NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday December 28
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.
Thursday’s NBA DFS winning scores fell just short of 400 on FantasyDraft with the minimum cash line well over 330 as a result of the chalk hitting – in a big way. Lonzo Ball led the Lakers with 57 fantasy points and was 75% owned in GPP play which really set the tone for the slate – if guys at that level of ownership are going off, it just drives the cash line to insane levels but as someone who faded him, had he busted – you would have had amazing leverage on the field. Although the results did not work out for me last night, the logic and reasoning were something I will continue to push anytime a non-superstar play garners that much ownership in tournament play.
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 – 10 Game Friday Night NBA DFS Slate:
What better way to kick-off our weekend than with a 10 game NBA DFS slate and another Picks and Pivots FREE ROLL from our friends at FantasyDraft who have put up 10 tickets for Saturday’s NBA DFS contests on the line to the winners in this 250 person contest! Get in and let’s go!
One night after the Lakers “LeBron-less” chalk went off against the Kings – they will likely be popular spots once again against the Clippers in a game with the second fastest projected pace. The absence of LeBron James is not the only big injury news tonight as we also have some key players with injury designations that will drive value and ownership on this slate.
The Raptors have already ruled Kyle Lowry OUT for tonight so we get another night of Kawhi Leonard usage monster and Fred Van Vleet in the starting lineup. Kawhi at $16.7K feels too cheap considering he is averaging 51 fantasy points per game in the six games that Lowry has missed this season.
Victor Oladipo is officially questionable to play after missing the contact portion of practice but it sounds like he is good to go. With Tyreke Evans also questionable this could be a sport for Aaron Holiday to get big minute at a punt price or we could see Dipo suit up and this spot become a spot we just ignore.
Victor Oladipo tweaked his shoulder last night and did not go through the contract portion of today’s practice. McMillan expects him to be good for Friday’s game vs Detroit.
— Scott Agness (@ScottAgness) December 27, 2018
Jeff Teague remains out for Minnesota which means we get another night of starting PG Derrick Rose ($13.2K) in the highest total/fastest pace game on the slate against Atlanta. Sure the match-up is elite but $13.2K is a steep price to pay for Rose as he would need 40+ fantasy points just to pay it off. Now, Rose has gone for 40+ fantasy points in two of his last three games so the upside is there but be prepared to pay for it.
Hassan Whiteside is dealing with a hip injury which has him listed as questionable against the Cavaliers which means we could get a Bam Adebayo ($8K) game against a horrible Cavs interior. Bam has gone for 30+ fantasy points in four of his five games with Whiteside out this season and has shown 40+ point upside in the right match-up. The Cavs qualify as the “right match-up”, ranking dead last in Def-rating this season and giving up the 8th most rebounds in the NBA over the last 10 games.
NBA DFS – Game Stack Rematch:
The NBA schedule is a bit odd tonight is we have a handful of rematch games from Wednesday night including the Nets-Hornets who broke the slate with their wacky double OT thriller two nights ago.
The Mavericks/Pelicans will once again take the court against each other with a slate high 230 total (tied with Hawks/Wolves) and the third fastest projected pace. Anthony Davis ($20.7K) is once again the top pay up option on the slate with Elfrid Payton and Nikola Mirotic on the bench and after putting up 62 fantasy points in this same spot two days ago – what really is left to say about The Brow? He is the best play on the slate, a cash game lock and a GPP building block – he is good, use him.
The Mavericks side of this game is where I think you look for multiple pieces as a result of the open usage and fantasy production due to injury.
Wesley Matthews will miss tomorrow's game at New Orleans with right foot soreness. Luka Doncic is probable with a right toenail injury, and Dennis Smith Jr. is questionable with a sprained right wrist. @dallasmavs
— Dwain Price (@DwainPrice) December 27, 2018
With Dennis Smith Jr. up in the air and Wesley Matthews already ruled out – Luka Doncic ($15.6K) is going to need to drop another 50 burger as he did on Wednesday in a one rebound shy triple-double attempt to keep the Mavericks in this game. DeAndre Jordan ($12.2K) has double-doubles in 8 of his last 9 games and is coming off a 40 point fantasy outing against New Orleans on Wednesday which would return 3.3x value at this too cheap price point.
Update: DSJ has been ruled IN wich certainly caps the ceiling a bit on the remaining Dallas plays.
The value may lie though in the secondary pieces as we should see JJ Barea ($10.3K) get the biggest usage boost with Matthews off the court. With Wes and DSJ off the court, Barrea has a 30% plus usage rate while putting up 1.35 FP/M and after playing 28 minutes on Wednesday, this is a spot where Barea could push for 30+ minutes and simply crush value.
Maxi Kleber ($6.4K) drew the start for the Mavericks in this same exact match-up and ended the night with 25 fantasy points on the back of 6 blocked shots. Now, expecting a repeat on that with such a volatile statistic like blocks is risky but at just $400 above the minimum on FantasyDraft, it is a risk worth taking if he remains in the starting unit.
The Mavericks are my favorite team stack on the slate as a result of the match-up, injuries and pricing as this stack can be worked in easily around a pricey star like AD on the other side in a nationally televised Friday night game.
NBA DFS – Pivot Stack:
I have touched on a few big injury spots already but none is bigger in my mind then the status of Paul George who is questionable to take on the Suns tonight. Over the last two seasons, when George has been off the court, Russell Westbrook ($19.3K) has a 40% usage rate while putting up 1.7 FP/M – and now gets to face a Suns team that is bottom 5 in the NBA in defensive rating – yes, please.
OKC and Phoenix are expected to see two of the largest point boosts on this entire slate and with a concentrated rotation (which feels weird to say for the Suns) and some potential value – this game could end up as a nice pivot stack or one to mix/match with the Dallas/Pelicans game.
Assuming PG13 is out, Westbrook is a must play in my opinion but it likely pushes someone like Dennis Schroder ($10.7K) into a similar territory as he has a 33% usage rate and 1.1 FP/M output with PG13 off the court this year.
The real tricky part in my mind is figuring out the punt play value assuming PG13 is out as we all know Westbrook and Schroder see a boost but these are guys already playing 35 minutes a night – so while their usage/production will go up – the 35 minutes a night from PG13 has to go elsewhere.
With Alex Abrines also ruled out – you get a much smaller rotation of wing/front-court players and the nice part is nearly all of them sit around $6K/minimum price.
Just look at the list – Terrance Ferguson, Hamidou Diallo and Nerlens Noel – these were the three bench players in their last game against Houston, all-seeing 10-20 minutes and would seem like the logical players to get the additional minutes.
Noel ($6.2K) absolutely destroyed the Suns earlier this year in a spot start for Steven Adams, going for 20/15 and 52 fantasy points – now that is clearly an outlier with Adams being out but he did put up 20 FPTS in only 15 minutes the next time that Adams played so there is some merit to rolling the dice regardless here tonight.
On the Suns side, Devin Booker ($15.5K) sits at the same price as Doncic which should allow you to mix and match easily if you are doing multiple lineups. Over the last two weeks, Booker has a 35% usage rate while putting up 1.3 FP/M while shooting the ball over 22 times a game which is second in the entire NBA to only James Harden. Booker has gone for 60+ fantasy points in two of his last three games and the price point is far too cheap considering his ability to end the night as a top raw point play.
DaAndre Ayton ($13.7K) is the only other player on the Suns with over a FP/M of production the last two weeks but the price point and match-up with Steven Adams puts him in more of a GPP only range tonight.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative ONLY and is not meant to be a plug and play lineup.
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G: Russell Westbrook
G: Devin Booker
G: Luka Doncic
F/C: Anthony Davis
F/C: Maxi Kleber
F/C: Nerlens Noel
UTIL: JJ Barea
UTIL: Terrance Ferguson/Hamidou Diallo
Slate Overview: Obviously by the looks of my first thoughts, the Paul George injury is going to loom large on how I approach this slate. There are two 1v1 spots I absolutely love tonight – AD and Doncic and Westbrook and Booker – which is why I toyed with this idea of a Stars/Scrubs build within those two games. There is some significant point per dollar upside with Kleber/Barea as examples for a short-handed Mavericks team and the Thunder could end up starting 1-2 minimum priced players tonight with George remains out. It is risky but the upside of building around these four stars could give you a massive night. Good luck all!
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