NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday October 4
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.
Looking back at Wednesday’s slate, it served as a cold and harsh reminder of the variance that is NBA DFS. First, we got the news heading towards lock that Russell Westbrook and Paul George would be sitting out, which made Dennis Schroder one of the highest owned plays on the entire slate, nearly 70% owned in tournament play. Then right after lock we got news Blake Griffin would sit – but, that should not have mattered right? The Pistons said they were going to limit their starters anyways – but then, well they didn’t. Andre Drummond played 34 minutes with 31 points, 16 rebounds and a slate high 55.5 FantasyDraft points. Meanwhile, Enes Kanter used his 27 minutes to put up a monster 20-20 performance with 51.5 fantasy points of his own in an up-tempo spot against Brooklyn.
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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 throughout the day 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 – Rockets and Pacers
Even though we only have a two game NBA DFS slate tonight, it is hard to argue we lack star power as we have the Pacers-Rockets and the Kings-Lakers to sort through in our player pool. The Pacers will be playing their first preseason game tonight and the biggest news we have heading into the game is that Thaddeus Young will sit out with an injury which means T.J. Leaf will get the start at Power Forward for Indiana.
Looking back at last year’s preseason game logs for the Pacers, you will see that Indiana played their starters all 20-24 minutes in their first preseason game so it would be reasonable to expect a similar approach here tonight. Looking back at last season, with Thaddeus Young off the court and removing Lance Stephenson (who is now in LA), you will see Victor Oladipo leads the team by a significant margin with a 36% usage rate while putting up 1.2 FP/M. In this kind of up-tempo game environment, Oladipo becomes a priority play for me and you can pair him with a cheap play like Leaf to help balance out the cost.
On the other side of this game is a Rockets team that just scored 131 points in their first preseason game where the starters were told to expect “regular minutes” and we saw guys like James Harden (30 minutes), Chris Paul (26 minutes) and Carmelo Anthony (23 minutes) all log some serious court time in their first game action. This kind of preseason usage should be no surprise to anyone who follows the Rockets as they ran James Harden out there for 29+ minutes in four of the five preseason games last season.
With one game already in the books, we can dig in a bit deeper on the Rockets to see what their rotations, especially now with Carmelo Anthony looked like. James Harden, as usual, dominated the usage with a near 34% usage rate which led the team in his 30 minutes of court time, while Chris Paul was second on the team with a 27.3% usage rate of his own. What really stands out to me is the usage rate of Carmelo here – only 16.8% – which is substantially lower than even the 22% usage rate he saw last year in OKC.
Now, it is one game so let’s not overreact, but it is going to be worth watching how this usage plays out for Anthony who had only 8 FGA, with 6 of those coming from beyond the arc, so if he is going to be limited to a “stand there and shoot 3’s” kind of guy, then I think he becomes an avoid player even in this high-octane offense.
The Rockets have already ruled out P.J. Tucker tonight and Clint Capela is officially doubtful, which means we could see someone like Marquese Chriss enter the starting line-up for the Rockets. Not that you needed more reason to play James Harden here – but last year with Capela/Tucker off the floor – Harden saw his usage increase over 5%, leading the team with a 43.5% usage rate and nearly 2 FP/M.
Building a team tonight around Harden, Paul and Chriss and running it back with Oladipo/Leaf is how I would begin my builds tonight as the salary relief of Chriss/Leaf works well with the star power and high salaries of Beard, CP3 and Dipo.
NBA DFS – Lakers and Kings
The Lakers will play their third preseason game tonight, once again without PG Lonzo Ball, which means Rajon Rondo will draw the start again for the Lakers. As shiny and new as this Lakers team is for NBA DFS, I simply do not feel the need to chase after LeBron James here tonight – he is playing minimal minutes and when you have a comparable star in James Harden available at a similar price who will likely play twice as many minutes, I simply do not see the case for LeBron.
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If you have not yet been following the NBA and I asked you to guess who is leading the Lakers in scoring after two games – how many guesses would it take before you correctly answered Javale McGee? Not only is McGee leading the team in scoring but he also is the top rebounder while leading the team in usage through two games. It may sound crazy, but McGee may actually be the best play on the Lakers tonight. The only issue I have with this team is that they are so veteran heavy on the bench with guys like McGee, Rondo and Stephenson that I just do not see anyone really demanding significant run in a preseason game against the Kings.
UPDATE: We have news now that LeBron James will likely only play 15 minutes (so go ahead and fade) and the bigger news to me is that Brandon Ingram will start at the point with Lonzo Ball AND Rajon Rondo out. Ingram should dominate the usage as the point, especially once King James is off the court and with Kyle Kuzma joining the starting five tonight, I love this pairing to fill out your forward spots tonight.
Speaking of the Kings, this may be the team to focus on when it comes to the late night game as they have a young team and based off their first game, a pretty consistent preseason rotation as 10 guys played 19+ minutes against the Suns.
In that game, five players took double-digit shot attempts which included Willie Cauley-Stein, De’Aaron Fox, Buddy Hield, Harry Giles and Yogi Ferrell. WCS and Fox each played 26 minutes against the Suns and would be the 1-2 punch I would lock in to get some Kings exposure but I would have no issue getting exposure to Giles and fellow first-rounder Marvin Bagley who played 23 and 25 minutes each in their first NBA game action. It is worth noting that Giles led the team in usage in the first game with a whopping 32.4% usage mark in his 23 minutes of action.
With so much focus on the Lakers night in and night out, my hope is that the Kings go a bit over-looked here as the late night hammer I want to build within a Rockets/Pacers star stack. The Kings are young and are introducing a ton of new talent to the rotation, so using these young guys who actually need the minutes, is a great way to attack this two game NBA DFS preseason slate.
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