NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday December 7
Welcome to the Friday 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.
After a crazy high scoring Wednesday night NBA DFS slate, scores came crashing down to Earth on Thursday with winning GPP scores not even reaching 275 as no single player on the slate eclipsed 50 fantasy points. Damian Lillard predictably ended the night as the top raw points play on the slate as teammate CJ McCollum missed with injury and the early game stack of New York/Boston paid dividends as five of the top ten scorers on the night came from that game.
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 – Friday Night NBA DFS:
First things first – it’s Friday and we want to kick off the weekend in style and out friends at FantasyDraft have been kind enough to help out with another Picks and Pivots Free Roll – with three $25 Pick and Roll tickets up for grabs. I continue to be so thankful for their support and sponsorship and have loved talking about roster builds with many of you who are migrating over to FantasyDraft from some of the other DFS sites! Let’s go!
Let’s start with the game of the night – Warriors/Bucks – in a game environment that checks all the boxes for NBA DFS.
- Highest game total: 240
- Warriors and Bucks have the two highest team totals (120/119) which are 4-5 points higher than any other team
- Close spread: 1.5
- Fastest projected pace game
The key with this game for me though is the stars – we have plenty of lofty Vegas totals and fast paces every night with suspect teams like the Wizards and Suns as a result of them refusing to play defense but this Vegas information tonight is predicated on a trio of stars that can easily break this slate.
Giannis Antetokounmpo ($19.9K), Kevin Durant ($18.2K) and Stephen Curry ($17.9K) become a core trio and on FantasyDraft, you can lock all three in and still have $8.8K left over for the other 5 rosters spots which is more than doable.
I am a firm believer that in the NBA, stars show up against stars – we saw this a few nights back with Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler as they balled out against each other and you don’t think Giannis is going to be fired up for the Warriors coming into HIS building in a nationally televised game?
The question really for me is does this become a spot to stack or do you simply get your exposure through the three stars and look for value elsewhere? The secondary pieces in this game are viable but I am not sure they are necessary. Draymond Green is out again which means we can roll out Kevon Looney ($8.1K) as a nice secondary piece in a Warriors stack and although Klay Thompson is priced reasonably ($12.3K), I am not going to pay for him with both Curry and KD healthy.
The Bucks side of this becomes even harder to figure out as Khris Middleton ($13K) was benched two games ago for defense and then mysteriously late scratched the next game. Eric Bledsoe ($13.4K) has gone off in his absence with 45+ fantasy points in each game but if Middleton is back tonight, I am not sure I want to pay the inflated price for Bledsoe with the usage hit he will have to take.
The one guy I do have a little interest in here is Brook Lopez ($9.4K) who continues to play upper 20’s/low 30’s minutes manning the middle for Milwaukee. When given the minutes, Bro-Lo has actually had some serious success against the Warriors in recent years with 40+ fantasy point games last year with the Lakers and in 2016 with the Nets.
Normally, playing Centers against the Warriors is risky because they can go small and run your big guys off the court but without Draymond Green on the floor it becomes harder for Golden State to do that and Centers recently are having big time success against Golden State.
Tristan Thompson (44 FPTS), Dewayne Dedmon (30), Andre Drummond (49) and Nikola Vucevic (57) have all put up big games against Golden State over the last week plus and although Bro-Lo is not usually someone who prioritizes rebounding, his recent games (7.25 rebounds/game in his last four) have shown that when he is pulling down rebounds in addition to his three-point shooting, he has some sneaky fantasy upside.
NBA DFS – Building Around the Stars:
After locking in some Warriors-Bucks pieces, the next stop in my opinion needs to be in Miami – well technically in Phoenix, as Miami plays the Suns who are on the tail end of a back to back and just generally awful.
The big news here is Hassan Whiteside is OUT due to the birth of his child which means we get some Miami front court value against the worst defensive team on the slate – giddy up!
The last time Whiteside missed was against Detroit and we saw the Heat push Bam Adebayo ($8.5K) into the starting role where he responded with 11 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks/steals and 30+ fantasy points in 29 minutes of court time which would exceed 3.5x value at this same price point here tonight.
Kelly Olynyk ($7.8K) had similar success n that Detroit game with 32 fantasy points of his own off 23 minutes of court time and has carved out 25+ minutes a night and 28+ FPTS per game over his last three outings. With the Heat being down Whiteside AND Wayne Ellington tonight, and with Goran Dragic still questionable – this Miami squad could be the value we need to unlock the big three from the Warriors/Bucks game later on in the evening.
Brandon Ingram will join Rajon Rondo on the sidelines for the Lakers as they take on the Spurs for the second time in three days in a match-up against a San Antonio team that is ranked dead last in defensive rating over the last 10 games. The Lakers just put up 121 points in this spot and with the injury to Ingram it should open up even more value we can build around here tonight.
Lonzo Ball ($10.9K) just played 39 minutes, racking up 14 points, 9 assists, 4 rebounds, 2 steals and 37.5 FPTS (3.4x value) in this same exact game and his price is just far too cheap against a Spurs team that is hemorrhaging points to opposing PG’s this season.
With Ingram limited last game, it was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($7.4K) who really stepped into the larger role against the Spurs, playing 28 minutes on his way to 12 points, 7 rebounds and 24 fantasy points. Josh Hart actually started the second half in place of Ingram but barely saw any action however we will need to watch for news here to see how the Lakers replace Ingrams minutes.
UPDATE: We now know some BIG news for tonight’s slate as Joel Embiid will miss his first game this season due to rest. This has huge implications for Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons, pushing them into elite plays and it will open up added value like Mike Muscala in the front court. Do not overlook TJ McConnell here either who has historically seen a usage and FP/M boost when Embiid has been out the last two years.
With this news – this is starting to feel like a Stars/Scrubs slate that could push 400 fantasy points like it did two nights ago. Buckle up.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
The sample lineup shown below is not meant to be a Plug and Play lineup and is meant to be illustrative ONLY.
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G: Lonzo Ball
F/C: Kevin Durant
F/C: Bam Adebayo
UTIL: Kelly Olynyk
UTIL: Brook Lopez
Slate Overview: Finding a way to lock in pieces from the Warriors and Bucks feels like an absolute must tonight in both cash games and GPP’s. This is not a simple Vegas data play, you have elite talent going against each other in a pace up game environment on national TV – one, two, maybe three guys are going to go off here and you simply need to have exposure. The value on the Heat and Lakers makes this a roster build path that at first glance (6AM EST) feels easy to make work and with a slate this large, I assume even more will surface throughout the day. Enjoy this one guys – get in that Free Roll and let’s start our weekend off strong!
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