NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday December 18
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.
For most people getting the notification 30 minutes before lock that a mid-level guard like Tim Hardaway Jr. was ruled out would be no big deal, but for me – it was like DEFCON 5, throwing my lineup builds into chaos zone trying to find ways to stack the Suns/Knicks without THJ! I did get a kick out of how many readers messaged me and how the Fantasy CPR writers were sending off alerts in our chat as if this was the most critical news of all time – you guys know me too well! Thankfully those game stacks and the all out fade of the Kings-Wolves, worked out nicely as my Suns/Knicks stacks with one stud (I ended up using Westbrook as my one-off), all cashed easily and had a stress free night after a chaotic pre-lock.
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 – Tuesday’s Four Game NBA DFS Slate:
Once again we are lucky enough to be able to offer you all another Picks and Pivots Free Roll from our friends at FantasyDraft with the top ten finishers winning NBA DFS tickets to the following night’s contests. Huge shout-out to all the winners and the lineup builds and winning scores in these contests continue to be incredibly impressive – last night, the winner of the Free Roll put up 341 fantasy points which would have won the $25 Pick and Roll by 20-30 points easily. Amazing stuff guys – keep it up!
On to tonight’s four game slate where we have a very clear delineation with two games that scream stack and two that scream fade when you look at the Vegas data.
The Wizards/Hawks and Lakers/Nets both have massive totals at 235 and 228 respectively and both spread sit within 5 points which gives us the “high and tight” game environment we love in DFS. Not only do these games have the highest totals, they also have the two fastest projected pace game environments with the Wizards and Hawks being the only game where both teams see a pace boost.
The Nuggets/Mavericks and Cavaliers/Pacers have game totals under 210 which are totals we haven’t seen this low since James Naismith hung a peach basket on a pole – OK, maybe that’s not true but in this day and age anything under 210 is typically a game we want to cross off.
On a four game slate like we have here, I think you need to find a way to narrow your player pool and take a stand which leads me towards a game stack approach more often on slates of this size. You can argue the game stack of either of the two lower projected games as a contrarian route as both games have star power in guys like Nikola Jokic and Victor Oladipo but I would only recommend this if you are multi-entering or playing in large field tournaments.
For me it comes down to Lakers/Nets or Wizards/Hawks and planting my flag in either spot. The question is – which one?
NBA DFS – Which Game Stack to Build Around?
After a game on Sunday in which the Lakers got their doors blown off as they played on the tail end of a back to back and 3 games in 4 nights, they got a well deserved rest on Monday before going up against the Nets in Brooklyn on Tuesday.
Anytime you get LeBron James ($18.6K) coming off a bad loss and is now playing on national TV (this game will be on NBA TV), you are playing with fire fading him and even though he is the slates most expensive player, the price tag still feels a tad too cheap considering the Lakers are without Rajon Rondo and Brandon Ingram still.
The Lakers become a simple team to stack – you start with LeBron, add in Kyle Kuzma ($13.6K) and Lonzo Ball ($12.2K) and you essentially capture the entirety of the Lakers fantasy production. The big question mark here, as crazy as it may sound is the status of JaVale McGee ($9K) who missed Sunday’s beatdown with an illness which pushed Tyson Chandler into the starting unit.
The fact McGee was expected to play and was even on the court for pre-game warmups Sunday before being ruled out minutes before tip, leads me to think he will be back tonight which gives us massive point per dollar upside in our favorite Centers Versus Brooklyn match-up!
Dewayne Dedmon just dropped 51 fantasy points on this same Brooklyn interior on Sunday and before that Joel Embiid (67), Enes Kanter (48), Steven Adams (33) and the Raptors duo of Jonas/Ibaka combined for 56. If McGee is ruled in, you play him.
The Nets meanwhile come into this game red-hot, winners of five in a row and you bet that this young Nets squad will be ready for King James to come through Brooklyn. We get a beautiful D’Angelo Russell ($14.8K) revenge spot against the team that drafted him and D-Russ has a 32% usage rate this season with both LeVert and Crabbe off the floor. Allen Crabbe has missed the last two games and remains questionable to play tonight which has opened up a starting role for impressive rookie Rodions Kurucs ($7.7K) who has played 28+ minutes in each start and put up 24 fantasy points per game which puts him over 3.1x value at this price point with a similar effort.
As impressive as the Nets have played – there is always minutes risk with Brooklyn and even when they are winning, they do it with a deep rotation which makes this a tough spot to all-in stack. Jarrett Allen and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson should both be locked into 28-32 minutes and at $11K per player, they both seem like solid cash game plays but I question the upside at this price point. The Nets have shown a willingness during this win streak to lean on their front court role players like DeMarree Carroll and Ed Davis so keep that in mind before going all in.
Spencer Dinwiddie ($13.8K) is a fantastic player but the price point and his role is going to force you to choose between him and Russell. Rarely do these two correlate well and give you ceiling type performance in the same game so I would choose one or the other here tonight. Russell will likely be the more popular player due to his role in the starting unit but it is worth noting that Dinwiddie is the team leader in both usage and FP/M this season with LeVert and Crabbe off the floor (32% and 1.2 FP/M) which makes him perhaps the superior play at a lower price and lower ownership.
NBA DFS – Pivot to Hawks and Wizards:
The Hawks and Wizards game to me is the game with far more unknown and it feels like the riskier route to plant your flag with if choosing between stacks but it is hard to argue with the upside here as we just saw the Hawks give up 144 points to the Brooklyn Nets – so what could John Wall and company have in store for them tonight?
John Wall ($18.3K) is coming off a massive 80 point fantasy game against the Lakers and will take on the worst individual defender in the NBA in terms of DRPM in Trae Young tonight. My first instinct was that people would chase Wall, but with LeBron priced only $300 more on FantasyDraft, I am not quite sure the ownership on Wall will be as high as I initially thought.
The Wizards will be without Otto Porter tonight and the trade has now officially gone through sending Kelly Oubre and Austin Rivers to the Suns for Trevor Ariza. The question everyone will be asking today is what is Ariza’s role and how many minutes will he get? The Wizards were forced to roll out Jeff Green and Tomas Satoransky a combined 79 minutes on Sunday due to their lack of wing depth but even if Ariza does play, the fact that Porter remains out should give value plays like Satoransky and Green a path here to maintain value.
On Sunday, the Wizards ran what was essentially a six man rotation with Wall, Beal, Satoransky, Jeff Green, Thomas Bryant and Sam Dekker – if that is the case again tonight, I don’t see how you can avoid having multiple Wizards in your lineup. Keep an eye on the Ariza news for minutes – if hes not available then all six guys above become great plays. If he is available, I still think you can go here as I doubt they will roll Ariza out for 35-40 minutes with one day of practice with his new teammates.
My real interest in this game lies on the Hawks side, specifically the big men in John Collins ($14.5K) and Dewayne Dedmon ($11.5K) who should simply feast on the worst interior in the NBA. In their first meeting, Collins went for 26/14 and 45 fantasy points while Dedmon logged only 10/8 and 25 fantasy points but is coming off a 50+ point game against the Nets.
In this game, I think you can build a nice mini-stack with Wall and some of the value (Satoranksy, Green) and run it back with Collins/Dedmon and still have enough salary to pay up in other key spots.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Depending on how you want to attack this slate you can make the case for an all-in game stack of either of the two high totals and simply hope you choose correctly. There is also a case to be made where you can simply limit your player pool to these four teams and mix and match with mini-stacks.
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G: John Wall
G: Lonzo Ball
F/C: John Collins
F/C: Dewayne Dedmon
F/C: LeBron James
UTIL: JaVale McGee
UTIL: Rodions Kurucs
If you are finding yourself asking the question of whether to play LeBron OR Wall, you can argue that you simply do not make the choice and lock in both. There is enough value, it seems, at first glance to make this work with guys like Satoransky, McGee and Kurucs that give you fringe pieces to the core game stacks you want and it allows you the ability to grab a few mid-range plays like Dedmon/Collins/Ball who all provide substantial upside. This is just a first look so things can and likely will change as we get news on Trevor Ariza, Allen Crabbe and a host of injuries in the Dallas back-court that could open up value as well. Be smart on slates like this – the player pool is so condensed that you are simply not going to find ways to be “sneaky” – so take your stand, take some shots and enjoy what should be a great night of basketball.
Next. NBA DFS - Top Plays and Fades for Tuesday December 18. dark
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