend your time digging into the stacks that work within the context of your overall roster construction as you may find for example that swapping PG out and moving Elfrid in gives you a better all around line-up. There are so many different ways you can go with that build while using some of today’s value (Chalmers, Dieng) without really putting a strain on your build. Looking at the sample line-up above – I built around the Suns-OKC game stack with Chalmers and Dieng and still had $6k left for my last position which was at SG. Good luck tonight all and enjoy your Friday!

Next: DraftKings Euro League Basketball DFS Picks!

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!