NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday October 8

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Hopefully you all enjoyed a nice Sunday of NFL DFS action and a quick break from the NBA DFS preseason slates we kicked off last week. As we head into the final 10 day stretch before things get real, we should start to see starters minutes ramp up but as always, keeping an eye on Twitter news is going to be critical as players get rested with regularity before the games actually mean something!

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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 – Bulls and Hornets

The first game of the night on this six game Monday NBA DFS slate pits the Chicago Bulls against the Charlotte Hornets in a sneaky early night shoot-out. One of the biggest benefits of playing NBA DFS in the preseason is you start to uncover trends much earlier than the field and it can be helpful as you prepare not only for Regular Season DFS but also your upcoming Fantasy Basketball season long drafts.

The Hornets under new coach James Borrego are installing a faster paced, attacking offense, good for a top 10 ranking so far this pre-season. As Rick Bonnell breaks down in his column for the Charlotte Observer, this new “pace and space” approach should make this a more interesting team for NBA DFS.

"Those changes can be summed up as pace-and-space: More emphasis on attacking defenses in the first eight seconds of a possession and more 3-point shooting on the floor to surround point guard Kemba Walker.“Way faster,” guard Malik Monk said of upping the pace. “It’s crazy that we’re learning that fast. In practice, we’ve been playing with 12- and 14-second shot clocks just to speed it up."

It all starts with Kemba Walker ($13.5K) who played a whopping 31 minutes in the last game with 18 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists but rookie Miles Bridges ($12.5K) is leading the team through three games in points per game and FGA per contest. Considering the Bulls rank 4th worst in team defensive rating thus far in the preseason while playing at a similar pace to the Hornets, this could be a sneaky track meet for Charlotte in their second to last preseason game.

On the Bulls side of this game, well let’s hope it goes better than their last outing where they got blown out by the Bucks which left us with some amazing post-game quotes.

“I was upset with everything,” Coach Hoiberg said”

“I played like doo-doo” – Jabari Parker.

If those are the top quotes to come out of your preseason game, than it is likely things went quite poorly. The Bulls have three more preseason games this week so there is time to iron things out and it would not shock me if the starters got some serious run here in an effort to get the ship pointed in the right direction before the start of the regular season.

Zach LaVine ($13.4K) leads the team with a 32% usage rate and although he left last game with an injury, he returned to practice on Friday and I would expect barring a setback, we see him on the floor tonight. If we look back at their first preseason game, the Bulls scored nearly 130 points and all the starters – Parker, LaVine, Kris Dunn and Justin Holiday got 20-25 minutes of court time so they are all viable options tonight in what I would expect will be a bounce back effort after an embarrassing loss in their last game.

NBA DFS – Nets and Pistons:

The Nets play for only the second time this preseason tonight and it looks like the Pistons could be back to full strength as both Blake Griffin and Reggie Jackson are cleared to play however as the GOAT (Rod Beard) reports – it is no lock that they actually play.

Andre Drummond ($15K) is in arguably the best spot on the board tonight and after going 31-18 and 18-10 in his first two games of the preseason, he must be licking his chops to face a Brooklyn team that gave up a 20-20 game to Enes Kanter in their opener. Even with Blake back, if Drummond is getting 25+ minutes, he makes for a scary fade.

The Nets continue to be a bit short-handed and with RHJ still sidelined, expect to see a similar starting line-up to their first match-up where Caris LeVert ($12.6K) stepped into the starting line-up and led the team with 15 points. Coach Kenny Atkinson, as he typically does, went with a deep rotation (12 players over 10 minutes) and no single player played more than 21 minutes which is right in line with how we saw Atkinson approach last preseason where the starters only played 20-25 minutes in the second preseason game.

I like the Nets players but on a six game slate, I am unsure of is they will have the minute upside to really build around which could make this whole game Andrew Drummond or bust.

NBA DFS – Pacers and Cavaliers:

After resting Kevin Love on Saturday against the Celtics, we should see him back in the Cavaliers line-up in their second to last preseason outing before we kick-off the regular season for a new look Cleveland team.

So far the Cavs have been quite careful with their starters minutes, as every single starter on Saturday saw fewer than 20 minutes and that was without Kevin Love on the floor. Collin Sexton ($11.4K) continues to impress in limited minutes in his rookie campaign and Love’s team leading 31% usage rate in the first game should be an indication of where the offense will run through for Cleveland. The issue here is minutes – if they are not going to get the run than they become hard to recommend but with only one more game (on Friday), this would seem like the perfect spot for a dress-rehearsal for the Cavaliers core plays.

UPDATE: Both Kevin Love and Jordan Clarkson are OUT tonight.

The Pacers were a team I intended to go all-in on Saturday and then coach Nate McMillan decided to rest all the starters which threw a nice wrench into those plans. Damonatas Sabonis responded with a 17-14 double-double in only 21 minutes but it sounds like the starters should return tonight, quite possibly with Thaddeus Young making his first appearance of the season.

UPDATE: We have confirmation now that Thad Young and Cory Joseph are out and Tyreke Evans is questionable which means more usage for Mr. Oladipo and could mean another extended run for a value play like TJ Leaf.

Now the Pacers, much like the Cavaliers, will be playing their second to last preseason game so it could be a good dress rehearsal spot for them as well and we saw in the first preseason game that the starters for Indiana, as well as the bench core, all played around 25 minutes each. Victor Oladipo ($14.4K) is the clear top play from the Pacers side but that is likely where I will limit my exposure as if Young is back, and we have Tyreke Evans now in the fold, the fringe guys on Indiana become far less appealing to me as the majority of the usage is going to flow through Dipo and Evans, meaning guys like Myles Turner becomes fill-in secondary pieces only.

NBA DFS – Heat and Magic

As rumors continue to swirl that Jimmy Butler could be headed to South Beach, the big story this preseason has been the play of Hassan Whiteside ($13.9K) who is averaging 14.7 points and 12.3 rebounds in 25 minutes per game through 3 preseason contests. As Ira Winderman notes, the Heat will be getting healthier with Josh Richardson and Tyler Johnson off the injury report but there still remains a plethora of sidelined core players and not to mention the potential trade with guys like Richardson at the heart of these Butler talks.

Keep an eye on the news today, it would not shock me to see Josh Richardson “held out” considering that medical records are being swapped with Minnesota but the rest of the starters – Whiteside, Winslow, Johnson, Olynyk and McGruder should continue to see 25 or so minutes which puts them all in play for me tonight.

The Magic are playing only their second game of the preseason with three games to go before the start of the regular season and although some role players will be out tonight as noted above, I think the starters are 100% viable to build around after they all saw 20-25 minutes against the Sixers on October 1st.

The Magic did play an exhibition against Flamengo on October 5th and we saw similar usage from the starters as Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic played 24-25 minutes each and both had double-digit shot attempts. interestingly, the Magic made a concerted effort to get Vuc and rookie Mo Bamba on the court together and the impressive rookie has 12 points, 9 boards and 4 blocks in that last outing. The back-court options are relatively uninspiring here so you could opt to go all front-court from this game with Whiteside and the Magic big man trio!

UPDATE: Per John Denton or OrlandoMagic.com, coach Steve Clifford will use this 3 game set this week to stretch out his starters and play them 30-32 minutes which puts the Magic as core plays with that kind of minute security.

NBA DFS – Knicks and Wizards

The Knicks play their second to last preseason game tonight and if their last game against the Pelicans was any indication of what we can expect tonight, than I want all the Knicks I can roster! The Knicks rolled out their starting five for 22+ minutes each, with rookie Kevin Knox leading the way with 12 points and 10 rebounds in 34 minutes of court time. Enes Kanter put up 20-15 one game after a 20-20 performance against the Nets and Tim Hardaway Jr. was the clear offensive focal point with 18 FGA in only 26 minutes.

With Kristaps Porzingis sidelined, there is simply too much usage to go around so I have no issue going right back to the Knicks trio mentioned above and keep an eye on who gets the start at PG as Trey Burke got the nod in the first two games before giving way to Emmanuel Mudiay against New Orleans. Coach David Fizdale has already said he would like to try Frank Ntilkina at PG so maybe tonight is the night we see him enter the starting line-up? As our friends over at Daily Knicks pointed out, Fizadale is looking for more position-less basketball this year so playing Ntilkina, who seems to be best off the ball, may give him an advantage over more traditional PG’s like Burke and/or Mudiay who have failed to take hold of the job thus far.

The Wizards are one of those teams for preseason NBA DFS that I kind of ignore and only land on if I have to. This is a veteran team with a coach in Scott Brooks who has been in DC since 2016 so are they really going to push a team built around John Wall, Otto Porter and Bradley Beal? Now the starters all did see 20-25 minutes last game including Ian Mahinmi who is starting for the injured Dwight Howard so there is “value” here but I struggle to see Wizards as anything more than last man in kind of plays as they all look to be guys with safe floors and limited ceilings.

NBA DFS – Suns and Warriors

What an odd NBA schedule we have – with 5 games all starting between 7-730 PM EST and this Suns-Warriors track meet starting three ours later than the rest. Now we may not have all the line-up news which does introduce some risk here but this feels like a game environment that you simply have to have exposure to tonight or you better go to bed early and hope your “Currently Winnings” screen somehow holds.

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DeAndre Ayton ($14.6K) has been a monster through two preseason games and feels like a must play right now. In his first game this preseason, he went for 24 and 9 in 30 minutes of action and followed that up with 19/14 in 29 minutes against Portland. Ayton is a priority play for me tonight based off his minutes and usage thus far and the fact that Draymond Green will miss this game for the Warriors makes it an even better match-up.

Speaking of minutes – Josh Jackson ($12.5K) has played 33 and 39 minutes in his first two games of the preseason and if he is going to play that many minutes, you simply have to lock him in at this price in a up-tempo match-up with Golden State.

The Suns also played an exhibition game against the New Zealand Breakers this preseason where Ayton (34 minutes) and Jackson (30 minutes) were the clear top dogs – the minutes ceiling here is massive so I would likely lock in both players tonight as two of your core pieces.

On the Warriors side, we know Draymond Green is out tonight and it is expected Steph Curry will be back in the line-up and I am simply speculating – but would it shock you to see Kevin Durant sit tonight for rest after his emotional Seattle homecoming over the weekend? The reason I bring this up is that this is the sole late game so we may not get news around Warriors starters which makes them a bit risky tonight.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis all season long!