NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday December 11 – Get Some Sun!
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.
What an absolutely wild Monday night NBA DFS slate was the news throughout the day turned the slate on its head with John Wall, Kyrie Irving, Al Horford, Gordon Hayward and Blake Griffin all being ruled out and then the post-lock news that Giannis Antetokounmpo would sit. There was so much value available and the winning Pick and Roll ($25 GPP) lineup on FantasyDraft took advantage of it and locked in three studs including Anthony Davis, LeBron James and Karl-Anthony Towns in the top scoring lineup at around 325 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 – Three Game Tuesday Slate:
Before we jump into today’s slate, it is that time again – another FREE ROLL from our friends at FantasyDraft who continue to sponsor the Picks and Pivots Free Roll which is giving away TEN tickets to Wednesday’s NBA DFS action. Get in these each and every day! It has been great to see readers and new players to FantasyDraft send me messages that they won tickets and then won real money in the tournaments they got the tickets for the next day. Keep up the great work guys!
After a wild Monday in NBA DFS where the news seemingly came at us from all angles and made the player pool and roster builds seemingly endless, we snap back to only a three game slate tonight.As I typically do on slates of this size, I try to take a stand and plant my flag on one game and be strategic about what I fade in tournaments.
The first game of the night features the Rockets and Trail Blazers in a game with a 219 total, a 6 point spread and plenty of star power which makes me think it will become a popular spot for folks to build around tonight and this becomes the game I think you need to take a stand on either way.
With the star power of guys like James Harden, Chris Paul and Damian Lillard, you could realistically see paths where any or all of the three are the top raw point scorers on the night so fading them on a small slate could end up being a death-blow but this may be a risk worth taking.
Consider that the Rockets play at the second slowest pace in the NBA this season which is why Portland sees by far the biggest pace decrease on the board and also sees a 6 point decrease in their Vegas total as compared to their season average. As much as I love Dame, you are not getting a discount at this $17.8K price and when you combine the game environment with the tough individual match-up with Chris Paul defense and it may end up being a smart fade.
The fact that i am ruling out Lillard in my player pool is then forcing me, almost my default, to cross off the Houston stars – if I am not building around Dame, what is the point in running it back with Harden/CP3 who are also priced at premiums on this slate.
Chris Paul is priced at $14.1K on FantasyDraft, meaning he needs 42 fantasy points to hit value (3x), and you know how many times he has done that since he returned five games ago? Zero. You know how many times he has gone for under 25 fantasy points? Twice.
James Harden ($19.1K) has been held under 55 fantasy points in every game since CP3 returned to the lineup and what I think you have in this game is a trio of over-priced guys relative to the match-up that look like safe cash game plays but will be over-owned tournament options. It may seem scary but fading this game and hoping it turns into a slow-paced slug-fest, may be the route to a GPP take down!
NBA DFS – Clippers and Raptors:
If you are not stacking the Rockets and Portland, than I think the Clippers and Raptors becomes the obvious spot to build around on this slate and the pricing for the players in this game makes it an extremely easy build to work around.
This game does not yet have a Vegas total but we know it has the fastest projected pace and is the ONLY game on the slate where both teams see a pace boost – in fact all the other four teams in action see pace decreases.
The big news here to watch is the status of Lou Williams who was forced to leave last night’s games due to injury and did not return, which makes him questionable for this game here tonight and it has big time DFS implications. Lou Will may come off the bench for the Clippers but he is the team leader in usage at 33% by a wide margin so his absence means a big time boost to the remaining players.
The Clippers remaining players are all priced fairly with Tobias Harris ($13.9K) being the most expensive option as the clear usage leader with Lou Will off the court. You can easily stack up Harris, Gallo, Harrell and Shai and run it back with Lowry/Kawhi and you would still have $11K per player for the last two spots in your roster.
This game stack works perfectly for a balanced build and if you want to build your core around this game and pull one expensive piece from Houston/Portland – I certainly think it’s a viable path but what if we opt to fade this game too?
Wait, but that would leave us with only one game right Brian? Yes, reader….yes it would…and it is a doozy.
NBA DFS – Game Stacking the Suns?
Tell me you didn’t open this slate today, see that one of the three options available was a game that included the Phoenix Suns and you simply crossed it off your player pool. I did too, I saw the Suns as double-digit dogs to the Spurs playing on the second night of a back to back after a OT loss to the Clippers and thought – well this one is a cross-off.
But that is kind of the appeal – won’t everyone look at this game the same way?
These two teams have played twice already this season with the average margin of victory being 25 points as each team has blown out the other – so to say the Vegas spread here is reflecting the risk is an understatement. As a result of the lopsided scores, the game logs are predictably ugly with no Spurs player topping 40 fantasy points in either outing and with only T.J. Warren managing to top that mark from the Suns side.
Here is the appeal with this game – over the last 10 games the Spurs are ranked dead last in the NBA in defensive rating while the Suns rank 26th so what you are attacking in this game is the lack of defense and you are hoping the third time is the charm and these two squads can actually keep the game somewhat close.
The Spurs side is simple – you lock in the top two usage plays in LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan who are sporting 28% and 35% usage rates over the last two weeks. Bryn Forbes ($7.4K) is not a player I normally roster but any time I can get a PG with a path to 30 minutes against the Suns back-court which ranks 24th in DEF-EFF and DRPM against the PG position, then I have some interest.
As crazy (and maybe stupid) as it sounds – the Suns side is really where my interest lies here. The Suns have T.J. Warren back now and although he was on a “minutes restriction” – his 12 minutes last night was actually due to him being ejected. If he plays and has no restriction he could be a usage beast with Booker out but if we get word that he is out on the B2B then it could mean guys like Josh Jackson and Mikael Bridges jump into the fray.
Deandre Ayton, De’Anthony Melton and Trevor Ariza are locked into major minutes in the starting five alongside Warren and all had strong fantasy outings aided by a OT frame last night against the Clippers.
What you have here in this game is what I believe is a perfect GPP formula.
- This will be the lowest owned game stack on the slate
- You have multiple elite plays capable of leading the slate in raw points (DeRozan/LMA)
- The price points for the secondary pieces make a core stack easy to build and it allows you one “spend up” outside of this game to meet FantasyDraft’s roster requirements have using players from three teams.
It may seem crazy but on this slate, I am looking for GPP paths to swerve from the field and my guess is loading up on 3-4 Phoenix Suns is not a route most will be willing to take.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this is not meant to be a plug and play lineup and is meant to be illustrative only to summarize the thoughts laid out in this article.
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G: DeMar DeRozan
G: Bryn Forbes
F/C: LaMarcus Aldridge
F/C: T.J. Warren
F/C: DeAndre Ayton
UTIL: Trevor Ariza
UTIL: Damian Lillard
Slate Overview: Yeah baby – a Suns stack, who is excited? I understand the risk in stacking the Suns as they are basically a blow out waiting to happen every night and on a back to back after a OT game, the risk is probably even higher but that risk is one everyone else is going to see and run away from which makes stacking this spot an interesting route for GPP’s. You can easily build around LMA/DD with multiple Suns starters and have more than enough salary for one “pay up” outside of this game. In this example it just so happened the money I had left over for the last spot was also the exact amount it cost to roster Damian Lillard. You could swap in Harden or Kawhi easily and move things around in the same concept if you chose.
Let me be clear this is not the optimal build or even the smart path but as a GPP player, I am not interested in taking the safe route, especially on a three game slate. I will build one tournament lineup, ignore cash games completely and take my shot – and if/when the Suns game is over by halftime, I will go to bed early and get ready for Wednesday.
dark. Next. FanDuel NBA DFS GPP Breakdown - Tuesday, December 11
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