NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday March 9
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.
Thursday’s NBA DFS slate seemed relatively straightforward up until about 15 minutes before lock when the game of the night, Thunder and Suns, announced that TJ Warren would miss the game which vaulted Josh Jackson into the starting line-up and an immediate elite play. Unfortunately, Jackson got hurt in the first half and never returned and without Warren AND Jackson, this game turned into a blowout which capped the upside from Russell Westbrook as he was able to rest the entire fourth quarter with OKC up by more than 20 points. The Spurs and Warriors late night hammer was where the money was made as Kevin Durant (67), LaMarcus Aldridge (58) and Draymond Green (54) were the top three fantasy scorers on the night.
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:
If you want to know where to start on this slate, simply take a scroll through the injury list as there are an overwhelming number of players expected to miss tonight which will open up significant value across the slate and increase the fantasy value of the healthy players remaining on the roster.
The biggest star in NBA DFS right now is Anthony Davis who underwent an MRI yesterday on his sprained ankle and is doubtful to play tonight for the Pelicans against the Wizards. Without DeMarcus Cousins and AD on the court this season the entire Pelicans offense falls to Jrue Holiday ($15.7K, $8.5K) who sees an 11% usage bump and a massive 29% bump in his fantasy point per minute production as he leads the team with a 35.4% usage rate and 1.42 FP/M. Holiday is coming off a stretch of three games where he has put up 45 or more fantasy points in each contest and in a contest with the second projected fastest pace, this should be a game environment that Holiday thrives in.
Holiday is not the only player that will see a big bump as Nikola Mirotic ($13.4K) sees a 7% usage bump while his fantasy point per minute production increases by 16%. Mirotic is second on the team in both usage rate and FP/M with Boogie/Brow off the court and makes for a great addition to a mini-stack with Holiday as you can essentially capture the entirety of the Pelicans usage and fantasy production tonight with these two players that are priced reasonably considering the massive usage bumps coming their way.
If you need a value play you can absolutely look the way of E’Twaun Moore ($9.1K) who will be an underrated beneficiary of the injury to AD as he sees a 9% usage increase with Boogie/Brow off the floor and a 34% increase in his fantasy point per minute production. Without the two bigs on the floor, Moore is a FP/M player and on FanDuel especially where he is priced under $5K at SF he is one of my favorite salary savings options on this slate and may be glossed over with other players at the same price point we will touch on later.
The one player that I would look to avoid in this game tonight is Rajon Rondo ($13.4K) as a player that is already a low usage guy that depends on peripheral stats to hit value and now loses the big men which he correlates so well with. Rondo has actually put up a very solid 1.3 FP/M this year with Boogie and Brow out but the price point on Rondo is way too high when you consider the likely dip in his assists totals which drive his fantasy ceiling.
Going into this slate initially my expectation was that Holiday/Mirotic would be the chalk due to the AD injury and everyone jumping on the price points which have failed to account for their larger roles but with other major injuries on last night’s slate they may actually be secondary news tonight. Either way I think this is a situation where you simply lock them in and on FanDuel especially you can look to Moore as a salary saving option at the SF position.
NBA DFS – Core Build:
If there is one thing that can turn a slate on its head it is having late night injury news that the sites cannot react to as their pricing for the next day has already been released and with the injury to Stephen Curry last night that will keep him out a few days, it officially makes tonight Kevin Durant ($16.2K, $9.8K) night in NBA DFS as his price point is just flat-out too low with Curry off the court.
On the season, KD is averaging well over 50 fantasy points per game with Curry out as he sees a 5% usage bump, leading the team with a 35% usage rate while putting up 1.45 FP/M. We saw the upside last night when Curry left after only two minutes as KD dominated the usage (34.5%) and racked up 65 fantasy points against the Spurs. With the price point for Durant assuming Curry is active this is a simple price enforcement play where you lock in KD and simply move on to the next spot on your roster. Durant just dropped 70 fantasy points on this same Portland team just a few weeks back and went for 51 fantasy points earlier this season in a game where Curry was out so you are looking at a player with a 50 point floor which makes him a cash game lock at this price while having massive GPP upside.
Speaking of under-priced players – Draymond Green ($14.2K, $7.7K) is coming off a 53 fantasy point triple-double last night and dropped 59 fantasy points against this same Portland team in their previous match-up. You can certainly make the case for Klay Thompson as well but honestly I worry about using a jump-shooter on a back to back especially when you consider Klay’s price ($12.7K and $6.5K) and his lack of upside as he has only gone over 40 fantasy points once in his last 10 games. For my money, KD and Draymond become a lock and load pairing tonight against Portland as their price points give them exceptionally safe cash game floors with 50+ fantasy point upside to help you win a GPP.
We do not say this often but the Warriors may have some sneaky value tonight as a result of all their injuries. Obviously we have the injury to Curry but it is worth noting that Golden State is operating with a depleted bench as Jordan Bell, Andre Igoudala, David West and Patrick McCaw are all out. It is certainly possible someone like Igoudala makes a return tonight to help a short-handed Warriors squad but with them playing on a back to back, it would seem aggressive to rush back any of these key benhc players for a regular season game.
Quinn Cook got the start for Curry in the second half but the player I want is Shaun Livingston as it was Livingston and not Cook getting the PG run in the 4th quarter and he responded last night with 9 points, 7 rebounds and 7 assists for 29 fantasy points at minimum price on FanDuel and FantasyDraft makes him an elite punt play tonight.
If you take Curry and all the injured bench guys off the court this year, in a limited sample size it is interesting to note that Livingston has put up over a FP/M of production while seeing a 7% usage bump so do not be afraid to roll him out tonight. Truth be told, you can even go back to someone like Nick Young ($3.5K on FanDuel and $6.2K on FantasyDraft) assuming Iggy is out again as Swaggy logged 26 minutes of court time and was able to deliver 18 fantasy points which would be more than enough to hit value at his punt price.
With so much focus on the Warriors side, I am not going to overlook running this back with Damian Lillard ($17K, $9.7K) who has put up 53 and 62 fantasy points in two previous meetings with Golden State this season. I would expect Lillard will be popular tonight not just because of the match-up but with KD being the chalk it makes sense for you to correlate with Lillard in hope this game becomes a shootout. With Portland-Golden State at a 228 total and a four point spread, Vegas certainly thinks this is a game that will be high scoring and close so the metrics support the correlation stack of Dame and the Golden State stars.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
With all of my initial focus on Durant-Draymond-Lillard and Holiday-Mirotic, it means I am going to need value and like a gift from the heavens, the Orlando Magic came calling! Orlando has already ruled out Aaron Gordon AND Evan Fournier tonight while D.J. Augustin is questionable to play against the Kings. Yes the Kings – one of the worst defensive teams in the NBA and we get to attack a short-handed Magic squad with all sorts of usage and fantasy production up for grabs!
With Gordon and Fournier off the court this season there are two major beneficiaries (outside of the obvious Nikola Vucevic) as Jonathan Simmons ($9.1K) and Mario Hezonja ($8.2K) both become elite value plays on this slate.
Vucevic is perhaps the biggest beneficiary when you take AG, Fournier and Elf Payton off the court as he sees a near 10% usage bump but it is Simmons in a much larger sample size that sees a 8% usage boost and sports a 30% usage rate with just under a FP/M of production.
Gordon just missed 9 games in February/January and although Fournier played in all of those we can still get a good feel for how the injury here impact Simmons and Hezonja. Hezonja was really the player that saw the biggest boost with Gordon out during that stretch as he averaged over 32 fantasy points per game and would likely draw the start tonight in place of the Magic PF.
Simmons is already locked into a starting role so while I don’t expect a significant change in his minutes, I fully expect a boost in his fantasy production with the added usage with both players off the court. Both of these players are under $5k on FanDuel at the SF position so mixing and matching Durant and one of these Magic guys will be a popular pairing – also why I said I think E’Twaun Moore could get over-looked.
Lastly, keep an eye on the injury to Augustin as if he were forced to miss this game tonight it would put Shelvin Mack in the starting line-up and give us an interesting pivot off someone like Shaun Livingston.
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 ($9,700)
PG: Shelvin Mack ($3,700)
SG: Jrue Holiday ($8,500)
SG: Nick Young ($3,500)
SF: Kevin Durant ($9,800)
SF: Mario Hezonja ($4,300)
PF: Draymond Green ($7,700)
PF: Nikola Mirotic ($6,700)
C: Jusuf Nurkic ($6,000)
Slate Overview: Holy injuries. This slate is simply broken open by all the injury news and you absolutely need to take advantage of the pricing tonight even if it means eating a bit of the chalk. With Curry and AD out, it just opens up too much production for the price points of guys like KD, Draymond, Jrue and Mirotic and you can easily find the salary to correlate with a guy like Lillard. The value in Orlando just makes this all fit so nicely as we can lock in guys like Simmons/Hezonja at SF and utilize Shelvin Mack as a pivot at PG over Livingston if Augustin is indeed ruled out. I know I say this all the time but sometimes breaking this slates into a core set of teams can make your roster build and process that much simpler and tonight I think is one of those nights where you limit your focus on Golden State/Portland and the New Orleans/Orlando players and you can build a roster that is ideal for cash games with massive GPP upside.
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.