NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday March 17
Welcome to the Saturday 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.
Friday’s NBA DFS slate was littered with injuries and value galore with Russell Westbrook as the sole stud to pay up for and although he was solid with 45 fantasy points, he was only the 9th highest scorer on the slate. Proving that narratives once again are more important than math or analytics, birthday boy Joel Embiid put up a slate leading 61 fantasy points and his teammate Ben Simmons at 55 was right behind him while a correlation with Rondae Hollis-Jefferson (45) was able to capture 3 of the top 8 performers 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:
We have a loaded ten game NBA DFS slate on this Saturday Night and as I always do on slates of this size, my goal is to try to narrow down the player pool to a core set of elite game environments. Of the 20 teams in action tonight, all but four of them see a neutral or pace decrease tonight so it may be easier to cross games/teams off our player pool than it normally would be on a slate of this size.
Let’s start with the best game on the board and the one I think your roster build decisions will need to start with tonight as the Rockets and Pelicans take the court for the third time this season. It should not shock anyone that this game has the highest total on the board at 227 (7 pt spread) and has the second fastest projected pace on the slate.
To me it all starts with how you intend to attack the “Core Four” here with James Harden ($20.9K), Chris Paul ($14.8K), Anthony Davis ($20.2K) and Jrue Holiday ($15.2K) as the top plays from this elite game environment.
In the previous two meetings between these squads – the top four players have put up the following fantasy point totals:
- Jrue Holiday – 62 and 39
- Anthony Davis – 62
- James Harden – 68 and 50
- Chris Paul – 50 and 57
Over those 7 games (keeping in mind that both included DeMarcus Cousins for the Pelicans), the average score per player was 55 fantasy points so let’s play this out. If you assume “average” games for these four tonight you are basically starting your build with 220 fantasy points if you lock in the “Core Four” but it is going to mean some sacrifices on the rest of your roster. On FantasyDraft you would only have $7.2K per player for the other 4 spots on your roster while on FanDuel you would have only $3.7K for the remaining 5 spots.
My goal is to stack these four tonight and I think as we break down the slate we will find ample value exists to make this roster build work with relative ease.
NBA DFS – Value Plays…..Everywhere:
Ahh late season NBA where it feels like a Stars and Scrubs build is available to you every single night. The key as we head down the stretch here is separating good value from bad value and how it plays into the slate – for example, tonight with a clear elite spot to stack 4 studs in NO/Houston this would set up perfectly to utilize the value based off what it affords the rest of our roster construction.
The Warriors are officially in “get healthy for the playoffs” mode as they will be without Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant again tonight and oh boy, they get the Phoenix Suns. If there was ever a spot to roll out the value, it would be in the fastest pace game environment against a Suns team ranked 28th in Def-Eff over the last 15 games.
Not only will they be without the Big Three tonight, but they also lost Omri Casspi last night to an ankle injury which means an already think Warriors squad gets that much thinner tonight.
Quinn Cook ($6.6K) and Nick Young ($8.6K) look to be the key beneficiaries of this short-handed attack as they combined for 28 shot attempts against the Kings which was 35% of the total GS offense and both would seem to be in amazing spots again tonight against the Suns. On FantasyDraft you can use both due to the position flexibility but on FanDuel, rostering Young would require you to move away from either Harden or Jrue so he is probably more of a secondary play in that format.
In looking at how the Warriors closed last night versus the Kings, it was interesting to me that it was Kevon Looney ($6.4K) who was on the floor over the last 6 minutes and not starter Zaza Pachulia. Looney has played well over his last two games with 20 and 30 fantasy points, logging 19 and 25 minutes so there is a path to him exceeding value again here as an elite punt play tonight.
On the Suns side, Alex Len ($7.3K) could once again draw the start with Tyson Chandler nursing an injury and he makes for an elite value play on FanDuel at under $4K.
Kris Dunn will be out tomorrow, along with Lauri Markkanen. Zach LaVine will be a game time decision with tendinitis. Skeleton crew against Cavs, perhaps
— Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill) March 16, 2018
The other spot to look for value on this slate will be in Chicago as the Bulls will be without Kris Dunn, Lauri Markanen and perhaps Zach LaVine versus the Cavaliers. First, this looks like a spot to flat-out avoid LeBron James as this game could be over by halftime and with the other studs in NO/HOU, I would rather pay up for guys like Harden/Brow in a game that should be close throughout.
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In addition to the injuries noted above, it looks like Noah Vonleh is now questionable as well which is a shame considering he played 33 minutes and racked up 7 points and 10 rebounds in his last game versus Memphis.
Antonio Blakeney could be an interesting pivot off Quinn Cook tonight if he draws the start after playing 21 and 24 minutes off the bench the last two games but for the most part this looks to be a spot where we wait and see how the Bulls intend to line-up. Could we see Robin Lopez and Justin Holiday re-enter the rotation? In theory the value should be there for the Bulls, but the rotation is just not reliable enough to anchor to this spot tonight and I would only utilize them as pivots off the Warriors value tonight.
One last spot to look tonight is in Brooklyn, especially if Joe Harris draws another start for the Nets as he did last night with Allen Crabbe ruled out and we also saw Dante Cunningham leave the game with an injury versus the Sixers. Harris played 35 minutes and put up over 20 fantasy points last night at near minimum price and especially on FanDuel where he is $3.7K at SF, he makes for an elite punt play within a Stars/Scrubs build.
Slate Overview: So where does this slate leave us – as I mentioned, if you want to stack Davis/Jrue with Harden/CP3 you are going to need a roster full of punts on both FantasyDraft and FanDuel but I think that path exists primarily through the Warriors and Suns and you can use potential pieces from the Bulls and/or Nets as well.
With starting players locked into major minutes like Quinn Cook, Alex Len, Kevon Looney and Joe Harris, you can plug-in four players at near minimum price across the industry to work in perfectly around a Core Four stud build.
Again, on slates this large my goal is always to isolate the handful of game environments I want to focus on and in my mind that starts with New Orleans and Houston. With all the value in Golden State against the Suns, the build just seems to work and in my mind can be used in both cash and tournaments tonight.
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft and FanDuel tonight and stay tuned to all the latest DFS news and analysis on Fantasy CPR.