NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday March 5

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Sunday’s NBA DFS slate had some obvious suspects at the top of the fantasy leaderboard as Giannis Antetokounmpo (61) and Anthony Davis (54) were 1-2 in fantasy scoring on the night but it was really the punt plays that stood out to me on the night as we had three punt plays at low ownership that put up massive fantasy nights. Caris LeVert (48) and Kyle O’Quinn (39) have been known to put up big time games from time to time so there is at least some history to support their big games but nobody had a more surprising night than Cheick Diallo who went for 15 points, 13 rebounds and 40 fantasy points at minimum price! Diallo’s 23 minutes were by far his highest of the season and his production relative to his price point gave you a massive edge over the field on this NBA DFS slate!

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:

Happy Monday all – welcome to a nice little seven game slate that kicks off at 7PM EST this evening to get our work week and NBA DFS week started. We have a ton of injury news to jump into so let’s get started with our first look at this slate.

It may seem odd to start with the Grizzlies and Spurs on this slate as frankly you could make the argument this game is a total stay away as both teams see massive pace decreases, in fact they have the two largest pace decreases on the slate which considering their already slow pace makes this an ugly game to target.

Take a look at the Grizzlies injury report above and then add in the fact that the Spurs have listed LaMarcus Aldridge as questionable and an ugly game just got that much uglier. This is one of those spots where IF the injuries hold as outlined early in the day and both LMA and Marc Gasol are ruled out, then you have a situation where SOMEONE has to score fantasy points….right?

This could end up being the popular value spot on this slate as people try to rationalize using Kobi Simmons ($7.2K) or Wayne Selden Jr. ($7.6K) for value or will folks go back to Pau Gasol ($12.5K) after he dropped a 50 spot on the Lakers over the weekend on the back of 19 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists and 3 blocks.

These two teams played back in January in a game where Tyreke Evans and LMA both missed (so about the closest we can get to re-creating this game scenario) and not shockingly this was a slugfest with an ugly score of 108-85 as the Spurs outlasted Memphis. Seriously, Memphis scored 85 points and no single player had more than 31 fantasy points – yuck.

In that game, Pau Gasol went off for 14 points, 15 rebounds and 9 assists for 47 fantasy points in an almost identical line to what he put up on Saturday and if LMA were to be ruled out again then I would have no issue going right back to him in this spot. If you need a cheap guard play do not be afraid to use Manu Ginobili ($8.4K) who has hit value in back to back games with 26 and 27.5 fantasy points while sporting an impressive 39% and 23% usage rate in those games. Frankly outside of Pau and maybe Manu, this is a game I will likely let others sort through and if LMA were to play then I would probably just avoid it entirely and move on to better game environments.

NBA DFS – Core Games to Build Around:

If there is one consistent message that I try to hammer home in Picks and Pivots each day it is to try to simplify each slate into a core group of elite game environments that allows you to dig deeper into a smaller player pool rather than cast your net and try to capture every single viable option on the entire slate. Tonight may be the perfect example of that mentality as we have only 5 teams on the entire slate that see pace increases while a whopping 9 teams see pace decreases in their match-ups.

So rather than spend my time sorting through the Grizzlies/Spurs mess or other slow(er) paced games on the slate, why not spend my time (and yours) on Portland and the Lakers who play the late night hammer, an hour and a half later than any other game on the slate, with the fastest projected pace and highest game total by 5+ points?

Portland is perhaps the easiest team to sort through from an NBA DFS perspective as the decision to roster Damian Lillard ($18.3K) or CJ McCollum (14.4K) is really the only key choice you have to make. The reason I said OR instead of AND here is that we rarely see these two players correlate well where both have big time games so I would look to plant your flag with one player only from the Portland back-court. We saw last game where Lillard went ice-cold from the floor, shooting only 28% which left McCollum to shoulder the load offensively and drop a 50 fantasy point outing as the top dog in the back-court. If you are going to roll out multiple teams – I love the idea of mixing and matching these guards across line-ups to capture either game scenario tonight.

Dame is the player I would prefer to build around in a bounce back spot as he had put up 7 straight games of 30%+ usage prior to last game where he deferred to McCollum and in those 7 games he put up 50+ fantasy points five times including three games with 60+ fantasy points. On a night with LeBron and Giannis on the slate, I actually think Lillard could end the night as the highest fantasy point producer at a material discount off those two players.

The Lakers side of this game is really interesting to me as Brandon Ingram remains questionable to play tonight and with Josh Hart also out, this is a Lakers team that is seemingly set on a tight core rotation which is simply gold for NBA DFS purposes.

Last game against the Spurs, four of the five starters for LA played 33+ minutes while only Brook Lopez and Isaiah Thomas played more than 20 minutes meaning we had essentially a 6 man core rotation for the Lakers with Ingram out. I would have no issue going right back to a full on stack of the Lakers here (even though it is Portland that sees the bigger pace benefit) as the prices for all the Lakers remain reasonable and work well in correlation with Lillard at the point.

Lonzo Ball ($13.7K) and Julius Randle ($13.7K) would be the first two players into my line-up and on FanDuel we finally get Randle back at PF which is a great added bonus tonight if we want to spend our Center position on Pau Gasol! Ball is coming off a 53 fantasy point near triple-double in his last game and has now played 33 and 34 minutes in his last two games while Randle has put up 38 or more fantasy points in six straight games.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($11.3K) played 43 minutes last game, racking up 46 fantasy points and now has double-doubles in three of his last six games, putting up 45 or more fantasy points in each of those contests. At his price point and his SG eligibility on FanDuel, he makes for an easy plug and play across all formats assuming Ingram is out again. Speaking if Ingram being out, if he was forced to miss tonight’s game it would be Kyle Kuzma ($11.4K) who would draw the start in his place again after playing 33 minutes against the Spurs on Saturday.

Honestly I think you can make the case for all four Lakers starters here if they are all going to play 30+ minutes tonight in a shortened Lakers rotation and you can easily correlate it with Lillard or McCollum on the other side of the fastest pace game on the night!

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:

A team we used on Saturday night due to injuries in the Miami Heat looks like they could be short-handed again as Wayne Ellington and Tyler Johnson remain questionable to play tonight but it appears that Bam Adebayo will be back after a one game absence due to personal reasons.

The Heat get the best possible match-up on the board as they face off with the Phoenix Suns bottom ranked defense with the added benefit of facing them on a back to back.

I expect everyone and their mother to go right back to Goran Dragic tonight as they have the last two games and now you get the #RevengeNarrative to boot. I have faded Dragic the last two games and I will keep going on that train as he is priced entirely too high for a player without any real GPP upside. Without Ellington/TJ the spot should be one he crushes but this is a player who has only gone for over 50 fantasy points once in his last ten games – I am simply not paying $13.5K for him on FantasyDraft or $7.2K for him on FanDuel when he has not even cracked 40 fantasy points in either of his last two games playing 31 and 34 minutes with Ellington and TJ out.

Hassan Whiteside($14.4K) will likely be a popular option tonight as well but with Bam Adebayo back, Miami has options to run in the front court to limit his court time which makes him a risky GPP only option in my mind. People will look at the last time the Heat faced the Suns, see that Whiteside (48) and Dragic (45) both had great games and will likely just blindly click them into their line-ups tonight but I think there is very real merit to fading them, especially on FantasyDraft where the price on Whiteside requires 43 fantasy points just to pay off his salary, a number he has only hit twice in his last 10 games.

Instead of these two – I think you can get the best bank for your buck with James Johnson ($9.2K) who is insanely underpriced for a starting player against the Suns. Johnson put up 35 fantasy points in the earlier season match-up with the Suns and considering they rank dead last in DvP and Def-Eff against the PF position this would be an elite spot to target him here again tonight. Kelly Olynyk ($9K) rebounded nicely off the bench for Miami with 33 fantasy points in 23 minutes but keep in mind that Kelly O played back-up center with Bam out last game so with Adebayo back in the rotation the minutes are not nearly as secure for Olynyk.

On FanDuel, Josh Richardson continues to be a great mid-range SF option at only $6.4K as he has put up 35 or more fantasy points in three of his last five games and gets an elite pace-up spot against the Suns. If you are not paying up for LeBron or Giannis tonight, then using Richardson at the SF position is a great way to build your line-ups in the mid-range.

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: Damian Lillard ($9,400)

PG: Lonzo Ball ($7,300)

SG: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($6,400)

SG: Manu Ginobili ($4,600)

SF: Josh Richardson ($6,400)

SF: Kyle Anderson ($6,100)

PF: Kyle Kuzma ($5,600)

PF: Julius Randle ($7,500)

C: Pau Gasol ($6,600)

Slate Overview: As I mentioned, I think there is merit to simplifying this slate and focusing your core build on the Portland/Lakers game with some Miami heat exposure and IF LMA is ruled out, you go right back to Pau Gasol against the Grizzlies JV team. I honestly do not see myself changing much off this core today unless we get some crazy news as the price points are all so reasonable that you can easily stack up the players mentioned here and still lock in a stud like Damian Lillard without having to punt at any position.

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!