NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday December 10 – Thunder Up!
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.
After a Sunday full of NFL DFS and Fantasy Football playoffs, we had an underwhelming three game NBA DFS slate that saw winning GPP scores barely crack 300. Giannis Antetokounmpo, DeMar DeRozan and Kemba Walker all went for 50+ fantasy points as did Kevin Knox in the latest installment of which random Knicks bench player will go off on this slate? Basically if you had Kevin Knox on this slate you crushed which seems so odd to write, but that is what happens sometimes on these small three game NBA DFS slates.
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 – Massive Monday NBA DFS Slate:
With an eleven game NBA DFS slate on tap for Monday, it is going to be critical to narrow down our player pool with so many options. Luckily there is no shortage of studs to pay up for and injuries to open up value so we should have more than enough ways to build our roster.
First and foremost, we need to sort through the injuries as we have some big names that potentially will miss tonight’s NBA DFS action.
- John Wall is questionable to play against Indiana, which puts Bradley Beal in play with a massive usage boost. Against Atlanta when Wall missed, Beal went for 58+ fantasy points but at $15.8K on FantasyDraft it feels like he is already priced for life without Wall and I question how much profit potential remains at this price point.
- Hassan Whiteside is OUT again tonight which means we can fire up Bam Adebyao ($11.7K) again after putting up 34 and 43 fantasy points in his last two starts. My only “concern” with Bam is that the price point much like Beal’s has caught up to his role and the Lakers could opt to go small at any point and push Bam to the bench.
- The biggest injury news in my mind is the status of Jamal Murray who would join Will Barton, Gary Harris and Paul Millsap on the sideline for the Nuggets tonight if he is ultimately ruled out.
If Jamal Murray is unable to go, Monte Morris will almost assuredly start in his place.
— T.J. McBride (@TJMcBrideNBA) December 9, 2018
That means that either Brandon Goodwin (signed using the injury hardship exception) or DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell will have to act as the backup point guard.
If Murray is out, it would push Monte Morris ($7.1K) into the starting role and here is where the profit potential lies in our injury news as Morris, despite already having a 25+ minute role off the bench, would be pressed into 30+ minutes and at this price point would seem like a lock to pay off value.
The beauty in a play like Morris is that you can lock him in to offset the cost of any of the stars on this slate and still maintain a “balanced build.” The question becomes which star do you want to build around?
We have LeBron James facing his former Miami squad in LA after putting up 73 fantasy points against them earlier this season and Joel Embiid getting to take on Andre Drummond in a feud that has historically brought out the best in The Process, putting up 65 fantasy points in each of the last two meetings.
Russell Westbrook ($19.3K) meanwhile has back to back triple doubles, with 70+ fantasy points in each of those games and will face off against Ricky Rubio, a player who he averaged over 65 fantasy points against in the regular season and went for 73 and 76 fantasy points in the final two meetings in the post season.
This OKC-Utah game has the third lowest total on the board but it has the 5th fastest projected pace, nearly identical pace projections to the slates most popular target in New Orleans and Boston which makes me think Westbrook and this game in general could go over-looked – which piques my interest for a potential game stack here.
NBA DFS – Thunder Stack:
Looking at pace projections and trends is one of my favorite ways to break down my NBA DFS player pool as the simple concept of higher pace means more possessions means more fantasy production.
Throughout the season, any time teams like the Hawks or Kings are on the slate, the industry tends to buzz about their pace and what it means for opponents. The Thunder sit at a respectable 8th in pace this year but that is severely understated due to the early season absence of Russell Westbrook. In the last 10 games, OKC is playing at the 2nd fastest pace in the NBA (tied with the Kings and right behind Atlanta) but conversely also has the best defensive rating in the league over that span so this becomes a pace versus defense argument.
OKC is one of the easiest teams to break down from a stacking perspective as nearly all the usage and production are centered around Westbrook and Paul George ($16.3K) who lead the team with nearly 20 FGA per game over the last 10 games. Steven Adams ($12.5K) becomes the low usage correlation play and basically, you are done with a Thunder stack.
As odd as it may sound, the Utah side of this game is really what draws me to a game stack here for tournament play – I know, I have been focused on the Thunder side and for good reason, that’s where the star power lies – but follow me here for a second.
The Jazz have just finished a three game stretch against two of the slowest paced teams in the NBA as they faced the Spurs twice and the Rockets once and with two of those games being blowouts, the game log watchers are going to completely ignore this Utah team.
Utah is getting the fifth highest pace boost on this slate and what I love about the Jazz is that their rotations center around 4-5 guys at max which means if this game stays close as Vegas expects it will, you have a clear core of players with 30+ minute projections in a massive pace up game environment.
Ricky Rubio, Donovan Mitchell, Rudy Gobert and Joe Ingles are the core four plays from Utah in this spot, all priced in the mid-range of $12-$14K on FantasyDraft and would seemingly be locked into 30+ minutes tonight in a large pace up spot and rematch of last years Western Conference Playoffs.
Look back at those playoff games and you can see how both Rubio and Mitchell excelled last season averaging 44 and 46 fantasy points which would give you 90 fantasy points and over 3.5x value from two guys priced in the affordable mid-range.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
I honestly struggled with where to put Anthony Davis ($19.4K) today. With a slate high 230 game total between the Pelicans and Celtics, I would imagine this would feel like a chalk spot but after we got “Anthony Davis heads to the locker room” tweets on Sunday, will people be hesitant to adsorb the injury risk on a back to back here?
The post-game news on AD was that he was clearly banged up with a hip injury that forced him to play at less than 100 percent and if that buzz becomes the story today and the tweets start to come out that AD is a “game time decision” – this could end up being a spot where everyone moves away from AD. Add in the fact the Celtics frontcourt is a mess with both Al Horford and Aron Baynes questionable, and this screams like a spot we should want to play The Brow as who exactly is stopping him on Boston?
But maybe that is where the fun begins on this slate – the Vegas total could make AD the chalk stud or the injury risk could put him at essentially no ownership. This is a spot where I am going to build a line-up with AD early on and then listen to the news throughout the day and take whatever course the industry is not.
Daniel Theis ($7.7K) is coming off a monster 50+ fantasy point outing with 32 minutes as the starting Center for Boston and could see a similar role tonight with Horford and Baynes are forced to missing. Most will scream that Theis is game log chasing as this Pelicans front court is certainly not the same as the Chicago Bulls team he just demolished, but if Horford/Baynes are out – Theis simply has to play big minutes and the only risk here is foul trouble guarding the Brow.
UPDATE: This slate just went from crazy to LUDICROUS with the Celtics injury news. Kyrie Irving is OUT as is Aron Baynes and now Gordon Hayward and Al Horford are doubtful.
This now pushes the Celtics to the forefront of value in my mind as guys like Terry Rozier, Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown will have no choice but to play major minutes alongside Marcus Morris, Jayson Tatum and Daniel Theis. Literally – that is it – that’s the 6 man Celtics core in a massive pace up spot and you can easily run it back with Anthony Davis and Julius Randle (who as ThunderDan pointed out is on a crazy heater) and still have more than enough room left over.
The initial thought today from a value perspective may fall on the aforementioned Jamal Murray injury and how that impacts Monte Morris but do not forget the rest of the Nuggets “old value” here in guys like Juancho Hernangomez or Torrey Craig and Trey Lyles who have been pushed into the starting lineup due to injuries to Harris and Millsap. Frankly this value pales in comparison to the Celtics in my mind based off the game environment but the Denver guys are substantially cheaper across the industry.
This Denver-Memphis game has a 198 total which in this day and age could be a halftime total, but Denver is still projected to score 100 points and may only have a 7-8 man rotation to get there! Nikola Jokic ($17K) meanwhile is going to be an absolute usage monster in this spot and although the match-up is brutal against Memphis, this becomes a spot without Millsap, Murray, Harris AND Barton that he will have to simply do everything doe Denver to have a chance to win.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
This sample lineup is not meant to be a plug and play lineup and should be used as an illustrative example only.
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Stars and Scrubs(Nuggets):
G: Russell Westbrook
G: Kyrie Irving
G: Monte Morris
F/C: Anthony Davis
F/C: Nikola Jokic
F/C: Trey Lyles
UTIL: Torrey Craig
UTIL: Malik Beasley
Slate Overview: There are so many paths you can take on this slate and there is simply too much news to feel confident in any lineup this early in the day but I believe we need to keep a Stars/Scrubs build in mind as the day unfolds mainly due to the value in the Denver rotations if Jamal Murray is out. The pricing on the few remaining healthy bodies in Denver allows us to pick and choose from the studs we want and it becomes easy to lock in multiple stars on this slate as a result.
With the Celtics injury news, I think you can make the argument to forego the cheap Denver value and move up a but for better value in Boston as you have superior talent in a better game environment. The big news I will be watching up to lock is the status on AD as if he is out, the Celtics/Pelicans becomes a cheap high upside game stack and if he plays, considering the risk and the size of the slate, could have minimal ownership. This is going to be a crazy slate – that is about all we know for certain.
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