NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday March 4
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’s NBA DFS slate started out strong for me as Andre Drummond took advantage of a short-handed Miami Heat front court and put up 22 points, 18 rebounds and 58 fantasy points as the third highest scorer on the entire slate. The biggest pivot in the night’s results for me was going all in on Damian Lillard who struggled with his shot, shooting only 27% from the floor which opened up C.J. McCollum to take over, shooting the ball a team high 20 times, and dropping 53 fantasy points on the night which outscored his teammate by nearly 20 fantasy points and landed him in the top 5 fantasy producers of the night. The other big takeaway for me on FantasyDraft was how highly owned Lonzo Ball (65% in GPP’s) and Pau Gasol (46%) were and considering both went for 50+ fantasy points, it was a night on that site where if you didn’t eat the chalk you were likely on the outside looking in when it came to the cash line.
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?
Tonight’s NBA DFS slate kicks off at 6PM EST with the Main Slate which is unfortunate as we lose the opportunity to stack up the afternoon Suns-Hawks game which should be chock full of awful defense and fantasy points. Regardless, we have six games to choose from tonight in what should be a high scoring night of action as 11 of 14 teams playing today see a neutral or positive pace boost of their season long numbers.
Let’s start with decision number one today – what do we do with Anthony Davis ($20.5K and $12.3K on FanDuel) who is by far the highest priced player on either site by a sizeable margin over Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Brow had a “down game” against the Spurs with only 50 fantasy points, the second time in his last three outings he has put up 50 fantasy points which gives him a safe floor but not necessarily the ceiling the we want and need at his inflated price point.
Game logs and the way you present them can be deceiving as I can spin AD as a player who has failed to hit value in two of his last three games OR I can say this is a player who has put up 90+ in two of his last four games – really all that shows is that Davis has the safest floor of any player in the NBA right now with arguably the highest ceiling.
The match-up tonight against the Mavericks is one where I could see a massive ceiling game from Davis as they simply do not have the bodies up front to slow him down. Seriously who is stopping Davis from simply getting whatever he wants tonight? Dirk? Dwight Powell? Salah Merji?
The Pelicans and Mavericks have played twice already this season with both match-ups coming earlier in the year when DeMarcus Cousins was healthy. Here are the lines for Boogie and Brow in those games:
- Cousins – 32 points, 20 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks and 83 fantasy points
- Cousins – 20 points, 22 rebounds and 56 fantasy points
- Davis – 30 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks and 60 fantasy points
- Davis – 33 points, 5 rebounds and 47 fantasy points
If we look back to last season, Davis put up 53, 57 and 63 fantasy points in his three outings against Dallas all but solidifying that a 50 point floor is about as safe as we could ask for in this match-up. All you have to do is look back to the game Cousins had earlier this year when he dropped 83 fantasy points and you will realize the massive ceiling that exists in this spot.
The question becomes – is he worth the investment? Outside of Giannis or maybe Joel Embiid, there are no other stars on this slate capable of setting the cash line all by themselves so there is merit to finding the salary to build around Davis for that reason alone.
NBA DFS – Game Stack in Dallas:
Over the last 15 games there is no team in the NBA playing at a faster pace than the New Orleans Pelicans so it is no surprise to see the Dallas Mavericks get the largest pace boost of any team on the slate while also seeing their projected team total rise a massive 8 points higher than their season average.
Dennis Smith Jr. ($12.5K) thrived in this match-up the last time they played as he logged a triple double with 21 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists on his way to 44 fantasy points. Harrison Barnes ($13.1K) is about as steady a performer as you can get for cash games and we saw him put up 43 fantasy points in the first meeting between these two earlier this year so there is merit to building around the two “safe” Mavericks starters here tonight as a correlation with Davis on the other side.
The big injury news to watch here is the status of Wes Matthews who is questionable to play with a hip injury. Matthews has only missed one other game this season which was just a few weeks back against Houston where we saw Yogi Ferrell ($8.4K) draw the start and put up 35 fantasy points however it is worth noting that JJ Barea was also out that game so we cannot use that game as a perfect barometer as Barea could draw the start here tonight. Either way, Yogi should see a boost in his minutes tonight and anyone getting 25-30 minutes against the Pelicans defense right now is a great way to attack salary saving options in NBA DFS.
The one-off the wall GPP play I want to mention is Nerlens Noel ($6K) who after a long injury absence has returned to play 15 minutes off the bench in each of his last two games while putting up 12 and 16 fantasy points. With Anthony Davis inside, could you not see a scenario where Dwight Powell or Dirk Nowitzki struggles with fouls and it gives Noel a few more minutes off the bench? The Mavericks last game played a 9 man rotation and that was with Wes Matthews playing 31 minutes – if Matthews is out today the Mavericks could be VERY short-handed which makes them an intriguing spot to target some off the wall value in tournaments.
On the Pelicans side of this game, the usual suspects all are in play as Rajon Rondo ($11.7K) and Jrue Holiday ($14.3K) are both great options at the guard position. The one concern I have with Holiday is that we have really seen his usage drop in recent games with a lower than 30% usage rate in 7 of his last 8 games but this is a player with 37 or more fantasy points in seven straight games so he makes for one of the best cash game options and personally I love him on FanDuel where I can use him at a weak SG position.
Rondo is the wild card here and frankly that is always the case with him in NBA DFS as the last three games we have seen him logging major minutes – 32, 35 and 35 while putting up 12 assists per game and dropping 44 and 47 fantasy points in two of his last three games. With Rondo the issue is always the minute you trust his production is the exact moment he lets you down and crushes your dreams but at his price point there is just too much upside to ignore and he makes for an elite correlation play with AD as part of a game stack here tonight.
NBA DFS – Pivot Game Stack:
I hesitate to call the Clippers and Nets a game stack mostly because it is nearly impossible to sort through a fully healthy Brooklyn roster but we have seen Kenny Atkinson willing to run his core starters – Russell, Dinwiddie, Crabbe and Carroll each for 30+ minutes a night over the last two games which is comforting with the return of Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Caris Levert.
The Nets are fairly priced around the industry so I would have no issue using them as secondary plays but their limited ceiling due to the minutes “cap” and deep rotation would only have me on them as part of a game stack here tonight.
The Clippers however are a spot I think you can build into your core with our without any Nets exposure as they gave the highest team total on the slate, in the fastest projected pace game while also seeing the largest point boost over their season average (8.5 pts). Basically every metric is screaming at you to use the Clippers here tonight and it all starts with DeAndre Jordan ($13.7K) and Lou Williams ($14.1K).
These two teams played just a few weeks back and not surprisingly it was DJ and Lou Will who led the way with 44 and 34 fantasy points for the Clippers. With Danilo Gallinari and Avery Bradley out for the forseeable future, the Clippers are basically leaning on Jordan and Williams for the majority of their fantasy production while guys like Tobias Harris and Austin Rivers sit as fringe secondary options.
No team in the NBA is giving up more fantasy points per game (52.5) to opposing Centers over the last 10 games than the Brooklyn Nets and Jordan is coming off a monster 19 point, 20 rebound, 55 fantasy point outing versus the Knicks so the upside is certainly there again this evening.
Speaking of the Knicks- keep an eye on the line-up news today as it appears changes could be coming to the starting line-up including a demotion for Michael Beasley.
Hornacek is considering a lineup change. He said it would be for defense (Maybe Lance for Beasley). https://t.co/v21y6Rh9X8
— Al Iannazzone (@Al_Iannazzone) March 4, 2018
The Knicks-Kings game could have some sneaky value, especially on the Kings side if Willie Cauley-Stein is out against which would make Skal Labissiere and Kosta Koufus elite value plays tonight. The issue is that this game starts 3 hours after lock so there is very real risk we will not have this news before we are forced to lock in our rosters!
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: Rajon Rondo ($6,400)
PG: Dennis Smith Jr. ($6,200)
SG: Lou Williams ($8,200)
SG: Jrue Holiday ($7,800)
SF: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist ($3,700)
SF: CJ Miles ($3,500)
PF: Anthony Davis ($12,300)
PF: Marvin Williams ($3,800)
C: DeAndre Jordan ($7,900)
Slate Overview: From a first look perspective, I am focusing the core of my build on the Pelicans/Mavericks and Clippers duo of Jordan/Lou Will and working in value as it unfolds prior to lock. Enjoy your Sunday and all the best of luck in taking down some big time NBA DFS paydays!
Next: Perfect Landing Spot for Kirk Cousins
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!