NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday March 23

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 was basically exactly what you can and should expect from late season daily fantasy basketball as we saw Kemba Walker drop 62 fantasy points as the leading producer on the night with the Hornets winning by 61 points over Memphis – that is not a typo. Wily Hernangomez drew the spot start for Dwight Howard and was nearly 90% owned in cash games but in this case eating the chalk worked out and then some as the Hornets big man dropped 33 FP which simply crushed his near minimum price point across the industry,

Last but not least was the LATE news (nearly two hours after lock) that Hawks point guard Dennis Schroder would be rested versus the Kings. Couple thoughts here – first, why in the world was Schroder over 50% owned in basically every contest I was in? I mean listen, I am not complaining since I had 0 shares but what in the world drove ownership THAT high? Secondly and most importantly – this is the risk you take every single slate rostering players with nothing to play for. It is just that simple.

I know the Utah Jazz weren’t a “sexy” team to target yesterday but this was a team that absolutely HAD to win and I got guys like Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell and Joe Ingles at single digit ownership across the board last night and you know what they did – each put up between 42-44 fantasy points. I will keep hammering this point home, but there is merit to simply playing the guys with something to play for.

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.

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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:

Friday night’s NBA DFS slate kicks off at 7PM EST with the Nuggets/Wizards and Clippers/Pacers – two really solid games with playoff implications – which you can play if you are want to jump into the FanDuel Main Slate but on FantasyDraft they have opted to start at 7:30PM EST which eliminates those two games and turns this into a more manageable 8 game slate.

You know my thoughts by now – I love the staggered start on FantasyDraft especially if you play other sites as this gives you extra time to finalize your rosters there and frankly any time we can cut down a slate of 10 games into something more manageable I am all for it as you can better focus on a slimmer player pool to build around.

The big news tonight is that Giannis Antetokounmpo is doubtful to play against the Bulls and with the Bucks clinging to the #8 spot in the playoffs right now, you get the double whammy of a whole lot of open usage/fantasy production while still targeting a team that needs to win now.

Even with Giannis likely out, the Bucks have the largest projected point boost (5 points more than their season average) which says more about the Bulls these days than anything else. Remember this is a team that was down 30+ points in the Third Quarter to the Nuggets after giving up 100+ points with three minutes still left to play in the third.

So what does this mean for NBA DFS? After getting burned to an extent by the blowout in this spot with Denver the other night I do want to point out the risk but it is interesting to note that Vegas has this game set with only a 5 point spread so maybe we can get 4 quarters of run from the remaining Bucks!

If you take Giannis, Malcolm Brogdon and Matthew Dellavedova off the court this season you are essentially left with a three-headed monster that I would argue should become your core tonight. Eric Bledsoe ($15.2K), Khris Middleton ($14.9K), and Jabari Parker ($10.3K) rank 1-2-3 in terms of usage in this scenario with all three sporting a 25%+ usage rate with Bledsoe leading the team over 30% while also leading the squad with 1.21 FP/M.

Every single one of this trio sees a 2-3% usage bump while all putting up over a FP/M of production and I would expect them to all start tonight as we saw Parker specifically joined the starting line-up for the Bucks last game with Giannis out in the second half. In fact, Parker played essentially the entire second half versus the Clippers playing all but a short 3 minute breather at the end of the third so it would appear they are going to take the training wheels off and let him go with Giannis out of the line-up.

Giannis has not missed many games this season but when he has, the production for the remaining players has been through the roof especially in the case of Middleton/Bledsoe.

• Khris Middleton – 4 games without Giannis – 46, 51, 55 and 65 FP
• Eric Bledsoe – 4 games without Giannis – 30, 34, 44 and 47 FP

If you look at the game logs, you are basically investing in three guys who were already putting up 35-45 FP/game in recent outings and now they face a Bulls team ranked 29th in Def-Eff with all the Giannis usage and fantasy production open. The ownership will be high but I think fading it is a mistake tonight and I plan to have every single one of these guys in my core build tonight!

NBA DFS – Core Builds:

You could argue, and probably pretty easily, that the three Bucks starters should be the core build tonight on any and all format especially on FantasyDraft where we lose the opportunity the roster other playoff needy teams in the Nuggets/Clippers who play in the 7PM EST games.

Finding that “other spot” is honestly not easy on this slate as we have a docket of games that looks to be full of minefields with blowouts and bad teams galore. The Cavaliers get the dream match-up at home against the Suns but with Devin Booker AND T.J. Warren unlikely to play how competitive is this going really going to be?

It looks like Stephen Curry ($18.8K) will be back for the Warriors tonight while Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Kevin Durant all remain out which would seem like a spot to go all in on Curry but then we realize they play the Hawks. It should not shock anyone that the Warriors have the second highest team total on the slate and with only a 9.5 spread this game should stay closer with the other big Warriors stars sitting out but the question is really whether or not Curry sees any minutes limitations in his first game back from the ankle injury.

On the surface I really want to lock in Curry here as the metrics are absolutely screaming at you to do so. Over the last two years with Green, Klay and KD off the court, Curry has a 39% usage rate while putting up 1.72 FP/M which would equate to over 62 FP in 36 minutes of court time. Really the decision here is not about the usage bump or the match-up as the Hawks rank 28th in Def-Eff as a team this season – it really is all about the minutes for Curry and as long as he gets his normal minutes this becomes a REALLY hard spot for me to fade tonight.

The return of Curry should kill the short-lived value of Quinn Cook but I do think we can still go back to Nick Young ($9K) who should continue to start in place of Klay Thompson and with his 30-40 minutes of court time without Kent Bazemore defense on the other side, we could see a massive scoring output from one of the better value plays on the board. Swaggy has put up 10, 13, 13 and 15 FGA in his last four games and even with Curry back he is going to be asked to be the next best offensive option on the court in an elite match-up against a bad Hawks defense.

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:

The one game that stands out as having playoff implications for both teams involved is the Heat and Thunder and Miami in the 7 spot and OKC in the 5 hole are fighting for playoff positioning so this could be an interesting game to stack or pick off pieces from teams we know are still fighting to win.

Russell Westbrook ($21.5K) is the obvious best play from this game but I think I would rather drop down and take Paul George ($13.7K) who comes into this game with 45+ fantasy points in two of his last three outings. Steven Adams ($12.5K) also gets a sneaky good match-up here as he has 42 and 52 points in two of his last three games and will take on a Heat team giving up the second most fantasy points per game to opposing Centers over the last five games.

Take a look back at recent games versus Miami where Enes Kanter (49), Nikola Jokic (54), Julius Randle (44), Willie Cauley-Stein (38) and Jusuf Nurkic (57) have all destroyed the Heat inside and I think we have a massive ceiling opportunity from the Thunder big man who may not be highly owned.

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The Heat side is a bit more difficult just due to the fact that their rotations lately are SO wide when you compare them to a team like the Thunder that is basically playing their five starters 35+ minutes a night. The Heat are running and 8-9 man rotation each night and although the production in recent games from guys like Kelly Olynyk and James Johnson has been good, the volatility/inconsistency make this a team I would use in GPP’s more than core plays or in cash games. The one interesting note, the Thunder are giving up the second most FP/G to SG’s over the last five games so taking a shot on some of the value guards like Tyler Johnson and/or Wayne Ellington could be an inexpensive way to get exposure to this game.

Speaking of games with playoff implications – the Jazz and Spurs, locked into the 6th and 8th seeds in the Western Conference, are going to be COMPLETELY ignored tonight as who in the world is going to play these two slow-paced teams on a ten game slate. Well, just like last night, I think you can make a strong case to build around this game and get core plays, locked into big minutes in a meaningful game at low low ownership.

I have no issue going right back to the Jazz core four starters  – Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Ricky Rubio and Joe Ingles – who are all priced in the same $12-$14K range and should be locked into 35 minutes each again tonight as they are seemingly every other night. The ownership on these guys was essentially non-existent last night and on a back to back against the Spurs my guess it is a fraction of that tonight but remember that every single one of these guys put up 36-44 fantasy points last night against Dallas and I think you could see the same outcome here tonight.

LaMarcus Aldridge ($16.1K) on the other side of this game steps into this game with 50+ fantasy points in three straight games and as simply been a usage monster for the Spurs the last two weeks as he is sporting a 38% usage rate while putting up 1.4 FP/M. There is sneaky upside in this game as LMA put up 54 FP the last time he faced the Jazz while on the Utah side both Ricky Rubio and Donovan Mitchell have had 49 FP games against the Spurs already this season.

Slate Overview: 

At first blush my goal tonight is to lock in the core trio from the Bucks with Giannis sidelined but that will be everyone else’s first move too and rightfully so. The key in my mind is finding the pivot plays to help differentiate your line-up tonight and the more I look at the slate the more I like the idea of building around the Jazz and the Spurs – yes the game with the lowest total and the slowest pace – exactly how it was for Utah last night against Dallas. One of the benefits of building around a game like this is that the player pool is so easy to identify and you can build your roster around mid-tier priced players with safe and steady productions that will have essentially no ownership.

Note: I will be heading to my annual Fantasy Baseball draft this weekend so will be taking time off from NBA DFS and Picks and Pivots as a result but will be back on Monday.

Next: DraftKings NBA Picks

Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!