NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday November 19
Welcome to the Monday 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.
Sunday’s short four game slate started and ended with my decision to fade LeBron James and well, after his slate leading 73 fantasy point outing, you can guess how my night went. Although the trio of LMA, DeRozan and Durant was strong, having LeBron in your line-ups on this short slate was the difference in cashing and sometimes it is a good reminder of how these short slates can turn out.
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 – 9 Game Monday Slate:
If you like big NBA DFS slates then this is going to be your week as we get a 9 game slate tonight followed by two huge slates on Wednesday and Friday with the league taking off for Thanksgiving on Thursday. At first glance, it looks like (GASP) we have most of the injury news leading into this slate with the exception of Victor Oladipo who is officially questionable after playing Saturday and then leaving when his knee injury flared up. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that he sits tonight which makes Tyreke Evans ($8K) one of the best value plays on the board and I plan to have him locked into my early line-ups despite his down performance against the Hawks as this is a player with a 32% usage rate and 1.1 FP/M output in over 200+ minutes with Oladipo off the court.
Do you ever notice you get into routines with NBA DFS? There are certain teams and players you tend to focus on in spurts if they have been good to you? That is how I feel right now with the new look Philadelphia 76ers ever since Jimmy Butler got to the team. We now have a three game sample size and the one constant is that this remains Joel Embiid‘s ($20.3K) team has he has a massive 36.5% usage rate with 1.35 FP/M in the three games since Jimmy Buckets joined the team.
The question right now if you are looking to play Embiid is exactly who you stack him with as Ben Simmons ($16.4K) and Jimmy Butler ($14.8K) are alternating who has the big game as Butler went for 45 two games ago before Simmons dropped 53 in OT versus the Hornets. The prevailing narrative around the industry right now is that this is a team with too many mouths to feed – I have heard/read it on every slate they have played – Saturday as an example, Embiid/Butler were just over 10% owned while Simmons was basically at 1% in every GPP I looked through on FantasyDraft.
In this match-up, my gut is leaning towards Simmons despite the higher price tag for two specific reasons. First, the Suns will get back Trevor Ariza tonight which means you now have two capable wing defenders in TJ Warren and Ariza to throw at Butler while the Booker/Canaan back court will have no answer for Simmons. In fact, Simmons went for 51 both times he faced this Suns team last year so we know the upside is there. Secondly, Simmons has more paths to get to a ceiling game as a result of his peripheral stats, shooting the ball only 13 times last game which was the first game he went for double-digit shot attempts since Butler came to Philly.
The Sixers as I have mentioned in my last few articles have a recipe I look for whenever I build NBA DFS line-ups – they are playing a core group of guys major minutes on a night in, night out basis. Outside of Embiid/Butler/Simmons – JJ Redick is paying 30+ minutes a night and has gone for 30+ FPTS in two of his last three games at only $10K on FantasyDraft. Mike Muscala ($7.6K) drew the start last game with Wilson Chandler remaining on a minutes cap on a back-to-back, but I would expect he moves back to the bench here tonight.
It is a pricey proposition but I still believe you can get away with stacking Embiid/Butler/Simmons and I think the majority of the NBA DFS community remains hesitant to go this route. The concept is simple – you get three guys who are playing all the minutes and essentially capturing all the fantasy production and usage for a Sixers squad with one of the highest team totals on the slate.
NBA DFS – Stack the Suns:
With a 12 point Vegas spread in this game – my gut take here is people will look at this game and talk blowout potential and the three-headed monster in Philly and make this more of a secondary game stack but I am not buying it.
The Suns just beat the Spurs and took the Celtics to OT and ever since the re-emergence of T.J. Warren, this has become a much different team than the one that got blown out by the Nets on their home court. Now to be clear, this is not the run and gun Suns team we have seen in recent seasons, they are playing at a slower pace with a bigger focus on defense but much like the Sixers this Phoenix team is concentrated on a few core pieces that play all the minutes they can handle.
It all starts with Devin Booker ($14.4K) who has a 31% usage rate when the Suns starters are on the floor together and if you need any reminder of what PG’s can do to the Sixers, take a look back at what Kemba Walker just did to Philly.
Deandre Ayton ($12.5K) is in a really tough spot against Joel Embiid as the rookie could pick up quick fouls and be relegated to the bench in an instant but this is also the same rookie who has put up 36 and 35 FPTS in two meetings with Steven Adams this season. If you look at defensive ratings for opposing Centers this year, Embiid is right between Adams and Marc Gasol – two centers that Ayton has played against already – putting up 36/43 against Gasol and 35/36/25 against Adams. The difference is really in the risk in defending a talent like Embiid but if you are stacking this game then you have to include Ayton because frankly its the only chance they have of slowing down Embiid inside.
T.J. Warren ($12.6K) has been on an absolute tear over his last five games, going for 34+ FPTS in every game and 40+ in three of those five outings. The majority of the output has some from some exceptional shooting as he has been 50% or higher in four of those five games so there is always an argument to be made for fading a hot shooter but keep in mind, Warren is a 50% plus career FG% shooter in the NBA.
With Trevor Ariza back tonight, it should push Mikal Bridges back to the bench and I expect Ariza to be locked back into his 30-35 minutes a night, especially with a defensive assignment versus Jimmy Butler. Ariza was a top 10 rated defender last season among SF’s while Warren was ranked 63 out of 75 so my guess is Ariza is shadowing Butler while they hide Warren on Chandler/Muscala.
I love the potential of this stack, Vegas line be damned as we get two teams with clearly identified rotations and a core group of players drawing all the usage and production and if we get a few value plays, throughout the day, this becomes an affordable stack as well. The Sixers and Suns see two of the top four biggest boosts in points expected tonight versus their season average and with the player pool here consisting of high-end studs and some solid value plays in the mid-tier, it becomes one of the easier game stacks to build.
NBA DFS – Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview:
Please note – the sample lineup included here is meant for illustrative purposes only and is not meant to be a plug and play line-up.
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G: Ben Simmons
G: Devin Booker
G: Tyreke Evans
F/C: Joel Embiid
F/C: T.J. Warren
F/C: Deandre Ayton
UTIL: Trevor Ariza
UTIL: Dorian Finney Smith
Slate Overview: Obviously my focus at first glance has been on one game, which may seem crazy on a nine game slate but let me lay out the logic here for you now that you see a sample lineup.
In any line-up I build, I want to have 2-3 players that I believe have “break the slate” kind of upside and I would argue that Embiid, Simmons and Booker all have that with 50-60 point games at their disposal on any given night. You need to have a strong mid-tier of plays, those guys you think are 30-40 point locks and frankly that is what I think you have with Warren/Ayton.
So take a step back, if you can get 50 from each of the “Big Three” and 30 from Warren/Ayton, you are starting your line-up with 210 fantasy points which means you need roughly 90 points from your “last three” in order to it a “target” of 300 fantasy points on FantasyDraft. To be clear this is a target number only and simply trying to walk you through the logic as I feel like if I can see a path to 300 fantasy points, then that is a great start in my builds. 300 tends to be the “cash line” on most nights on FantasyDraft so my goal is to build a roster that I can see getting there and then think through ways to push past it.
So can I get to 90 points from Evans, Ariza and DFS? What you know with that three, assuming Dipo is out, is that you have 30+ minutes likely from every single one of them which is really the first key – minutes equals opportunity in NBA DFS.
Evans is a FP/M plus producer with Oladipo off the court so I feel most confident in him, while DFS just put up 28 FPTS in 40 minutes starting for the injured Wes Matthews on Saturday night against Golden State. Ariza is the wild-card because it may be tough for both him and Warren to get there on this night. Ariza had put up 30+ in 3 of his last 7 games before leaving the team for personal reasons, but that was largely before Warren started this onslaught. In fact – the only recent game in which both Warren and Ariza went for 30+ was against San Antonio which was a game that Booker sat out.
So it is certainly possible this gets me there and there is clearly upside for more but ultimately what you have here is a NBA DFS team that seems to be locked into 30+ minutes per player in their current/projected roles tonight. Hopefully this context was helpful as you try to think through your roster construction on this slate – good luck all!
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