NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday March 15
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 all about Stars and Scrubs as the amount of value we had ona four game slate made for a wild roster construction and frankly this is what we should expect as we wind down the NBA season and “injuries” and rest days wreak havoc on the rotations around the NBA. Giannis Antetokounmpo was the top performer on the night with 68 fantasy points and significantly outperformed the chalk of the night in Kevin Durant who “only” went for 45 fantasy points against the Lakers. The pivot plays that really separated you in GPP’s were guys like Bradley Beal (62) and Nikola Vucevic (52) who put up huge nights alongside the only healthy Celtics player in Terry Rozier (51) and if you opted to pivot off the chalk KD and work these guys in, you had a massive edge over the field in tournaments.
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:
First off, welcome to one of, if not the best, sporting day(s) of the year as the NCAA Tournament kicks off today which is a sports fans dream. When you tack on that the Arnold Palmer Invitational starts today with all the Tiger Woods headlines and then you cap it off with a loaded NBA slate – this has the makings of a tremendous sports day and a great fantasy/DFS day here at Fantasy CPR as we have all the DFS Golf covered and all our bracket analysis and predictions to go along with our NBA DFS coverage.
Depending on which site you play on, tonight is one of those nights where FanDuel has kept locked at 7PM EST but FantasyDraft has opted to skip the Raptors and Pacers and start the slate at 7:30PM EST. I say this every time but if you aren’t taking advantage of these staggered start times to get yourself some action on FantasyDraft then you are missing out on a great chance to mix and match your exposure on different DFS sites.
Normally, I look at a slate and I try to isolate a few key game environments, especially on an 8-9 game slate but honestly I am not sure the “must have” spots exist tonight. We have a ton of solid game totals with no game under 212 and six of the nine games are 216 or higher while outside of a few pace outliers, most teams see a neutral to immaterial pace difference off their season average.
What this means for me at least initially is that I will likely look to isolate plays instead of honing in on one game environment but as we go through the slate you may find spots you want to go heavier on and other games you may simply want to cross off.
The first decision you will have to make tonight is what to do with the studs as we have three players priced over $20K on FantasyDraft with LeBron James, Anthony Davis and James Harden.
Anthony Davis is an interesting one to me as the game against the Spurs has massive playoff implications for both teams which as we wind down the season needs to be something you weigh heavily into your decision-making – get familiar with the standings and understand who needs to win and who is simply playing out the stretch – trust me, it’s the key to navigating the end of NBA DFS seasons!
As great as AD is right now, this is just not the spot to pay up for him as in his last two season he has put up the following fantasy totals against the Spurs – 32, 18, 43, 46, 50 and 48. The 48 point game happened just a few weeks back when The Brow was in the midst of breaking slates every night and I remember that was a shorter slate where I felt the risk was necessary to forcing him in but on a slate this large I honestly think there are better ways to spend your salary cap.
James Harden and the Rockets take on the Clippers in a game with the fastest projected pace and highest implied game total but also carries an 11 point spread. This game was a popular stacking spot the last time these two teams faced off after their locker room/tunnel brawl the previous meeting but frankly that stack fell flat as no player topped 45 fantasy points and in fact, not a single Clippers player even topped 35 fantasy points. Harden feels like a safe bet for 50 fantasy points here but with Chris Paul being ruled in for this game, I just think the upside is capped here and again I am finding myself looking to spend elsewhere.
LeBron James is coming off a monster triple double against the Suns and now will take on Portland as the Cavaliers remain locked into a jumbled Eastern Conference playoff picture as the 4 seed but only 4 games separates them from dropping down to the #8 spot where Miami is today. In the last two years, LeBron has failed to really put up eye popping numbers against Portland with 68 and 40 fantasy points last year and 55 fantasy points against them back in January of this season.
At first blush, I think you could argue all three players are solid targets but I am not seeing the need to force them in as the massive “must have” ceiling games do not appear to be in these game environments tonight. This never means they are bad plays – they are the best players on the slate for a reason, but I think tonight opting to pay down is the right roster approach.
NBA DFS – Is there a core build tonight?
I really am not sure that there is one spot or even a few mini-spots that you simply have to have tonight although I will say, the more I look at the Jazz-Suns game, the more I like it as a tournament stack.
First off, the Jazz right now are locked into a three-way tie with the Clippers and Spurs fo the final two spots of the Western Conference playoff picture and only one game ahead of the Nuggets so Utah simply needs to push their starters to win every game from here on out. The Jazz have handled the Suns the last two games with relative ease, winning by 30+ and 10 points and tonight this game has the largest spread (12) on the board so there is blowout risk but I think that will just serve to keep the ownership down here.
The Jazz, not surprisingly, see the largest pace increase on the slate and are expected to score nearly 10 points more than their season average so there is plenty to like against the Suns tonight especially when you consider the price points on Utah which feel far too cheap in my opinion.
Donovan Mitchell ($13.8K) has put up 59 and 36 fantasy points in his last two games against the Suns and his price points seem to be more reflective of his steady 30-35 fantasy points contributions in recent games and not reflective of the ceiling he has in this spot.
Ricky Rubio ($13.5K) has absolutely crushed in this spot in two previous meetings with 41 and 46 fantasy points and has flashed his upside recently with 54 fantasy points just two games ago against the Pelicans. Rubio is more of a GPP option normally but considering he only needs 37-40 fantasy points to hit value on FanDuel and FantasyDraft, there is actually a case to be made he can be locked into cash game lineups too considering his production versus Phoenix this season.
Rudy Gobert ($16.1K and $9.5K) is the one Jazz player that is priced up across the sites but his recent run of production warrants the pricing as he has put up 40+ fantasy points in six of his last seven games including one game each in that stretch with 50+ and 60+ fantasy points. Gobert has performed well against the Suns this season with 35, 36 and 46 fantasy points in three meetings but what you are really paying for here tonight is the combination of match-up and recent production.
Last but not least is my man Jinglin Joe – Joe Ingles ($12.6K) – who comes into this game as one of the steadiest performers on the Jazz in recent games, averaging over 37 fantasy points per game in his last five outings.
What I really like about the Jazz here tonight is that their core starting unit, with the exception of Derrick Favors, seems to be locked into 30+ minutes a night regardless of the score. Take a look back at the game against Memphis where they won by 17 against the Grizzlies and were comfortably ahead the entire game but all four core starters all logged 30-35 minutes and you can see why I am less concerned with the potential blowout risk in this game.
If you are going to stack up the core four from the Jazz, I think running it back with the Suns in tournaments makes a ton of sense on this slate in the hope this game stays much closer than the spread indicates. The Suns have all gotten the Jazz discount as well which allows you to target guys at lower prices than usual including Devin Booker ($13.6K and $7.5K) who although he has been held between 35-40 fantasy points in each of his three previous meetings with the Jazz, has the sheer volume upside that could crush a price point like this. Game log watchers will see a string of 20-30 fantasy point outings combined with the match-up and will likely look in other directions but this is a player who has put up 20+ FGA in eight of his last ten games and has the ability on any given slate to put up 50-60 fantasy points which you can simply not say for players priced in similar spots.
The Suns went small last game versus Cleveland, putting Josh Jackson ($10.7K) into the starting line-up along side T.J. Warren ($11.8K) but tonight against Gobert I think they will be forced to play a bit more traditional with Tyson Chandler and Alex Len in the front court. That does not mean however that the Suns wings are out of play here as they should both play 30+ minutes in this match-up and are priced fairly across the industry.
Elfrid Payton is the one guy here that makes for a VERY interesting tournament option, especially on FanDuel where we have to play two PG’s. Elf has seen his minutes drop in each of his last five games (under 30 in all five) and his production has followed with four games under 25 fantasy points in a row. The game log watchers and the match-up are going to put Elf at essentially no ownership which is exactly when you want to take a GPP shot on a guy like him who has put up 48 and 52 points in recent games which give him upside that far outpace his price point, albeit with a SCARY floor.
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: Ricky Rubio ($7,400)
PG: Elfrid Payton ($6,400)
SG: Donovan Mitchell ($8,200)
SG: Devin Booker ($7,500)
SF: Joe Ingles ($6,600)
SF: T.J. Warren ($6,500)
PF: Noah Vonleh ($3,600)
PF: Marvin Williams ($4,000)
C: Rudy Gobert ($9,500)
Slate Overview: As we head down the stretch in NBA DFS, I find myself focused more on GPP dart throws than playing a GPP/Cash game balance and the closer we get to the end of March, the more that will become the case. The late scratches/rest/injuries are going to simply wreak havoc on line-ups so my goal is to focus more on tournament plays and mixing and matching game stacks. This slate tonight has no real clear-cut spot to build around although I think the Rockets/Clippers and Cavaliers/Portland will be the more popular places to stack (if people opt to go that route). Enjoy your NBA DFS action and all the NCAA tournament games over the next 48 hours – it’s the best time of the year!
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!