NBA DFS Picks and Pivots Thursday December 27 – No Bron or Beard?
Welcome to the Thursday 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.
Wednesday’s NBA DFS slate not surprisingly ended with Anthony Davis (62) as the slates leading scorer but it was a triple OT DFS friendly contest in Brooklyn that put four Nets/Hornets in the top 12 of scoring at low ownership and gave those who game stacked a massive NBA DFS 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 – No Bron and No Beard?
Before we jump into tonight’s five game NBA DFS slate which starts an hour later (8 PM EST), we have the pleasure of bringing you another Picks and Pivots FREE ROLL from our friends at FantasyDraft who are offering up another 10 NBA DFS tickets to the top ten finishers. Get in now!
After two cups of coffee already this morning as I write this, I am not sure if this slate will be one of the best or one of the worst and it all boils down to the superstars, or lack thereof, with LeBron James already ruled out and James Harden questionable to play against the Celtics.
Let’s start with the known – as LeBron James has already been ruled out and the rest of the Lakers take part in a game with the highest total (229) and fastest projected pace against the Kings. The Lakers have the largest projected pace boost of any single team and when you consider they face-off with a Kings team with the second fastest pace and 5th worst defensive rating in all of the NBA in the last 10 games – I think you can see why they will be popular.
Go a step further and realize that only Kyle Kuzma is priced over $12K on FantasyDraft and I think you can see a chalk pattern forming. If you play for the Lakers, you are going to be a core play for most tonight as when you remove a player with the amount of usage and fantasy production that LeBron gets, the fantasy boost to those remaining is massive.
The big piece of news we don’t quite have yet is the status of James Harden who would join Chris Paul on the sidelines against the Celtics in the TNT game of the week – bet you TNT is hoping the Beard suits up for this one huh?
If Harden plays – you can lock him in at $21K and surround him with the Lakers projected starting five and you still have over $12K remaining for the last two players in your lineup.
If Harden is out you have essentially the same scenario as the Lakers as only Clint Capela is over $12K on FantasyDraft which means a whole lot of Rockets value.
As a result of the injuries and the pricing of the remaining plays, it is hard not to see everyone flocking towards a Stars/Scrubs build – locking in the slates biggest names – Giannis, Embiid, Curry/KD, Kyrie and Lillard and just mixing and matching the Lakers/Rockets value.
It is the smart play and it is also why this slate could end up being awful/boring but if you are a cash game grinder, it may end up as one of the easier slates of the year. The reason I think this could be a great GPP slate is the fact that people will be over-exposed to fringe starters who could bust at inflated ownership and give you a massive edge in GPP’s.
The question is – is that a risk worth taking?
NBA DFS – Building a core outside of Rockets/Lakers:
Every article you read today is going to be focused on the Rockets/Lakers value which is going to lead to inflated ownership (and rightfully so by the way) on fringe guys like Eric Gordon, Lonzo Ball and Brandon Ingram who I think we all agree would be priced too low relative to the role they have tonight with their star(s) missing.
As a result of the value – there is also going a heavy ownership concentration on the stars as you have to spend your cap somewhere which will likely push folks to my favorite game – the Warriors and Portland.
With a 226 total, 9 point spread and the second lowest projected pace, this game lacks the Vegas data but it has every bit the star power at price points that feel a tad too cheap considering the caliber of player we are talking about.
Stephen Curry ($16.1K), Kevin Durant ($17.6K) and Damian Lillard ($15.2K) make for an elite high-end stacking trio that still allows you over $10K per player for the rest of your roster which sets up perfectly to use the Lakers/Rockers player in this price range to make it work.
Rather than go that route and pair the chalk value with the easy to fit superstars in this game (or any other), should we look at the secondary plays here as a way to be different?
Consider this for a second – if Brandon Ingram and Eric Gordon are priced under $12K – won’t most (and again rightfully so) take the savings and point per dollar upside with them rather than spend $12.3K for CJ McCollum, $12.6K for Jusuf Nurkic, $12.2K for Klay Thompson or $11.8K for Draymond Green.
This is where I think you can find your edge tonight – it is not enough to just fade the chalk, but find the guys at the same price points at a fraction of the ownership.
Think of it another way – are you convinced that a Eric Gordon led Rockets team can even stay within shouting distance of a fully healthy Celtics squad that is #2 in the NBA in Def-Eff?
Are you so convinced that the non-LeBron Lakers are all going to hit value? Sure they face the Kings “defense” in a massive pace up spot – but so did the Clippers last night – the same Clippers team that saw only three guys crack 30 fantasy points last night. So while the Lakers guys seem too cheap, are you confident that someone like Brandon Ingram won’t suffer the same fate as Danilo Gallinari and fail to hit 30 fantasy points or even return 3x value?
Meanwhile in this Portland-Warriors game you can stack up both starting units that are all locked into 30+ minutes and give yourself the late night hammer that passes the chalk when it busts.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
The below is a sample lineup meant to be an illustrative example with the logic laid out in this article and should not be used as a plug and play lineup.
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G: Stephen Curry
G: Damian Lillard
F/C: Kevin Durant
F/C: Draymond Green
F/C: Jusuf Nurkic
UTIL: Al-Farouq Aminu
UTIL: 6K punt (ie. Justin Jackson)
Slate Overview: Even after researching and writing this article, I am not yet convinced whether I love or hate this slate but there is one thing I am sure of – tonight is going to be chalky – super chalky – and that is making me love it for GPP’s. Listen, if the Rockets/Lakers chalk goes off for 4-5x on FantasyDraft and you have none, then you are cooked but you are going to need the perfect combination or one-off to have the differentiation needed to separate from the field that all builds their rosters the same way.
Personally I think you take the approach in tournaments of fading it – and you game stack a spot like the Lakers/Portland or even the Jazz/Sixers for that matter – two games with high-end stars and defined starting units that will give you secondary plays at a fraction of the ownership of the Eric Gordon’s of the world.
As you can see above in this example, you can get four Warriors starters and run it back with three Portland starters. Go ahead and look at the Sixers/Jazz as another example – you can lock in Embiid/Simmons/Butler and run it back with Gobert/Mitchell/Rubio and still have $7.3K per player for the last two spots in a game stack that will likely go completely ignored.
It’s a dice roll for sure – but NBA DFS is that way every night even when the can’t miss plays seem so clear – until they bust and you ask yourself why you had 100% Gerald Green and Austin Rivers.
Happy fading!
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