NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday October 23

Welcome to the Tuesday 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.

Another NBA DFS slate and another night with crazy high scores as it took well over 350 points on FantasyDraft to take down a GPP (370 specifically for the $25 Pick and Roll) which was driven in large part by a Spurs-Lakers 143-142 shootout. This was a case where the chalk became obvious throughout the day as everyone was jamming in the Lakers value with LMA/DeRozan and LeBron and frankly if you chose to fade the chalk, you were on the outside looking in as four of the top five fantasy performers on the night came from that game.

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 – Three Game Slate with a TON of Question Marks:

Normally opening up a three game NBA DFS slate would seem pretty cute and dry but as Picks and Pivots starts the day with a first look, it seems like this slate becomes a series of “What If’s” depending on the injury news we get.

Thankfully the two biggest injury issues – Ben Simmons and Andre Drummond – are both in the first game which tips off at 7PM EST so we SHOULD have all the injury news we need but let’s break it down.

Simmons is officially questionable after a back injury forced him to play only 8 minutes in the Sixers last game and additionally forced him to miss practice on Monday. It would be surprising to see an organization like the Sixers push their young star with how they utilized the Embiid rules previously so let’s assume for a second he is out.

Over the last two seasons with Simmons off the court, it has meant a 3.4% usage boost to Joel Embiid ($19K) who leads the team with a 38% usage rate and 1.5 FP/M but the biggest beneficiary may be T.J. McConnell ($7.1K) who played 25 minutes off the bench once Simmons left the court against Orlando. With an average cost of around $13K for this duo, locking in Embiid and McConnell gives you substantial upside at a reasonable price point assuming Simmons is indeed ruled out.

If Simmons does play, it would be a total stay away for me at $17K with a back injury that could re-occur at any moment and it would limit McConnell to a GPP dart only. For what it is worth, Embiid put up “only” 36,38 and 42 fantasy points in his three meetings with the Pistons last season but he also only played 30+ minutes in one of those three meetings.

Andre Drummond ($17.1K) is a GTD with the flu so unlike Simmons, if he is a go to play there is a bit more freedom to roll him out since it is not truly injury related. If Drummond is out, then it should come as no surprise that Blake Griffin ($16.3K) becomes a near must play as his 4.4% usage bump is tops on the team the last two years while leading the team with a 34% usage rate and 1.32 FP/M.

Reggie Jackson ($11.4K) actually sees a solid bump in production as well with a 32% usage rate and 1.1 FP/M which would make him a solid mid-range target here to pair with Blake, assuming Drummond misses this game.

If we get news that both Simmons and Drummond are out – you can build a four-man stack of Embiid/Griffin/Jackson/McConnell and still have over $11.5K per player on FantasyDraft to round out the rest of your line-up.

NBA DFS – Pelicans Stack Back in Play:

Much like we saw with the Lakers-Spurs last night, a high projected total with fast paced teams can yield massive fantasy results and frankly any night the New Orleans Pelicans are on the slate, they are going to be one of my favorite spots to stack.

The Pelicans rank 2nd in the NBA in pace of play (behind a new-look Kings squad) and have scored 131 and 149 points in each of their first two games this season. Tonight, this Pelicans/Clippers game has a massive 237 total with only a 6.5 point spread so this is a case where stacking a “High and Tight” game could yield huge fantasy production.

Anthony Davis ($20.3K) is averaging 1.98 FP/M this season – yes, you read that correctly, and my initial hope is that Simmons and Drummond do sit out so everyone rushes to roster Blake/Embiid and I can just roster the best NBA DFS player in the game on a short slate. Seriously, how on earth is Marcin Gortat going to slow down AD tonight?

As great as The Brow’s FP/M production has been, it has been Nikola Mirotic ($13.6K) leading the team with a 32% usage rate and 1.6 FP/M with back to back 50+ point fantasy games. Jrue Holiday ($14.4K) bounced back with 40+ FP in his last game, while Elfrid Payton ($12.4K) remains under-priced considering his role in an up-tempo offense.

We saw against the Rockets in game 1 how when the game is close, this team is going to play their starting five plus 6th man usage monster Julius Randle, all the minutes they can handle. This is one of the rare teams in the NBA you can look to full on stack because of their concentrated minutes and up-tempo pace.

The Clippers make for a nice “run back” option within a game stack because the options frankly are quite limited which makes identifying the player pool that much easier. Tobias Harris ($13.3K) is locked into 30+ MPG and averaging just under 40 FP/G as the clear #1 scoring option on the Clippers starting unit. Danilo Gallinari ($12.4K) feels under-priced for this match-up considering his 27.6% usage rate and 1.12 FP/M of production which actually just slightly tops the metrics of Harris so far this season.

Lou Williams ($10K) is the only guard I have any interest in here as his 30% usage rate dominating the second team is incredibly appealing given the projected pace of this game. Lou Will is taking his usual high-volume of shots – 13 FGA and 6 3PA per game but has been cold to start the year – making only 29% of his shots which is considerably down from his over 42% career mark and 43-44% mark the last two seasons. The volume and usage are there and once the shots fall – well, this has the potential to be a GPP difference maker on this slate.

The Clippers trio feels like a great stacking option because of their mid-range price points and I would prioritize the Pelicans front-court if forced to choose as the Clippers have strong back-court defense with Patrick Beverly and Avery Bradley.

NBA DFS – Late Night Hammer:

With all the big name injury news in the first game and a massive Vegas total in our second game, I wonder how many will prioritize the Kings and Nuggets with their 227 total and 11 point spread.

The big news here is the status of Jamal Murray who played through an injury in his last game and with the Nuggets already down Will Barton and Isaiah Thomas, the Nuggets are going to potentially be quite thin in the backcourt if Murrray is forced to sit out tonight. With Murray and Barton off the court the last two years, it has meant nearly a 6% usage bump for Gary Harris ($12.2K) who has put up 35 and 40 FPTS in his last two games.

We have mentioned this numerous times in Picks and Pivots already but the Kings are playing FAST, the fastest pace in the NBA and that means the Nuggets will see the biggest pace boost on the slate. Torrey Craig ($7.2K) will likely draw the start again for Denver in place of Will Barton and responded with 24 FPTS in 26 minutes and his price point makes him a nice pivot off TJ McConnell who could become the chalk play in this price range if Simmons is ruled out.

The Kings are becoming like the Brooklyn Nets of previous years – a fast paced team that is struggling to play defense but the rotations are seemingly impossible to predict. Raise your hand if you thought Iman Shumpert ($8.7K) would player 30 minutes as the starting SG and put up nearly 50 fantasy points last game – put your hand down you liar. Now, is it sustainable? Likely no – but digging into the box score from last game, Shump actually had a solid 22% usage rate and led the starting unit in shot attempts with 13. Now, this could have also been a one game match-up thing to get Shump on Paul George so we could see him slide back into a bench role tonight – just do not simply chase the game log here.

De’Aaron Fox ($13K) is coming off his best game of the year with 46 FPTS but this is a starting PG with a mere 23.8% usage rate so is there really profit left in this price tag? I will be honest, unless we get some definitive news early on, this could be a game I flat-out avoid or just fill in some one-off pieces for value as there may be too many unknowns here when you consider the “knowns” in the previous two games.

NBA DFS – Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview:

The sample line-up below is NOT a Plug and Play optimized line-up, it is meant to be simply illustrative based off the analysis laid out throughout this article. 

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G: Reggie Jackson ($11.4K)

G: Lou Williams ($10.2K)

G: T.J. McConnell ($7.1K)

F/C: Anthony Davis ($20.3K)

F/C: Nikola Mirotic ($13.6K)

F/C: Tobias Harris ($13.3K)

UTIL: Blake Griffin ($16.3K)

UTIL: Marcin Gortat ($7.8K)

Slate Overview: Writing this at 6AM EST without the big news is always tough, but let’s assume we get confirmation that Simmons/Drummond are out and work within that logic which means Blake, R-Jax and McConnell become three of the best plays on the board. My core will be built around a Pelicans-Clippers stack as the up-tempo Pelicans correlate quite nicely with the mid-tier price points of the Clippers core.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS NBA news and Fantasy Basketball analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings all season long.