Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
Any time you take a two game NBA DFS slate like we had on Tuesday and then get news from the Milwaukee Bucks that all starters will be rested, well it turns into a variance filled free for all. I opened up my FantasyDraft app this morning to see who the top performers were and well – just read through this list with me – Christian Wood, Trey Lyles, Paul George, Nerlens Noel, BOBAN, Hamidou Diallo and Juancho Hernangomez.
Outside of PG13, the likelihood of you rostering any of these fine gentleman in the regular season is slim, and I would wager this is the least likely NBA DFS leaderboard we will see all year-long.
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 – Where do we start?
After a night where we had only a two game NBA DFS slate, we return tonight to a an eight game slate which means we need to find ways to narrow our player pool. Let’s be clear – playing NBA DFS in the preseason is ALL ABOUT INFORMATION and on a two game slate like we had last night its easier to track the beat reporters and news – I would love to say I have the time to track 16 beat writers up to lock today to find out rotations but that becomes a daunting task for me or anyone else looking to play on this slate.
As such, my recommendation is to find ways to narrow your player pool by looking at the teams with “known information” that are in good spots. With that being said, there is one spot that has the potential to be that core on tonight’s slate and that is with the New Orleans Pelicans.
Pelicans game notes with a projected starting lineup of Elfrid Payton, Ian Clark, Solomon Hill, Nikola Mirotic and Julius Randle for tomorrow night's game against the Knicks.
— Andrew Lopez (@_Andrew_Lopez) October 9, 2018
Through three preseason games, the #Pelicans lead the #NBA in Pace at 116.17...Last season, New Orleans finished the season atop the league in the category at 101.60. #DoItBig
— Pelicans PR (@PelicansPR) October 9, 2018
First and foremost – the Pelicans as noted play at the fastest pace in the entire NBA, a crucial metric for NBA DFS as the faster the pace, the more shots/rebounds and chances for statistics not only for the team in question but in most cases it increases the opponents pace of play as well.
Secondly, we already know the Pelicans will be without their two biggest stars tonight in Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday, the two biggest usage plays on the Pelicans at over 30% each last season which means when they come off the floor – the amount of usage for the remaining players sky-rockets.
With a starting five of Elfrid Payton, Nikola Mirotic, Julius Randle, Ian Clark and Solomon Hill, building around the trio of Elf/Mirotic/Randle feels like a great first step – but there is one cavaet here.
"It’s possible the Pelicans could sit some other players, but Gentry is gearing up for a “dress rehearsal” type preseason finale for New Orleans at home on Thursday night when the team hosts the Rockets.“For Toronto, we’re going to try and have a rehearsal because we’re going to try and get a combination of guys on the floor together and we want to have a rotation of players that we want to have a look at,” Gentry said. “It could be the first time those guys have been on the floor together. That’ll be the last chance we have to do that before the Houston game.”"
That dress-rehearsal comment is NBA DFS gold as those become the games we need to circle/star/bold and lock in on – so if that game on Thursday is really the one to focus on we need to be careful with locking in Elf/Mirotic/Randle on the front end of a back to back if Gentry is really looking ahead to Thursday as his chance to play his core major minutes.
NBA DFS – Time for the Lake Show?
With the Lakers set to make their second to last preseason appearance tonight before they kick-off their much-anticipated season and it appears like tonight could be a “dress rehearsal” for the starting unit which means they get put into our player pool just with that news.
Walton said to expect some additional minutes for the starters and rotation players on Wednesday, their second-to-last preseason game.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) October 8, 2018
The only real injury question here is around Josh Hart who is officially questionable with a hamstring injury but we should see Lonzo Ball back on the court for what Coach Luke Walton had said will be something in the range of 10-30 minutes – gee thanks Coach. Hart has led the Lakers in minutes this preseason with 27 per game so his absence would allow Lonzo to slot right in without impacting the minutes of the other Lakers players.
We have already seen guys like Brandon Ingram and Kyle Kuzma get 30+ minutes this preseason so we can feel “safe” using them but the real question will become what do we do with LeBron James. Outside of “getting some court time” with the starters, there is no real reason to push LeBron past the 15 minutes per game he has played in three preseason contests but if he is going to get any sort of up-tick – even 20 minutes of King James is enough to make us interested.
The fact that this game is in Vegas, against the defending champion Golden State Warriors, makes this an intriguing spot to stack as we could see both teams look to “show-off” for the crowd but I could argue that neither team will want to show its cards ahead of the regular season.
The Warriors will once again be without Draymond Green tonight but should expect the return of Klay Thompson who sat out last game due to rest. One of the nice things about this slate and the value we already know we have with New Orleans (and expect a ton more) – is we could see a path to stacking up LeBron, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and using the punt pieces around them to make it work in the hopes this game has more of a regular season feel.
NBA DFS – Are the Suns the top spot to start?
With so much uncertainty around NBA DFS preseason, the Phoenix Suns have been one of the few teams we can count on for minutes which is off considering this is the same team that fired their GM just a week before the start of the season. Deandre Ayton is averaging 20.5 points, 11 rebounds, 2 blocks and a steal in just under 30 minutes a night while teammate Josh Jackson is averaging a whopping 34 minutes a night with a team-leading 14 FGA per game. As long as these two young core pieces from the Suns are going to get this kind of run, they make for possibly the safest duo to lock in tonight and their usage and volume give them an upside that could make them two of the best plays on the entire slate.
Pacers “Dress Rehearsal”
As I have mentioned many times in NBA DFS Preseason – information is key, so finding a little nugget like this from Pacers Coach Nate McMillian in the Indy Star is a valuable piece of information to have early on.
"McMillan intends to play his core rotation players 24-30 minutes, but how long Young would be able to play has yet to be determined."
Victor Oladipo with 24-30 minutes seems like a lock as in his two preseason games, with similar minutes, has averaged just under 24 points in two games and a match-up with the Bulls could push that average even higher.
UPDATE – Do not forget the Magic:
We got Twitter confirmation this morning from John Denton of OrlandoMagic.com that coach Steve Clifford would like Nikola Vucevic, Evan Fournier and Aaron Gordon all to get similar run as they got versus Miami last time out. In that game AG (32) and Vuc (31) got significant minutes which puts them squarely in the player pool again for us tonight while Fournier (26) would be in play again as a cheap guard if needed.
So where exactly does that leave us?
Putting a “Sample Line-Up” together for NBA DFS Preseason at 6AM EST is probably one of the more challenging things to do considering that there is so much information that will come between now and lock that will throw a massive monkey wrench in our plans but let’s step back and think about what we know.
- Ayton and Jackson have had the minutes security and high usage in every game this preseason so they make for solid foundation pieces with so much uncertainty.
- Victor Oladipo and the Pacers core players will play 24-30 minutes which puts them in prime position against a defensively challenged Bulls team.
- The Lakers-Warriors game is really where you could make or break your night, stacking up the stars in Vegas in what could be a playground style exhibition chock full of action (and little defense).
- The Pelicans are resting AD/Jrue and are giving indications that their remaining starters could be held back on the front end of the back to back with a dress-rehearsal game pending on Thursday which means – look for value.
So if we do the following:
G: Victor Oladipo ($14.1K)
G: Stephen Curry ($14.7K)
G: Ian Clark ($8.2K)
F/C: Deandre Ayton ($14.1K)
F/C: Josh Jackson ($12.2K)
F/C: LeBron James ($13.4K)
UTIL: Kevin Durant ($15.4K)
That build would leave us with $7.9K to fill out the final UTIL spot on the roster which could be filled by a variety of punt plays as we get news throughout the day. As always, I will pass on any information I find during the day on Twitter (@2LockSports) – best of luck today all!
Best of luck in your NBA DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest fantasy news and analysis.
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