NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday March 8
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 was dominated by two studs facing off in Denver as LeBron James (68.5) and Nikola Jokic (61) were the two highest fantasy point performers on the night. The rest of the 50+ fantasy point club was completed by a pair of teammates as Kyle Lowry (56.75) and DeMar DeRozan (56.5) used an extra frame to pad their stats while Aaron Gordon (52.5) and Nikola Vucevic (53.5) each had massive games against the Lakers.
The one name I expected to see on this list was Anthony Davis (38.5) who helped the Pelicans jump out to a 20 point lead on the Kings and with 3 minutes left in the third quarter when he came up limping from a collision with Kosta Koufus, it sent him to the showers early in a game the Pelicans had easily in hand.
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 Thursday’s NBA DFS slate which kicks off at 7PM EST with five basketball games that include two games with double-digit spreads while half the teams on the slate see a projected pace decrease.
One of those games with a double-digit spread is the Spurs and Warriors in a game we already know that San Antonio will be without Pau Gasol due to a shoulder injury he suffered in his last game. If we take Gasol and Kawhi Leonard of the court this season, it is interesting to note that not a single Spurs player sees more than a 2% usage boost and only three players are averaging over a fantasy point per minute.
LaMarcus Aldridge ($14.1K on FantasyDraft, $8.2K on FanDuel) is fairly priced across the industry and it should surprise no-one that he leads the team with a 32% usage while putting up 1.23 FP/M with Gasol/Kawhi off the court this year. Gasol has missed four games this season and LMA has had some up and down affairs including a 43 and 51 fantasy point outing balanced out by a 12 and 22 fantasy point dud.
LMA has played two solid games against Golden State this season with 49 and 38 fantasy points so at this price point I would argue that he is a fine cash game option but would probably look to spend elsewhere on this slate unless I am building some sort of game stack here.
Interestingly enough it has been Kyle Anderson ($10.3K, $6.2K) that has really stepped up in these games with the Warriors as he has put up 41 and 44 fantasy points in his two previous games against them. Considering these totals represent two of his three biggest fantasy outings this year, I would hesitate to make him a core play but if you are looking for a last man in at SF, there is obvious upside here in a match-up he has been successful in already including last season when he played 32 minutes and dropped 35 fantasy points.
The one play I have a lot of interest in, especially on FanDuel, is Davis Bertans ($4.4K) as he will likely draw the start for Pau Gasol tonight after putting up 25 fantasy points in 31 minutes against Golden State the last time out. In the four games that Gasol has missed this year, Bertans has gone for 20+ fantasy points in two games and has hit that mark in each of his last three games.
On the Warriors side of this game I will likely avoid all the usual studs but there could be some interesting value off the bench tonight for Golden State.
Injury report for tomorrow's game vs. San Antonio: Andre Iguodala (left wrist sprain) & David West (right arm cyst) are doubtful. Jordan Bell (right ankle sprain) & Patrick McCaw (non-displaced fracture, left wrist) are out.
— Warriors PR (@WarriorsPR) March 7, 2018
The injury to Andre Igoudala is the one that really stands out here as you are now taking 25+ minutes out of the Warriors rotation from their 6th man in addition to the 15 minutes you were getting every night from David West. Now it is certainly possible that these minutes just get spread around among the starters but these guys are already playing 35+ minutes a night and there is blowout risk here with an 11 point spread as Golden State is at home.
In the games that Iggy missed earlier this year it was typically Patrick McCaw that picked up on his 20+ minutes but he is also out this game so your bench options tonight look like Kevin Looney, Shaun Livingston and Nick Young.
All three of these players logged 15 minutes off the bench last game (in a game where Igoudala played 26 minutes) so it is possible that all three players see 20 minutes or so here tonight. All three players are near the stone minimum on a site like FantasyDraft, where pure punts become near impossible to find, so there is merit to using the few Warriors reserves as salary saving options here tonight.
Young is my favorite of the three just because we know he has the upside to absolutely crush his price point if he is hot as we have seen him go for 20+ fantasy points in 3 of his last 8 games. Looney and Livingston are guys you are simply hoping can scratch and claw their way to value but if forced to choose I would utilize Looney as his .8 FP/M is superior to Livingston’s .73 FP/M mark and with Bell/West out I think Looney has the clearer path to a boost in playing time.
NBA DFS – Core Build:
If there is one must have spot for me on this slate it is Russell Westbrook ($22.3K, $12K) in the absolute best possible match-up against a Phoenix Suns team he just dropped 43 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists and 76.5 fantasy points against.
The Thunder see a massive pace boost tonight in the projected fastest pace game of the evening and are expected to score a whopping 12.7 points higher than their season average. Go ahead and tell me the price is too high or there is blowout risk with a 10 point spread and I’ll just hang my hat on the fact that I will likely have the player with the highest raw point ceiling as player #1 in my line-up.
Westbrook owns this match-up especially against Elfrid Payton as here are his last four fantasy totals against the Suns PG – 76, 68, 91 and 78 – for an average game of 78 fantasy points which would return 3.5x on FantasyDraft and 6.5x on FanDuel. No really, go ahead and tell me the price is too high and I will tell you it is not high enough as an AVERAGE game for Westbrook in this spot crushes tournament value. Just. Play. Him.
Now for every reason Westbrook excels in this fast paced match-up, it seems like Elfrid Payton ($13.5K) has had a similar run of success with 51, 47 and 54 fantasy points in three of his last four outings against the Thunder star including an 18 point, 10 rebound, 8 assist near triple double just a few days ago! I love the idea of stacking these two point guards in a game that should be a track meet as you could capture ceiling games from both players here tonight!
If you are stacking this game tonight then you simply need to run it back with Devin Booker ($16.2K) as without Andre Roberson, this is a defense we can exploit at SG as Booker just showed when he dropped 61 fantasy points against OKC just a few days ago.
With Tyson Chandler back in the starting line-up, Alex Len‘s value has plummeted as he has only played 14 minutes in this last two games but I would not overlook Dragan Bender ($7.9K, $3.9K) who has played 30+ minutes in each of his last four games, hitting value in three of his last five games with between 22-26 fantasy points in those outings.
The way I would approach this game is to lock in Westbrook and run it back with Elfrid and Booker while using a value piece like Bender to help open up salary. Obviously there are other solid pieces here, especially on the OKC side but all you need to do is look back at the last meeting between these two where Westbrook dominated the usage (35%) to understand how difficult it is for guys like Paul George/Carmelo Anthony to reach their ceiling when Westbrook is playing at his peak level.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
With the two highest scoring games on the slate (Suns/OKC and GS/SA) also having double-digit spreads there is some merit to building your core game stack around the third highest projected scoring game and second fastest projected pace spot with the Hornets and Nets which has a 218 total and 7 point spread.
This game just happened at the end of February and we saw Dwight Howard ($15.2K, $8.4K) destroy this Nets interior to the tune of 15 points, 24 rebounds and 48 fantasy points. Over the last 10 games, the Nets are giving up a whopping 57 FantasyDraft points to opposing Centers so there is simply massive upside here for Dwight as my top Center play on the board.
On the other side of this game, I love the idea of running it back with D’Angelo Russell ($12.4K) who has gone for 40+ fantasy points in each of the last three games in which has logged 30 or more minutes.
The Nets are actually a pretty interesting DFS team to target as a secondary spot as they have landed on a consistent 9 man rotation where almost every player seems to be playing 25 minutes. On one hand this caps the upside for some of the players but it also provides some sneaky consistent value for the mid-tier plays like Allen Crabbe ($4.8K on FanDuel), Joe Harris ($3.8K) or Dante Cunningham ($3.7K).
Cunningham was out of his mind the first time these two teams played as he went off for 22 points, 12 rebounds and 45 fantasy point and its safe to say – do not chase that game expecting similar performance. However what that game (and the games since then show me), you can mix and match these Nets secondary pieces into your roster and lock in the 20-25 minutes with the ability for these punt plays to hit/exceed value on any given night.
You can almost make the exact same argument for the Hornets side of this game at the same price points as guys like Jeremy Lamb ($4.7K), Michael Kidd-Gilchrist ($3.7K), Frank Kaminsky ($4.3K) and Marvin Williams ($4.1K) allow you to fill in your roster with secondary pieces on the cheap which opens up spend in other spots.
In the first meeting between these two teams, all four of these Hornets players went for between 16-22 fantasy points so I really think mixing and matching the Nets/Hornets SF/PF value is a great way to fill in your roster and build off a Howard/Russell mini game stack.
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: Russell Westbrook ($12,000)
PG: Elfrid Payton ($7,300)
SG: Devin Booker ($8,200)
SG: D’Angelo Russell ($7,400)
SF: Allen Crabbe ($4,800)
SF: Michael Kidd-Gilchrist ($3,700)
PF: Dragan Bender ($3,900)
PF: Frank Kaminsky ($4,300)
C: Dwight Howard ($8,400)
Slate Overview: Click in Russell Westbrook first. No go ahead and do that – I will wait.
This slate to me starts with the Westbrook/Elfrid/Booker in all formats and I love the idea of pairing that mini stack with a Nets-Hornets game stack as you can easily fit in 1-2 top end plays from that game while mixing and matching the secondary value around them.
Next: Valspar Championship DFS Golf Preview
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel tonight and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!