NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday December 5

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.

Tuesday’s NBA DFS slate was a phenomenal GPP slate as the Suns/Kings chalk was so obvious and to see guys like DeAndre Ayton and Josh Jackson over 70% owned in tournaments was just a perfect reminder of how the buzz can lead everyone to the same place. I took the approach of fading the Suns entirely and that worked out nicely as not a single player that had any ownership (excluding someone named De’Anthony Melton) had more than 28 fantasy points. I went all in on the Jazz against a horrible Spurs defense and you would think I had a great night since they put up 139 points – well too bad the game was over by halftime and all the Jazz starters got to rest and accrue a whole lot of nothing in the second half. Oh well, the process was right but the results just didn’t follow – still a good learning experience but let’s move on to tonight’s slate.

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 – 10 Game NBA DFS Slate:

Before we get into tonight’s slate, our friends at FantasyDraft have been kind enough to offer up ANOTHER Picks and Pivots Free Roll for tonight’s slate which will award $25 Pick and Roll tickets to the top three finishers. I really hope you guys are taking advantage of this amazing opportunity to play/win for free and get more exposure to what I believe is the best DFS site as a result of its flexible roster construction and superior customer service. If anyone has questions on the site I am always happy to talk on Twitter @2lockSports.

Now into this 10 game NBA DFS slate where we have six (likely 7) games with 220+ totals and more than half the field seeing pace boosts in their match-ups. Outside of a Nikola Mirotic injury we are watching, we seem to have most of the injury news heading into this slate and with all the big stars – LeBron, Giannis, AD, Westbrook, Embiid, Steph/KD – on this slate, we have a huge player pool to sort through.

The top game from a Vegas perspective tonight is between the Wizards and Hawks, in a game with a 234 total, the fastest projected pace and two of the bottom 7 defensive rated teams in the entire NBA facing off against each other.

Sure, you can make the case for John Wall or Bradley Beal here and if you want to keep chasing the Wizards front court, have at it – but when is the last time fading the Wizards as actually hurt you recently? This team is a mess and they seem over-priced for their actual level of production and add on the fact they should be popular and I am fine just moving away from them entirely.

Update: John Wall is OUT tonight. Welcome to chalk Wizards/Hawks. This game feels like last night’s Suns/Kings game where the high total/fast pace and two bad teams will have everyone chasing after the value and inflating ownership like crazy. Austin Rivers at $6.4 is tough chalk to pass on running point in this game when you consider all the factors mentioned above – I am far more likely to use the value here than force in Bradley Beal and company.

My interest is more on the Hawks side here as there are some starting players on this Atlanta side priced at extremely affordable price points which scream point per dollar upside. With Taurean Prince out for the Hawks, you have 24% usage freeing up on the wings and it sounds like Kent Bazemore will get the first crack at joining the starting unit.

Dewayne Dedmon ($7.5K) is the first play that jumps off the page to me here as this is a starting center who just went for 30 FPTS against the Warriors, going against an awful Wizards front-court and locked into major minutes. This Wizards team has given up 35+ FPTS to five of the last six centers the have faced including AD, Embiid, Capela, Kanter and Serge Ibaka. If Kanter and Ibaka are going for 35-40 fantasy points, then I see no reason to think Dedmon cannot do the same and this price point is just far too low considering his role.

Kevin Huerter ($7.1K) is locked into a starting role and 25-30 minutes a night and has gone for 3x+ in each of his last three games. The second unit usage here is totally up for grabs now with Bazemore joining the first team but I am not sure on a ten game slate I want to roll the dice with any of the other Hawks value to be honest.

NBA DFS – Game Stack Core:

Sorting through this slate there was one game that jumped off the page to me immediately as a game I wanted to build around as we get a nationally televised contests between the Sixers and Raptors in Toronto.

This game has the second highest total on the slate at 229 and is the only other game (outside of Washington/Atlanta) where both teams see a pace increase. With a close spread of 6 points and two teams that run condensed rotations around their starters – this is the perfect game stack to build around tonight as it has nearly everything you need.

First, on a slate with so many stars you need to have one guy capable of breaking the slate and in this game, it is Joel Embiid ($18.3K) who dropped 55 FPTS (31 pts/11 boards) on Toronto in their earlier season meeting and happens to be one of the cheapest studs on the slate. You have a loaded group of second tier stars all locked into major minutes that will essentially soak up all the usage and fantasy production as you look towards Ben Simmons ($15.7K) and Jimmy Butler ($13.4K) on the Philly side and Kawhi Leonard ($17K) and Kyle Lowry ($14.1K) on the Toronto side.

It may seem aggressive to go all-in like this and you may wonder if it is even possible, but you can lock in all five of these guys and still have over $7.1K per player remaining.

If you look at the pricing for the core players in this game, they all seem to be priced fairly which will likely keep the industry buzz off this game but any time we can get a game with a high total/fast pace and you know you are locking in what is likely to be the top 5 fantasy scores from it – is it worth paying that price?

The first time these two teams met, Kawhi (55) and Lowry (45) both had strong games (pre-Butler trade) and Kawhi comes into this game with 50+ fantasy points in three of his last five outings. On the Philly side, the recent game logs for Butler and Simmons will likely push people to balk at their asking price after a slow-paced Memphis game and two consecutive blowouts. Simmons has gone for 40+ in 6 of the 10 games since Butler joined Philadelphia and we have seen in competitive games that this trio can all hit value.

Look back to the Brooklyn game on 11/25, where the Sixers leaned on their starting five for essentially the entire game – Embiid going for 57, Butler 62 and Simmons 41 fantasy points. The reason I point that game out is that it was the last real good comparison as they followed that game up with blowouts versus Washington and New York before an extreme pace down spot against the Grizzlies.

To me this game gives you multiple studs in Embiid and Kawhi that have 50-60 point upside and secondary stars like Lowry, Butler and Simmons that are all players with 40-50 point likely outcomes assuming this game stays close. I am a firm believer that this being a national TV game matters to two teams trying to stake their claim as the best in the Eastern Conference and I think we can get this spot at lower ownership than it likely deserves.

NBA DFS – Value and Pivot Plays:

With Marvin Williams out for the foreseeable future, it is going to open up some value in the Hornets front court and my favorite target here is Miles Bridges ($7.8K) who was started the second half for Charlotte against New Orleans after Williams was forced to leave that game. In that game, over 29 minutes of court time, Bridges had a 25% usage rate, racking up 16 points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks on his way to 33 fantasy points.

Depending on what news we get here, especially if Cody Zeller is not able to return as expected, this Hornets front court could be loaded with value against Minnesota tonight.

If Nikola Mirotic is forced to miss tonight’s game I would expect Julius Randle to be one of the more popular plays on the slate after his massive performance last game. I would not overlook some of the punt value however that will be far less popular on the Pelicans side, specifically Darius Miller ($6.2K) who has played 23 and 24 minutes in back to back games averaging just under 20 FPTS per game which would exceed 3x value at this price point.

If you look back at the Clippers game (last time Pelicans played), and dig into the game flow – you will notice that it was Miller and Solomon Hill on the floor for the entire fourth quarter in place of Tim Frazier and E’Twaun Moore and with Mirotic sidelines steps into a role as one of the biggest three-point threats which is critical in this Pelicans attack. Even if Mirotic plays, Miller looks like he is locked into 20-25 minutes a night and if he is going to be leaned on for scoring off the bench while also getting run with the starters, he could be an elite punt play tonight.

NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

The sample lineup below is not meant to be a Plug and Play lineup (and believe me, I see you guys using it as such in the free roll – yeah I am watching) – it is meant to be an illustrative example based off the logic in this article. 

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G: Ben Simmons

G: Kyle Lowry

G: Jimmy Butler

F/C: Joel Embiid

F/C: Kawhi Leonard

F/C: Dewayne Dedmon 

UTIL: Miles Bridges 

UTIL: Darius Miller

Slate Overview: On a ten game slate you can get lost in the player pool and spend hours just clicking through options and games. For me, I try to keep it simple – find the game I like the most and see if I can build around it. The Sixers/Raptors game has everything I look for in a NBA DFS core – high total, high pace, stars that can carry the cash line and a supporting cast that has clear paths to 30+ minutes and fantasy production. Building around that game requires value and on a 10 game slate we can all but guarantee we will have some with guys like Dedmon and Bridges jumping out as players that are not priced for their roles as starters with major minutes coming their way. Keep an eye out for news and get in that free roll tonight folks – let’s do it!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NBA DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.