NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday November 15

Welcome to the Thursday 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.

For an 11 game slate on Wednesday, the scores were way lower than I expected them to be as the cash line was well below 300 heading in the last quarter of the Lakers/Portland game and it was really LeBron James going off for 80 fantasy points at over 25% ownership that drove the cash ling to 300+. The biggest takeaway I had was that Damian Lillard was basically at 0-1% ownership everywhere as we did not have definitive confirmation he would play in the late night hammer and man oh man, if you paired him with LeBron in a mini-game stack, you likely had yourself a night!

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:

After a three game slate on Tuesday, followed by a massive 11 game slate last night, we jump back to a three gamer again on Thursday which admittedly is one of my least favorite kinds of slates. Thankfully looking ahead, we only have one more three game slate the rest of this month and get back into more mid-sized slates starting again on Friday.

At first glance, I expected to open this slate and see a Golden State-Houston game with Vegas data that just crushed the other games on this slate so it is a bit surprising to see “only” a 220 total which is jammed right in between the Spurs-Clippers and Nuggets-Hawks.

So we have a nationally televised game on TNT, with no Steph Curry or Carmelo Anthony which means that the usage and production for this games biggest starts takes an even bigger step forward.

Let’s start with the Warriors, who will “welcome back” Draymond Green after his suspension that forced him to miss the teams game against Atlanta. Without Curry on the floor – this is a pretty clear three man show for me as Kevin Durant ($19.9K), Klay Thompson ($13.9K) and Quinn Cook ($11.1K) are the obvious beneficiaries of having Chef Curry off the court.

KD has a massive 40.6% usage rate this season while Klay is not far behind at 37.3%. Durant is averaging 58 FPTS in the three games since Curry went out while Klay is putting up 40 a game and you could argue on this short slate, they should be the first two guys in your line-up.

Cook is really the interesting one here – he bounced back after a poor showing against the Clippers with 32 fantasy points against Atlanta after putting up 42 against Brooklyn. This is the spot where I think getting Draymond back actually hurts Cook, as Green will routinely have the ball in his hand and when you have him, Igoudala and Livingston all available as they did against the Clippers, you could see a repeat of his down performance. Add on the fact he will have to face CP3 defense and this may be the guy I leave out of my Warriors mini-stack.

On the Rockets side, with Melo still “sick” and with injuries to Gerald Green and Gary Clark, the Rockets could be short-handed again on the wings. Let’s not bury the lead here – this is all about James Harden ($19.2K) who has a 42% usage rate over the last two games and will now get a nationally televised spot against his former OKC teammate.

I am torn on what to do with Chris Paul ($14.5K) as I like the spot, but the price point demands a ceiling game and I am not sure with Harden on the floor that he is going to get me there. As much as I like Clint Capela ($13.1K) this is another spot where the price feels just a tad too expensive for a player that could get run off the court if the game goes smaller. Capela failed to top 35 fantasy points in any of his three meetings with the Warriors in the regular season and did not get there in any of the 7 postseason meetings so not sure the ceiling is there for Capela at this price point.

P.J. Tucker ($8.6K) makes for an interesting fringe play with Melo still out and we saw Tucker go for 30+ fantasy points in this match-up in four of the ten meetings with Golden State last season. Eric Gordon ($9.6K) continues to get 30+ minutes a night and I think if you are building around Harden, that fading CP3 and using Tucker/Gordon as leverage plays is an interesting way to go in stacks.

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays off Harden and Durant:

When you look at this slate at first glance, it becomes clear that there are three studs sitting at the top with James Harden, Kevin Durant and Nikola Jokic ($17.6K). The fact that KD and harden face-off against each other make them an easy correlation play and could possibly mean Jokic is the odd-man out and viewed as a GPP pivot off those guys.

The question is – can you build a roster with all three?The math would tell you on FantasyDraft that it is actually quite easy to do as you would still have $8.6K remaining for the rest of your roster but the question is, should you? Also it appears we should ignore any injury designation next to Jokic for what it is worth.

What really is going to drive some of this decision-making for me is the status of the Hawks big men. We already know that Dwayne Dedmon is out, Alex Len is questionable and John Collins is doubtful – so what exactly would the Hawks have left? Miles Plumlee ($6.2K) would be a pretty amazing value if he was forced to get any significant run but really this is more about The Joker – with such a depleted front line for Atlanta, how does Jokic not go bonkers here?

So far, I have recommended you play James Harden, Kevin Durant, Nikola Jokic and Klay Thompson – this is hard-hitting hot takes left and right. And yes, snarky reader I know there is a salary cap so how exactly can I find the value to make this work?

Maybe the answer lies in this Denver-Atlanta game. Stay with the Nuggets who have started Juancho Hernangomez ($7K) the last two games, playing 29 and 38 minutes while putting up an average of 19 FPPG. If Hernangomez is going to get this much run then he needs to be in your player pool as a value play on a small slate but there may be more here in Denver.

I love Jamal Murray but right now even I cannot spend up for him when Monte Morris ($8K) is giving you better point per dollar production each night. Morris is putting up 1.1 FP/M over his last three games, playing 22, 27 and 31 minutes. What really stands out to me from last game was the game flow which shows that Morris checked in mid-way through the third quarter for Murray and never came out of the game again, playing the entire fourth quarter alongside Murray the entire time as the Nuggets went a bit smaller. What I love about a guy like Morris is that he is game-script proof in a way – you know he will get the run in a close game and if this game turns into a blowout as the 12 point spread suggests, he will get the end of the game run too!

Going back to the Hawks, even if Len does play I think Miles Plumlee at $6.2K is in play and he becomes an auto-play if Len is out and is the only remaining big for the Hawks. Look back against Detroit a few games ago when the Hawks faced a similar opposing front-line of big men. In that game Len was limited to only 8 minutes which left Dedmon and Plumlee playing most of the minutes and he responded with 17 minutes and 22 fantasy points. With Dedmon out and Collins doubtful, Plumlee would seem like he has a clear path to minutes regardless how Len feels after shoot-around.

NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative ONLY based on the logic provided and not an optimized plug and play lineup. 

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G: James Harden

G: Klay Thompson

G: Monte Morris

F/C: Kevin Durant

F/C: Juancho Hernangomez

F/C: Nikola Jokic

UTIL: Miles Plumlee

UTIL: Andre Igoudala

Slate Overview: Much like Tuesday’s short slate, I think this slate comes down to the stars – Durant, Harden and Jokic and how you intend to attack them. On Tuesday, the winning GPP line-ups had at least two of them with Harden and Durant at 60% plus ownership while Jokic was only at 35%. I could see a very similar ownership breakout tonight and I think there is a somewhat clear path to fitting in all three. Keep an eye on the value we may get tonight in Atlanta and we also have the Spurs on a back to back so who ever knows what to expect there. Most will tell you to play these slates lightly and they are probably right, but why be boring – empty your bankroll and go all in on Miles Plumlee – you only live once.

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