NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday November 21
Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
This is the spot where I take my big fat L for Tuesday’s NBA DFS slate were I argued the strategic fade for Hassan Whiteside and his lack of upside in a spot against the Nets he had failed to hit value in three of his last four. Well, Whiteside was 60% plus owned in GPP’s and proceeded to go out and drop 56 fantasy points which was second highest on the entire slate and old 2LockSports was left watching the cash line jump up while his fade blew up in his face. This is me taking my L Mr. Whiteside. Well done.
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 – Thirteen Game Slate:
I have already had two cups of coffee and spent two hours staring at this slate and it still feels incredibly overwhelming as we have thirteen NBA DFS games to breakdown and try to pick out the handful of players from essentially the entire NBA player pool on this night before Thanksgiving.
Let’s start with the big news items to help set the context for this beast.
The Golden State Warriors will host the Oklahoma City Thunder tonight in a game that will not include Steph Curry, Draymond Green or Alfonzo McKinnie (yes I included him to be thorough) which means we get another night of all the Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson usage against Russell Westbrook, Paul George and OKC.
The Indiana Pacers have two of their most critical pieces listed as questionable for tonight with both Victor Oladipo and Myles Turner carrying the Q tag into this slate. Tyreke Evans ($10.4K) was massive chalk last slate as he got the start for Oladipo and in two games with Dipo off the court now he has failed to top 30 fantasy points. My guess is those duds plus the crazxy large slate leaves him a bit ignored tonight but every reason you played him last time (massive usage bump etc) still applies and I would not hesitate to go back to him.
If Turner is also out, it would mean Domanatas Sabonis ($12.5K) would likely slide into the starting lineup against the Hornets and this duo of Evans/Sabonis could end up being a core part of our build. With Dipo and Turner off the court this season, Evans and Sabonis see massive usage boosts and with a near 200 minute sample size, there is enough evidence here to build with confidence. Evans sports a 33% usage rate with 1.2 FP/M while Sabonis has a 26% usage rate with 1.5 FP/M. As my man Thunder Dan wrote up today in his FanDuel NBA article, Sabonis price may seem high but it is not high enough considering what his role could be with Dipo and Turner out.
Dennis Smith Jr. is questionable to face Brooklyn tonight as is J.J. Barea and we already know Wes Matthews is out, so buckle up kids, there could be some serious value in Dallas. My man Joe Metz, who writes our NBA DFS Stacks articles, broke Dallas down as one of his top value stacks and you can see a path here where the Mavericks players crush from a point per dollar perspective. We have very little sample size to work with where all three of those guys have missed, but in 20 minutes it is worth noting that Luka Doncic ($12.7K) has a 37% usage rate. This may be the first time I have mentioned him all year but DeAndre Jordan ($13.4K) gets the old “Centers Against Brooklyn” spot we all love to attack. DJ put up 44 fantasy points in both meetings with the Nets last year which would give you 3.2x value at this price point. A Luka-DJ mini stack here has massive potential for two guys priced solidly in the mid-tier tonight.
We have three guys priced over $20K on FantasyDraft tonight including Giannis and AD, but if you are paying up, I think you simply have to take LeBron James ($21K) returning to Cleveland for the first time. LeBron has gone for 70+ in two of his last three games and he went for 70 fantasy points two of the last four times he faced the Cavs when he was a member of the Heat. On a slate this big, I think you have to find a way to get one stud in your line-up and even with the price tag, I am making King James that guy for me.
NBA DFS – Slate Strategy:
On a thirteen game NBA DFS slate like we have tonight, for me I completely ignore ownership and the buzz around the industry and I focus on the best plays in my opinion. There are so many ways to go that ownership will be far more spread out than any other slate and outside of some late news that gets us a chalk value play, I really doubt anyone gets to a level where we need to think game theory.
The one “injury” that I did not mention in my open is really not an injury and it is one that DFS sites may not update until later in the day but with Toronto on a back to back it is basically a foregone conclusion that Kawhi Leonard will sit tonight. We have seen Kawhi sit out five games already this season so we have a really solid sample size to pull from and we know already that Kyle Lowry ($14.6K) excels in these game environments.
Lowry has put up 48 fantasy points per game in those five games and tonight gets an incredible individual match-up against Atlanta where no team sees a bigger pace boost than the Raptors on the entire slate. This could be another spot we attack for value if Kawhi sits as Fred VanVleet ($10K) has put up 30+ fantasy points in each of the last two games Kawhi has sat while mid-tier guys like Serge Ibaka have led the team in usage (30%) and FP/M (1.5) with Kawhi off the floor this year.
One other injury situation to monitor tonight may not seem like a big deal, but if we are rocking with King James in his return to Cleveland, I love the idea of running it back with some Cavs players in hopes the can keep this game close with some added motivation. Come on – tell me you don’t see the narrative here – your Ex dumps you to head to something “better” so the next time you see them you go all out to make em jealous! Yeah that’s right, Jordan Clarkson is going to make you regret the day you ever walked out on him LeBron!
With Collin Sexton nursing a hip injury, it would mean value plays like Andrew Harrison could get the start while guys like Clarkson are forced to absorb all the usage as the primary scoring option. With Love, Sexton, Hill and JR Smith all off the court this year, Clarkson has a massive 35% usage rate and would be forced to carry the load in a REVENGE SPOT of his own!
Staying in Cleveland, Cedi Osman ($8.5K) feels far too cheap for a player that is playing 30 minutes a night in a game in a game where the Cavs are getting one of the biggest point and pace boosts on the slate. This is a player that has shown you 30-40 fantasy point upside multiple times this year and he only needs 25 FPTS just to hit value. Again, if you are locking in LeBron as your stud, I think running it back with some Cavs value is a great strategy as it allows you to offset the investment in a guy like LeBron.
If you want to pivot off LeBron as your stud, especially on FantasyDraft, I would likely find a way to get to a Russell Westbrook – Kevin Durant pairing. If you look at the prices for Westbrook and KD at $19K per player, it becomes an interesting 2v2 discussion – consider this for a moment – would you rather Westbrook and KD for $38K of salary or LeBron James and KAT/Lillard/Drummond with the same spend?
There is one game over the last two seasons where KD played against OKC and Curry missed out – and he went for 58 fantasy points in that game while Westbrook on the other side went for 77.If you dig deeper into that game you will see that Klay Thompson was the next best performer on the Warriors side with 35 fantasy point, keeping in mind Draymond Green played that game.
You need to nail the studs on this slate and I think from a roster construction perspective, you can make the argument to pair KD-Russ tonight over going LeBron +1 or trying to cram in AD/Embiid together.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is not meant to be a plug and play optimized lineup and is meant for illustrative purposes only.
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G: Luka Doncic
G: Kyle Lowry
F/C: LeBron James
F/C: DeAndre Jordon
F/C: Domantas Sabonis
UTIL: Dorian Finney-Smith
UTIL: Cedi Osman
Slate Overview: Slates of this size can be overwhelming, I will admit, I spun and spun clicking on every player combination I could as I was writing this article and then I stopped and stepped back. What was most critical to me and how do I want to attack this slate?
First and foremost, which of the studs are you going to anchor to tonight? I think you must have at least one – with LeBron, AD, Giannis, Westbrook versus Durant etc – one of these guys is going to have a big game and I think wit a player pool this large, it will be easier than usual to make those guys work.
If LeBron is your guy, I think you need to run it back with 1-2 Cavs pieces especially if Sexton is ruled out which is where Clarkson/Osman fit into my build.
With the injuries in Dallas, this could become a core spot to stack with Luka and DJ, but do not over-look DFS who is averaging 25 FPTS per game in his last three with 30+ minutes in back to back games. If you get a player locked into 30+ minutes at only $7K who on an average performance is hitting 3.5x GPP vale, you simply lock it in and move on.
On any normal sized slate, having Kawhi sit out or Myles Turner/Victor Oladipo miss a game would make guys like Lowry, Evans and Sabonis mega-chalk but again, we have 26 teams in action so ownership is just not a consideration for me tonight. It is hard to argue that any of these three would be elite plays considering the usage bump so simply play it smart and lock them in.
There are so many spots to look at – literally, you could spend all day spinning but try to keep it simple. On FantasyDraft you only have 8 roster spots, so key in on the core 4-5 guys you know you want and then mix and match as you research more throughout the day.
FanDuel NBA DFS GPP Breakdown - Wednesday, November 21. dark. Next
Have a VERY happy Thanksgiving everyone – our NBA DFS coverage will be back Friday for another huge slate but don’t worry, our NFL DFS crew here at Fantasy CPR will have all your Thanksgiving Day Fantasy Football coverage ready for you!