Welcome to the Saturday 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.
Friday’s NBA DFS for me personally was all about building around the Oklahoma City Thunder and Phoenix Suns and ultimately the top two scorers on the night came from that game as Russell Westbrook (76.5) and Devin Booker (61) put up great nights in a game that totaled 240 points! Elfrid Payton (51) and Paul George (42) were great additions to a game stack here and really the only play that underwhelmed in our core build was Steven Adams who put up 11 points, 7 rebounds and only 27 fantasy points in a great match-up against Alex Len. Outside of this game it was a trio of big men who rounded out the top five in scoring as Rudy Gobert (58), DeAndre Jordan (55) and Aaron Gordon (55) all had big time NBA DFS nights.
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:
Happy Saturday All! We get an intriguing NBA DFS slate tonight with 7 games available on FanDuel starting at 7PM EST while FantasyDraft has opted to skip the Memphis-Orlando game (thank you!) and start their six game slate at 7:30PM EST.
Right off the bat I think there are games we can cross off the list tonight with the first one being the Jazz and Kings which has a 203 total with both teams seeing a significant pace decrease as the slowest projected game of the night.
This game seems like an easy to identify “stay-away” spot – but let me be clear before I get the – “what about Player X” questions on Twitter. There are always going to be good plays we simply cross off our list using this strategy but the goal is to narrow down your player pool to a core set of elite game environments where you can dive deeper and spend your time researching the optimal way to attack those games rather than casting your net across every available player on the slate!
Gobert ($14.4K) is an intriguing play as a one-off if you land on him after his 50+ point outing last night and will take on a Kings team that will likely be without Willie Cauley-Stein tonight. Gobert has yet to face the Kings this year but this was a team he destroyed last season – putting up 50+ fantasy points in two of the four meetings against them.
The game that at first glance seems appealing but may actually be a stay away is the Cavaliers and Nuggets. One of my favorite reads for NBA DFS comes from ESPN.com and their monthly schedule alert piece which identifies some key trouble spots as a result of a team’s recent schedule and the Nuggets are tonight’s top spot to highlight.
"March 3: Denver at Cleveland | MahScore 8Well, Nuggets, this is it — the last of your league-high six schedule alert games this season, though you’ve lost four of those games, so far. And this finale just so happens to be against LeBron James, which might feel just a tad unfair, but that’s life, isn’t it? You’ll host the Clippers on Feb. 27, then head to Memphis to play the Grizzlies on March 2. Then, immediately after facing Memphis, you’ll fly out for Cleveland — losing an hour along the way — to play a game less than 24 hours later, closing out a back-to-back set and playing your third game in five days against a team with a one-day rest advantage. The Cavs will also be on the eighth day of a 10-day homestand."
Now this piece of information on its own is not enough to make me fade the Nuggets entirely but when you layer on the return of Paul Millsap, you are getting back to a Denver rotation we saw earlier in the year where the minutes/usage is so spread out that it makes targeting any of these Denver guys a risky proposition in NBA DFS.
In the two games since he has returned including last night versus Memphis where he was re-inserted into the starting line-up for Will Barton, he has probably had the biggest negative impact on Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. Murray has struggled to perform with 24 and 25 fantasy points in the last two games while Jokic has put up a pedestrian 25 and 32 fantasy points.
Frankly the price points for the Nuggets are almost all too high considering the capped ceiling they now have with Millsap back in the rotation commanding usage which is clearly negatively impacting the rest of his teammates from a fantasy perspective. Ironically the one guy I think you can use here is Millsap ($10.2K) who is priced the lowest of all the Nuggets top 6 players and is coming off two strong games where he has put up 26 and 38 fantasy points in 23 and 27 minutes. Now, I would be careful here as this would be Millsap’s first back to back since his return from injury but the price point is fair enough where if we get word he will play 27-30 minutes then you could use him as a one-off play on Denver.
JR Smith earned his one-game suspension from the team Thursday by throwing a bowl of soup at an assistant coach, multiple sources told @WindhorstESPN and @mcten. https://t.co/RK8ODTIOSa
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) March 2, 2018
It seems odd to say this but do we really want to pay up for LeBron James ($21.3K) if we have no correlation on the other side with Denver? Listen, LeBron is about as safe a play as you can ask for with 55 fantasy points or more in 9 straight games but in order to “pay off” this price tag you are going to need a 60-70 point game from LeBron so he may not be a priority for me in this spot. I will say this – on FanDuel where SF is VERY weak and PG is exceptionally deep it does make sense to lock him in tonight due to the position format on that site.
I do have to say as a GPP player and a lover of all things narrative in DFS – how could you not want to throw a tournament dart with J.R. Smith in a “soup suspension” narrative game? OK let’s move on…
NBA DFS – San Antonio and Lakers:
The best thing about NBA DFS is that our interest in a game could completely change based off 1-2 players being in/out which would open up a totally different set of rotations/value that we may otherwise have overlooked. Normally I would probably avoid the Spurs/Lakers but this game tonight does not look like a normal game as we have a variety of big names on the injury list that look likely to miss this game.
UPDATE: Normally I do not update my articles for news but today we get some early NBA DFS news and since my kids are napping, I figure I can update my thoughts now that we have some new information. On the Spurs side, LaMarcus Aldridge is OUT while Pau Gasol is NOW PROBABLE to play so let’s break down what it means.
The Spurs/Lakers game is the fastest projected pace game on the slate and no team sees a bigger boost than San Antonio so when you combine that with all the usage up for grabs, this seems like a spot we want to build around!
Dejounte Murray ($12.4K) looks like the clear top play from the Spurs tonight as he is one of the few Spurs players we can count on for minutes as he has played 30+ minutes in back to back games while dropping 40 and 46 fantasy points in those contests. When these two teams played earlier this season it was Murray who went off as well, dropping 46 fantasy points on the back of 14 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 steals in a game where both LMA and Gasol were on the court. At a price point that only requires 37 fantasy points to hit value, this seems like a cash game lock and load play with massive GPP upside.
The rest of the Spurs line-up in theory is a great spot for value but it is worth noting that only Patty Mills ($8.7K) has played 30 or more minutes in each of the last two games while the rest of the minutes seem to be spread out amongst guys all playing 25 or so minutes a night. Pau Gasol ($10.8K) is certainly in play now with this news as he dropped just under 40 fantasy points against the Lakers in his only match-up against them this season.
If you take LMA and Kawhi off the court and put Pau and Murray on there is really no major winner from a usage or FP/M perspective as both Murray and Gasol actually see a slight usage decrease and interestingly enough it is Patty Mills who sees the biggest FP/M boost while putting up 1.14 FP/M.
In terms of how I am using the Spurs – Murray is still my top option and I would be willing to use both Gasol and Mills with the mindset that your getting two players who should play 30 minutes and put up over a FP/M of production. With Gasol in – I am ignoring all the fringe pieces entirely so Gay, Bertans and Lauvergne are not on my radar at this point.
The Lakers side of this game is actually really interesting for me in tournaments as this is a team coming off 131 points against the Miami Heat and we already know that Brandon Ingram is OUT tonight.
Lonzo Ball ($11K) returned to the starting line-up last game, played 33 minutes and racked up 8 points, 6 assists, 7 rebounds, 6 steals and 38 fantasy points and will now take on a Spurs team he dominated for 46 fantasy points earlier this season.
Julius Randle ($13.7K) looks like he could be in an elite spot today against a Spurs team without either of its starting big men and is averaging under 43 fantasy points per game over his last five outings. With Ingram out, I would expect Kyle Kuzma ($10.4K) to re-join the starting rotation after his strong performance against Miami where he put up 31 fantasy points in 28 minutes off the bench.
Honestly, the entire Lakers core is in play here and their game log against Miami makes them all look like great plays as five players put up 30+ fantasy points. The sample size is small for sure, but over the last two-week with Josh Hart and Brandon Ingram off the court, Isaiah Thomas ($10.7K) has a crazy 40% usage in 30 minutes of court time while putting up 2 FP/M. You can even add someone like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($11.3K) to the list here as a player locked into 30+ minutes who is averaging 38 fantasy points over his last five games.
If you have not yet realized – this is my favorite game to stack mostly because you can easily stack the core plays here at reasonable prices while still having the salary to pay up for 1-2 studs tonight!
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
I have already mentioned a handful of Point Guards that I love tonight including Dejounte Murray and Lonzo Ball while even some of the value plays in that game like Isaiah Thomas and Patty Mills are PG eligible on a site like FanDuel. We have not yet even touched on the game with the two best PG’s as the Thunder and Blazers square off in Portland and we have Russell Westbrook ($22k) and Damian Lillard ($16.4K) to pick from.
The Western Conference standings are SO crowded right now so every game has playoff implications and tonight is no different as Portland is sitting in the #3 spot in the West tied with OKC who is in the #5 seed right now. This should be an incredibly fun game to watch and I love the idea of stacking Russ and Dame together tonight but if forced to choose one, I would go with Lillard who is simply under-priced on FantasyDraft as he would need only 49 fantasy points to hit value and he comes into this game with 50+ fantasy points in five of his last seven games including three 60 points outings. In fact, in this match-up earlier this season, Lillard went for 63 fantasy points in 37 minutes against OKC and you know Dame will be up for this match-up on his home court.
I normally do not want to pick on Steven Adams and the Thunder inside but it is worth noting that Jusuf Nurkic ($12.2K) has performed well in both match-ups this season, putting up 33 and 49 fantasy points against the Thunder. Nurkic is always a risky GPP play due to his minutes fluctuation but is an interesting correlation play with Lillard on this slate tonight.
UPDATE:The Pistons-Heat game is not one I really gravitated towards in my research but with the news that Tyler Johnson, Wayne Ellington and Bam Adebayo are all OUT, there is the opportunity to attack a short-handed Heat team here again tonight.
Over the last two weeks, with all three of those players out, Dwyane Wade ($10K) has a 40% usage rate and has put up 33% and 35% usage rates in his last two games with 16 and 18 shot attempts for the short-handed Heat. The price is creeping up but considering Wade has dropped 33 and 37 fantasy points in his last two games, there is still value to be had here tonight.
Kelly Olynyk in theory should be a good play and makes for a tremendous GPP play considering he burned the world last time out and we already have been told he will come off the bench which will lower his ownership even further. Both Kelly O and James Johnson ($8.5K) put up 37 FP in this same exact match-up the last time Miami played the new look Pistons (fyi – Whiteside was out that game and Bam started) so you can easily fire up either Miami forward tonight. Do not overlook Josh Richardson ($11.6K) either as a great cash game staple who has played 35+ minutes in back to back games and dropped 37 fantasy points against Detroit when they played in February.
Hassan Whiteside said he has been told to put his knee brace back on after he played without it on Thursday. https://t.co/DH8vClSoYf
— NBA News (@PlayerlineNBA) March 2, 2018
After playing only 18 minutes versus the Lakers, the post game news on Hassan Whiteside was that he needed to go back to wearing his knee brace which is a massive red flag for me and now he has to contend with the Pistons duo of Andre Drummond and Blake Griffin? Yikes.
Speaking of Andre Drummond ($16.6K), with a gimpy Whiteside on the other side of this game AND now no Bam to back him up, this could be a huge GPP spot for him after he torched this Miami team just a few weeks ago for 66 fantasy points on the back of 23 points, 20 rebounds, 4 steals and 4 blocked shots! I am starting to love the idea of a mini-stack here with Drummond and a few pieces from the Miami side.
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 NBA Sample Line-Up:
PG: Damian Lillard ($9,700)
PG: Dejounte Murray ($7,500)
SG: Dwyane Wade ($4,800)
SG: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($6,000)
SF: Josh Richardson ($6,100)
SF: Justise Winslow ($4,200)
PF: Kyle Kuzma ($5,500)
PF: Paul Millsap ($5,900)
C: Andre Drummond ($10,000)
Slate Overview: With the news we have right now I am loving the idea of building around Drummond, Lillard and the various Spurs, Lakers, Heat value plays. I think you can build a really solid top to bottomg line-up with massive upside from Drummond and Lillard that could rival the higher priced stars on the night. Enjoy the rest of your day all!
Bet of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FanDuel and FantasyDraft and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!
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