NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday October 27

Welcome to the Saturday 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.

Friday’s NBA DFS slate was certainly far less scoring than I anticipated as for the second straight night we saw fantasy scores dip below 350 for winning GPP line-ups on FantasyDraft. The leader board had familiar names at the top with Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Kemba Walker and John Wall all among the top 5 fantasy performers on the night. Personally, I went heavy on the Clippers-Rockets stack and the fact it was a 20+ point Clippers blow-out by the end of the third quarter meant we never saw the Clippers starters re-enter the game which crushed my momentum and left me well below the cash line. Such is NBA DFS variance I suppose! On to the next one.

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 – Top Guard Plays:

Welcome to a Saturday NBA DFS nine game slate where with a rainy day on the East Coast, this looks like the perfect day to stay inside and play DFS all day long starting with College Football before we dive into NBA tonight and then Week 8 in the NFL on Sunday!

The biggest news heading into this slate is clearly the status of Sixers Center Joel Embiid who is questionable to play against the Hornets after injuring his ankle by coming down on another player’s foot in practice. Any time you take a player with a 33% usage rate and 1.6 FP/M rate of production off the court, it means there is fantasy goodness to be spread around and my guess is Embiid’s injury makes Ben Simmons ($17.3K) one of the most popular plays on the slate tonight.

If we throw out the game against Orlando where Simmons left with injury after only 7 minutes, we have a player who has put up 50, 53 and 64 fantasy points in his other three outings, all with Embiid on the court.  Over the last two seasons with Embiid on the court, Simmons has been a player with a 20% usage rate while putting up 1.19 FP/M but without Embiid on the court, those numbers spike to 25% and 1.29 FP/M. The reality is, Simmons is an elite player regardless of if Embiid suits up or not and would only serve to get an additional boost if The Process is sidelined against the Hornets tonight.

Fellow Sixers guard J.J. Redick ($11.3K) has seen a 3% usage boost since the start of last season with Embiid off the court and comes into tonight’s game averaging just under 43 fantasy points per game in his last three outings, scoring 30+ real life points in two of those outings.

If you opt to go with a Sixers core tonight, running it back with Kemba Walker ($14.6K) who was well on his way to another monster outing last night (30 points in 26 minutes) but with the Hornets blowing out the Bulls, he was able to head to the bench midway through the 3rd quarter and sit out the rest of the game. Honestly, with the Hornets being on a back to back, this “rest” for Kemba makes him like him even more tonight in what should be a pace up spot for Charlotte against a Sixers team ranked 9th in the NBA in pace.

NBA DFS – Guard Pivot Plays:

For anyone who plays NBA DFS, it probably would not surprise you to see the Hawks-Bulls with the highest total on the board (232) as we know these are two tremendously bad defense teams but do you think the casual NBA fan could even name 5 players from this game? This is a far cry from the days of MJ versus Dominique.

The Hawks rank first in pace of play this season across the entire NBA and the Bulls rank second to last in the league in Defensive Rating, so although this may be an awful real-life NBA game, it is the perfect spot for some NBA DFS targets.

Trae Young ($13.8K) is priority #1 for me from this game – a high volume, scoring machine, who is sporting a 29% usage rate and 1.22 FP/M will now get to face off. As I mentioned, the Bulls rank 29th in defensive rating this season – do you know who sits right above them at 28th? The Cavaliers – yes the same team Trae Young went off for a 60 burger just two games ago.

I have to admit, I haven’t paid much attention to the Hawks outside of their rookie PG, so I was surprised to see Kent Bazemore ($11K) has put up 40 and 53 points in his last two games while playing 32-33 minutes a night. Bazemore has put up 1.21 FP/M so far this season and with 19 3PA in his last two games, there is more upside here than we would have expected in years past from the Hawks guard. Could this be a night we look to Baze-more?

Even though the Bulls got their doors blown off last night by the Hornets, we saw exactly what we expected from a Bulls team without Kris Dunn and Bobby Portis as Zach LaVine ($14.4K) was a usage monster, sporting a 39.1% usage rate in 25.8 minutes of court time. LaVine exited with 3 minutes left in the third quarter and never returned due to the blowout, but in this game tonight, with a 4 point spread – this could become a LaVine/Trae Young shootout and I …. Want…In.

NBA DFS – Top Forward and Center Plays:

The Bulls were the popular value choice on last night’s slate and tonight, with the largest pace boost of any team in action, I see no reason not to go right back to them again tonight. Jabari Parker ($11.9K) was one of the most popular forward options last night and even though the Bulls were blown out, Parker still logged 26 minutes with a 33% usage rate. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the Portis injury though was Cristiano Felicio ($6K) who played 30 minutes off the bench with 9 points and 7 rebounds.

Now it would be easy to point to the blowout run Felicio got in the 4th quarter as the reason for his elevated run but it is worth noting that Felicio got 13 minutes of court time in the first half so extrapolating that over a full “normal”game and this is a minimum priced player getting 25-30 minutes of run.

Heading back to Philadelphia, if Joel Embiid does sit out – looking towards the Philly front-court against the Hornets is a viable strategy. Dario Saric ($10.8K) has the largest usage boost of any Sixers starter with Embiid off the court the last two season at just under 4% while averaging 1.1 FP/M and is massively under-priced considering the expanded role he could be asked to take on if Embiid is out. Similarly, Robert Covington ($10K) sees a 3% usage boost with Embiid off the court and is a FP/M performer under that scenario – at these price points, Saric and Covington make for great mid-tier additions to a balanced roster with 30-40 points looking like easy attainable fantasy days.

With Devin Booker ruled out tonight against Memphis, it could mean we get big time boosts for some of the Phoenix big men. With Booker off the court this season, we have seen Deandre Ayton ($14.3K) flourish with a 30% usage rate and 1.77 FP/M but he also happens to be questionable with an ankle injury tonight. Josh Jackson ($9.9K) could be the biggest beneficiary here as he has a 28% usage rate and 1 FP/M rate with Booker off the court since the start of the last season.

Go back to last season with Jackson in the starting line-up when Booker was out and take a stroll through his game log. Here – I have the link right here to make your life easier via Statmuse. As you can see starting on March 17th when he put up 55 FPTS against Golden State and spanning the rest of the year (10 games), JJ did not put any fewer than 30 fantasy points in any game and put up 40+ in four of those 10 starts. Even against Memphis, this is a great spot for Jackson.

NBA DFS – Forward/Center Pivot Plays:

Yes, I know I have not even touched on the Lakers and Spurs game, a re-match of a game we just saw which was full of fantasy goodness so how on Earth did this make it to the pivot section? I am torn honestly whether or not this becomes as chalky as it was the first time around – I feel like we tend to fluctuate as DFS NBA to the game scenarios with “new news” which makes me think that Philadelphia becomes a spot much like Houston did last night where the chalk tends to reside.

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Now, if Joel Embiid ends up playing, I think this Lakers-Spurs game ends up again as the chalk and for good reason as we get a fast paced Lakers team that will still be short-handed, without Brandon Ingram but returning Rajon Rondo.

LeBron James ($20.3K) has a 31.6% usage rate while putting up 1.54 FP/M the last week, leading a Lakers team playing at the 4th fastest pace in the NBA with 67 fantasy points in two of his last three games. He is good at basketball. #Analysis.

LaMarcus Aldridge ($16.3K) put up 62 in this spot last time they faced the Lakers while Kyle Kuzma and JaVale McGee put up 52 and 31 fantasy points of their own. A full on game stack here is 100% viable again and I would likely focus on the front court here rather than sort through a Lakers back-court that has to re-introduce Rajon Rondo and with DeMar DeRozan ($15.6K) being priced up, I am not sure I want to pay for his ceiling game. Remember, that LA-San Antonio game last time out went to OT so keep that in mind before simply looking at the game log and assuming similar fantasy outputs.

One of the benefits of writing about NBA DFS is you tend to dive into players more than a casual player would and you get invested in following their results. Last slate, I wrote up Jonathan Isaac ($9.3K) after he played 26 minutes against the Celtics and racked up 18/12 as it looked like he was about to get unleashed in this Orlando offense. Issac finally played 30 minutes last time out against Portland and responded with 10 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks on his way to 28 fantasy points. Isaac is not a high usage player (16%) but is a fantasy point per minute producer and his ability to rack up boards/blocks gives him massive upside in a game where the Magic are expected to see one of the biggest pace boosts on the night.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS NBA news across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings each and every day.