NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday December 14
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.
It is not often on an NBA DFS slate that the highest scoring player on the night outscores the rest of the field by 35+ fantasy points but that is what happened on Thursday as James Harden went OFF for 85 fantasy points with no other player managing to top 50 on the night. Winning scores in GPP’s were just over 315 fantasy points as even with Harden’s big night the lack of output from essentially the entirety of the field left you in a Harden or bust cash position and if you were able to pair him with second tier stars like Nikola Vucevic, Clint Capela and Kyle Kuzma, who all went for 40+ fantasy points, you likely had yourself a nice night.
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 Breakdown:
Before we jump into tonight’s 9 game NBA DFS slate, I have the pleasure of bringing you another Picks and Pivots FREE ROLL from our friends at FantasyDraft. With ten tickets up for grabs to a future NBA DFS contest including the top prize of a $25 Pick and Roll ticket, this is a great way to get exposure to this site and start to build your bankroll with ZERO risk! Join early!
At first glance, this slate looks to be a tough one to navigate with multiple double-digit spreads introducing blowout risk and a handful of big name injuries (Kawhi, Jimmy Butler) which could completely change how we look at this slate. One interesting tidbit – there is not a single game on this slate where both teams in the same game see a pace boost – not one, so while individual teams see big point/pace boosts, there does not seem to be a must have game environment we have to build around.
With the Vegas data we have (only 6 of the 9 games as of this writing), it becomes difficult to narrow down one spot that we really “need” to have in our lineups tonight. The Hornets, Celtics and Bucks are all double-digit favorites while the Warriors are 8 point road favorites against the Kings. The Nuggets/OKC game has the lowest total on the board at 217, although once Miami/Memphis is released my guess is that takes the title.
The kind of leaves you by default with the Wizards and Nets, with a 226 total and 1.5 point spread which makes this a high and tight spot we normally want to build around. The issue for me when looking at this game is the pricing. Do I really want to invest $18K in John Wall? How much profit potential really lies in Bradley Beal ($14.8K) or D’Angelo Russell ($13.4K)?
We have already seen this game twice this season, with neither game going for over 220 points and the high water mark for fantasy production being Dwight Howard/John Wall at 52 fantasy points. Howard we know is sidelined and Wall even with a similar performance would fail to hit 3x value at his inflated price point. So is this a game to stack or a game to fade? My initial take – there are better spots to target.
If you want to go to this game, using the fringe/secondary pieces may be the route to go depending on the status of Otto Porter who missed Wednesday’s game with a knee injury that pushed Jeff Green ($8.5K) into the starting lineup where he answered with 40+ fantasy points against the Celtics. Markieff Morris ($10K) destroyed this Brooklyn interior the last game with Dwight Howard out, going for 42 fantasy points on the back of 20 points, 7 rebounds, 3 steals and 2 blocks in 29 minutes of court time. If Porter misses again tonight, I think using the value/mid-range plays from Washington is the way to get exposure here.
NBA DFS – Late Night Hammer:
So is there really a spot we need to prioritize here? The Golden State Warriors are an interesting late night hammer stack as the Warriors see something they rarely do – a game environment that gives them the second highest pace and point boost on the slate.
Since Steph Curry ($18.2K) returned six games ago for the Warriors, Golden State has played at a top 5 pace in the NBA so pairing up with a Kings team that has played at the second fastest pace all season long, seems like a recipe for a Warriors explosion. What makes this even more of an interesting spot is that the Warriors just got handled at home by a Raptors team that didn’t even have Kawhi Leonard on the floor so naturally we start to hear the comments about the Warriors and sports talk radio will question if they can “turn it on” come playoff time again but this feels like one of those statement games where the Warriors come out and just go bonkers.
The issue with this game then becomes – can the Kings keep it close enough to get a full four quarters from the champs stars and is the pricing feasible enough to stack a Golden State team that is now fully healthy?
Since Curry returned on December 1st, he is back to being the lead dog in usage (33.7%) and FP/M at 1.37 over that stretch, having gone for 60+ in two of his last four games. Kevin Durant ($18.1K) meanwhile has failed to top 50 fantasy points in five of the six games since Curry came back which is always the issue with a healthy Warriors squad – they become less a team stack and you find yourself playing either/or.
So maybe the answer here is to lock in Curry, fade Durant and get your Warriors secondary pieces from guys like Klay Thompson and Draymond Green who are priced at $12-$12.5K and take advantage of a Kings team that ranks in the bottom 5 at defending the SG and PF position.
As hard as it is to isolate the Warriors pieces in a stack – well, the Sacramento Kings side becomes that much harder. There is no player on this team with an elite usage rate and with Marvin Bagley healthy, this is a team running a 7-8 man rotation which caps the upside of any/all Kings. Both Bagley and Buddy Hield went for 40+ fantasy points in the first meeting between these two while no other Kings player went for over 30, and that’s the issue with this game stack in general – there are lots of pieces here that COULD get you there but if you are game stacking, you need to mix and match just right or else you could end up over-paying for a bunch of 25 fantasy point outings. This is a GPP spot only and if you are a one lineup guy/gal, this is probably not the spot to plant your flag.
NBA DFS – A Night to Pivot:
I am not sure if there is going to be a “chalk” spot tonight but this may be a great night to listen to the buzz around the industry and find ways to pivot off anything that becomes overly popular – as you can tell to this point, I am not in love with anything.
Now, that could change once we get some injury news, specifically in Philadelphia as if Jimmy Butler is once again ruled out with his groin injury, it makes this Sixers-Pacers game an intriguing game stack loaded with high-end stars and a strong mid/value tier with significant upside.
If Butler is out – you can simply lock in Joel Embiid ($19K) and Ben Simmons ($16K) as the biggest beneficiaries of having Butler off the court. Furkan Kormaz ($7.4K) was our Picks and Pivots value target on Wednesday and he did not disappoint, garnering the start for Butler and delivering with 36 fantasy points. The price has not risen to a level where you need to play the fade game BUT do keep in mind Mike Muscala was also out in that game which gave Korkmaz additional minutes security in the front court.
The Pacers welcomed Victor Oladipo ($15.5K) back last game and wasted no time getting him back and rolling with 29 minutes of court time and with his usage rate and no clear minutes limitations, he has significant profit potential at this price point. In the only other meeting this season between these two teams (prior to the Butler trade for what its worth), Oladipo went for 65 fantasy points, which is the kind of upside you have here with the Pacers star who leads the team with a 33% usage rate this season and could get the added benefit of having no Butler wing defense.
Myles Turner ($14.4K) went through some early season struggles with inconsistency which opened the door for Domanatas Sabonis, but in recent games, Turner has gone to another level, going for 40+ fantasy points now in 4 of his last 6 games. Thaddeus Young ($11.1K) meanwhile is averaging 30+ minutes a night and over 40 fantasy points per game in his last four outings and like most of this Pacers team, seems fairly priced with DFS profit potential.
With the injuries on the Philly side – even outside of Korkmaz, there are great value plays with 25+ minute security and upside for substantially more (especially if Muscala is out again) with guys like Wilson Chandler and T.J. McConnell who are both priced right around $7K on FantasyDraft.
Assuming Butler is ruled out, this becomes one of my favorite game stacks as it has everything I look for in NBA DFS stacks – we have elite high-end plays capable of winning us a slate (Embiid), mid-priced plays with 50+ point upside (Simmons, Oladipo, Turner) and a handful of cheap options with 30+ minute paths that could crush value (Korkmaz etc).
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative only based off the logic laid out in this article and should not be used as a plug and play lineup in your contests.
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G: Ben Simmons
G: Victor Oladipo
F/C: Joel Embiid
F/C: Myles Turner
F/C: Thaddues Young
UTIL: Wilson Chandler
UTIL: Kevin Knox
Slate Overview: As I have said over and over here today, there does not seem to be a must have game environment and I am not overly in love with any spot at first glance but that could certainly change on a nine game slate in the NBA where 1-2 big injuries could change the course of our roster builds. Assuming Jimmy Butler sits, the Sixers/Pacers game stack works well from a correlation perspective on FantasyDraft as the pricing fits (as you can see) and you get a nice balance of stars/mid-tier/high point per dollar plays. Keep an eye on the news – enjoy the FREE ROLL and have a great Friday everyone!
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