NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday November 3
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 fantasy basketball 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 lower scoring than we had seen in most slates thus far as winning GPP scores were only around 330 fantasy points led by stars like Chris Paul, Victor Oladipo, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant and we got our weekend off to a glorious start with a BOBAN night in the starting line-up – and really what could be better than that!
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 – Watch for Injury News:
Looking at this NBA DFS slate early Saturday morning, it is clear we have to wait on a ton of injury news as we are still waiting on Vegas information for four of the seven games on tonight’s slate. This is not one of those “set it and forget it” kind of slates – if you are not going to be able to watch and react to news on this slate, take the day off from DFS – there are simply too many variables to monitor.
Anthony Davis is questionable to play against the Spurs and we already know Elfrid Payton is OUT. With Elf out of the line-up, Jrue Holiday ($14.8K) will be the primary ball-handler for New Orleans and would only get an added usage bump if AD does sit. It sounds like from following the beat reporters that AD really wanted to play last game so it would seem likely he suits up tonight. He was clearly hobbled against Golden State so it may be riskier than usual to play him at $20K on this. Nikola Mirotic ($14.9K) now has 40+ fantasy points in three straight games and would be a must play pairing with Holiday if AD does in fact sit out. If AD plays, both Mirotic and Holiday are playable but they are priced up.
James Harden sounds likely to return tonight against the Chicago Bulls which would pretty much crush the usage bumps we have been chasing for guys like Chris Paul, Eric Gordon and Carmelo Anthony. The Bulls are ranked 2nd to last in defense rating so this is an ideal match-up on paper but the return of Harden could turn this game into a blow-out while the secondary pieces have a capped ceiling assuming the Beard plays.
Donovan Mitchell misses last night’s games but he was put through a pretty serious pre-game warmup so it seems possible he will return tonight in an interesting game against Denver. If Mitchell misses, we can look back to last night where popular value plays like Dante Exum and Royce O’Neal put up stinkers and it was really Ricky Rubio and Rudy Gobert who made the most of his absence.
Goran Dragic is questionable for tonight’s game against the Hawks and this could be a big one to watch. If Dragic were to miss, it would mean Josh Richardson gets a nice boost while Tyler Johnson could enter the starting line-up for a Miami team that gets the biggest pace boost of any team on the slate.
UPDATE – Dragic is OUT for tonight. Richardson becomes an elite, but pricey, option while Tyler Johnson vaults to the top of my value plays.
NBA DFS – Core Game Stack
With a near 240 game total and a 3 point spread, the Lakers-Portland game is the clear top game stack on the board from a Vegas perspective and with a good mix of stars/mid-tier plays from this game, there are a variety of ways to build around it.
From the Lakers side it all starts with LeBron James ($20.2K) who put up 50 fantasy points against this Portland team when they faced off on Opening Night. The tough part with the Lakers this season when fully healthy is that the rotation has been so deep, it has been tough to peg the right plays on a nightly basis. What was interesting to see was in their last game against Dallas, they played the starting five – LeBron, Lonzo Ball, Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma and JaVale McGee all 30+ minutes while KCP was the only bench player to play 20 or more minutes.
Sources close to Magic said he was stern with Luke Walton during the meeting more about not having a system in place than the wins and losses. Magic wants to see Luke have the Lakers run an offense that he has yet to see. Sources said that maybe the meeting opened Luke’s eyes.
— Brad Turner (@BA_Turner) November 2, 2018
With the Lakers at 3-5, it is possible Luke Walton could opt to tighten his rotation in an effort to keep his job. Look at the tea leaves here – it was reported after falling to 2-5, that Magic Johnson met with Luke Walton in a “heated” discussion and on the heels of that he rolls his starters out 30+ minutes. This looks to be very much a win now move and we can take advantage of that from an NBA DFS perspective.
It feels like LeBron is priced a tad bit too high but you can balance that within a stack with relative ease as McGee, Kuzma and Ingram are all in the $11-$12K range on FantasyDraft while Lonzo Ball is under $10K.
Damian Lillard ($18.6K) is the clear run back play here but much like LeBron, it feels like his price point is built more for cash games than GPP profits. On the season, Lillard has a 33% usage rate and 1.4 FP/M output so building around him and the Lakers feels like a great cash game approach with clear upside assuming this game plays at the Lakers fast pace.
Outside of Dame, you can use fringe players like Al-Farouq Aminu ($10K) who we just saw can excel in this fast-paced games where he put up 34 FPTS against New Orleans. The first time these teams met it was all about the Sauce – as Nik Stauskas ($7K) dropped 34 fantasy points off the bench on his way to two 30+ fantasy point outings in his first week of the season. Not shockingly, Stauskas as failed to reach 20 fantasy points in all but one game since then – so do not simply chase the game logs here. The minutes however are still there for the Blazers guards with 20+ minutes in each of his last three games if you are looking for a punt guard in this pricey game stack.
NBA DFS – Sample Line-up and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample line-up is not a simple Plug and Play line-up and instead is meant to be an illustrative example based off the logic laid out in the preceding pages.
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G: Damian Lillard
G: Nik Stauskas
F/C: LeBron James
F/C: Javale McGee
F/C: Kyle Kuzma
UTIL: Brandon Ingram
UTIL: Al-Farouq Aminu
Slate Overview: When it comes to NBA DFS there is always a difficulty in writing these so early in the day as we get so much news throughout that can completely change a slate. This slate tonight feels like it is littered with “wait and see” news for guys like AD/Harden that will surely alter how we approach the slate. The one “safe” spot to build a core around is the Lakers and Portland and the rationale is simple – we have the highest total and a Lakers team that plays at one of the fastest paces in the league. What really sells me on it though is the tight rotation of Luke Walton last game against Dallas after his “chat” with Magic Johnson. The issue with playing the Lakers all season long has been the depth of their rotations – if they are going to play their starters 30+ minutes a night, this becomes a prime spot to build around and correlate it with Dame and some Portland pieces. As always I will pass on any info I find on Twitter @2lockSports throughout the day.
Enjoy your weekend all!
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