NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday November 20
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 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.
Monday’s NBA DFS winning GPP scores pushed well past 350 on FantasyDraft as we had a whopping FOURTEEN players put up 50 or more fantasy points. Of the fourteen players, five of them were priced in the mid range (under $14K), but the majority of them were high dollar spends, including the slates leading scorer Russell Westbrook who came in at 1% ownership due to his GTD tag and all he did was return and score 63 fantasy points!
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 – Four Game Slate Observations:
As I do each day, I try to look at the NBA DFS slate for that night and just get a feel for how I see the slate playing out – are there any key themes or clear trends that jump off the page? Can you get an idea of where the industry may go and try and get a head start in reacting to it? So rather than jump into specific plays, I thought with it being only a four game slate that I could jump into my observations that may shape how we approach this slate.
Lack of “Star Power” – The most glaring thing when you first open up the player pool is how we have a slate that is lacking the $20K+ players like Giannis, AD, LeBron etc with no single player on FantasyDraft being priced at $18K or above.
Turmoil in DC – With the highest total on the slate at 230 against the Clippers, the Wizards were going to be a popular place for people to look but I think the recent turmoil in Washington will lead to more narratives around the industry as they try to dig deeper into this team on a four game slate.
Story filed to ESPN: The Wizards fined All-Star John Wall for unloading a verbal barrage onto coach Scott Brooks in a recent practice. After Wall and his teammates had been challenged to raise intensity in that session, Wall fired back with "F--- you," to Brooks. Story soon.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 20, 2018
With their star player fighting with the coach, Bradley Beal apparently on the trading block and Dwight Howard questionable to play tonight – this Wizards team is a total mess right now!
Centers Against Brooklyn – Any time we see Centers Against Brooklyn we tend to drool over it and drive ownership up across the industry and I expect that will happen again tonight with Hassan Whiteside as he takes on Brooklyn. The last time these two teams faced off, Whiteside was priced at $15.4K on FantasyDraft and he garnered just under 40% ownership in GPP’s on an eleven game slate. Tonight, Whiteside is priced $1K cheaper at $14.4K and we only have a four game slate – how much higher can that ownership climb?
It is worth noting, in his last four games against the Nets dating back to last season, Whiteside has gone for only 27, 32, 36 and one game at 50 fantasy points. So we will have a massive chalk player that everyone thinks is in a SMASH SPOT (fyi I hate that term) who has actually only hit value one time in his last four tries in the same exact match-up. Sounds like a strategic fade candidate to me!
NBA DFS – Where to start your builds tonight:
When looking at the Vegas data tonight and sorting through the four games available to us, one of the things that jumped off the page to me was that the Orlando Magic were actually projected to see the second highest point boost on the slate which would seem contrary to what many would believe against the Toronto Raptors. This Toronto-Orlando game actually has the second highest total (222.5) on the slate with the second fastest projected pace which is likely largely driven by the fact that the Raptors are playing at one of the fastest paces in the NBA recently – 7th in the NBA over the last 10 games.
I mentioned in the open how there was a lack of “star power” as this slate is loaded with more of the second tier starts in the NBA and one thing I noticed was how hard it was to find games with these top-tier players on BOTH sides.
Follow me here for a moment –
Portland/New York – Sure we have Damian Lillard on the Portland side entering the bright lights of Madison Square Garden but are you really confident running it back with the Knicks? I love Tim Hardaway Jr. to a fault, but at some point you have to wonder if there is any profit potential left in his price point at $13.6K on FantasyDraft.
I will say, Trey Burke ($8.5K) is an interesting value play on this slate who despite coming off the bench for the Knicks, is putting up some serious numbers as the leader of the Knicks second unit. Over the last two games, Burke has put up a massive 36.9% usage rate while delivering over 1.3 FP/M, averaging 35 fantasy points per game in this small sample size.
Nets/Heat – In what I expect will be a popular game stack, the entire world will be all over Hassan Whiteside as we already touched on and my guess is the Miami value will be highly sought after with Goran Dragic AND Tyler Johnsonout. The question is – who are the ceiling plays here? Whiteside is the one people will point to but he has gone for 50+ only twice this season and who are you running it back with on Brooklyn? D’Angelo Russell is a great play in a vacuum but much like THJ, how much profit potential do we really have at $13.7K? Honestly, I would rather drop down and use guys on the Nets are are far less expensive like Jarrett Allen and Allen Crabbe who are playing 30 minutes a night in the starting line-up for Brooklyn and make for interesting leverage plays off the more popular Miami side.
Wizards/Clippers – The 230 total and slate high projected pace are all great reasons to go here and we do have John Wall on the Washington side, but the Clippers are on a back to back and playing their third game in four nights, traveling to Brooklyn than Atlanta and now DC. The Wizards head coach and star player also just got into a heated screaming match and their second best player in Bradley Beal is on the trading block. Gut feel – but couldn’t you see a game scenario where this game just gets ugly and out of hand and we regret playing guys on both sides with red flags galore?
On the Clippers side, the one guy who stands out to me is Lou Williams, who has a 33% usage rate with Galinari (currently questionable) off the floor. Sweet Lou went for 40+ fantasy points last night and that was without a single three-pointer and going 4-15 from the floor in 30 minutes. The ceiling is always massive for Lou Williams and he gets a nice boost again if Gallo is out.
So that all leads me back to the Raptors and Magic, two teams that have each won 7 of their last 10, who had last night off after routing their previous opponents over the weekend. Is this a spot where we go all-in and game stack this bad boy?
NBA DFS – Magic and Raptors Game Stack:
Let’s start a potential game stack with the Magic side of this game as they get a point and pace boost against Toronto. It all starts with Nikola Vucevic ($15K) who comes into this game on a tear with 50+ points in four of his last six games, putting up 59 and 58 in his two most recent games against the Knicks and Lakers.
As we mentioned already, this slate lacks star power in name, but in Vuc you are getting a mid-tier priced player who could easily lead the slate in scoring. Over the last three games, Vuc has a team leading 30% usage rate while putting up over 1.6 FP/M and is one of my favorite plays on the entire slate.
Aaron Gordon ($12.9K) has gone for 36+ in four of his last five games and has a 27% usage rate and 1.2 FP/M output in this most recent three game stretch. Evan Fournier ($11.5K) is the third member of this Magic core, playing 30+ minutes a night and by stacking up these three Magic players, you are getting a trio that accounts for nearly 45 FGA per game which is 50% of the total Magic shot attempts per game. I preach this all the time but if I am stacking, I want to find a way to get 2-3 guys that essentially soak up all the usage and fantasy production and I think you can do that with the Vic/AG/Fournier combination.
On Toronto’s side, you are starting your build with Kawhi Leonard ($17.4K) who will be back after resting on Saturday against the Bulls. When Kawhi is on the floor this season, this is clearly his team as he is sporting a team-high 32.2% usage rate and putting up 1.33 FP/M and after dropping 60+ fantasy points against the Celtics his last game, Kawhi could end up as the must have star on this slate.
Kyle Lowry ($14.1K) is the one guy I will likely leave off my stacks as his price point with Kawhi on the floor is simply too rich. Nearly all of Lowry’s “ceiling” games have came when Leonard has rested and I am simply not interesting in paying this price for a guy with an 18% usage rate and 1 FP/M rate with Kawhi on the floor this year. One thing to note, Lowry is officially listed as questionable and with the Raptors on the front end of a B2B, they will likely sit Kawhi tomorrow – so it would not shock me to see them sit Lowry tonight and then bring him back Wednesday when Kawhi sits.
Instead, I will look to the front court where the duo of Pascal Siakam and Serge Ibaka is sitting right in the mid-tier at $12K/player as both players have gone for 30+ fantasy points in each of their last three games. Plus we get the added benefit of REVENGE NARRATIVE with Ibaka heading back to Orlando! If you look at any Raptors box score where Kawhi plays and it stays close (ie. ignore the Bulls game), you will see this is a Toronto rotation that leans on its starters to play 30+ minutes with regularity when the game is close.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – the sample lineup shown below is not meant to be a Plug and Play lineup and is to be used as an illustrative example only.
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G: Allen Crabbe
G: Lou Williams
F/C: Kawhi Leonard
F/C: Nikola Vucevic
F/C: Aaron Gordon
UTIL: Pascal Siakam
UTIL: Jarrett Allen
Slate Overview: I am really excited and interested to see how the industry views this NBA DFS slate tonight. I think you can argue that every game here is a viable stack but I also believe there will be some clear chalk spots to pivot off of. I am fine on a short four game slate taking stands in GPP’s to try to differentiate from the field and my hope is that this Toronto/Orlando game gets less ownership than I feel it deserves.
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