Welcome to the first 2019 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.
Well, how did you end 2018? If you were anything like me and nearly 50% of the field in GPP’s, you were likely tilting hard and searching for the shoveling money GIF on Twitter when you got the news that Anthony Davis was scratched with an illness. Let’s just hope that 2019 is a bit more kind to us after a night where I, like many others, donating to those who faded The Brow.
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 – New Year’s Day Slate:
Happy 2019 to all of the Picks and Pivots readers and each of you who come to Fantasy CPR each day – wishing you all the best, hopefully your Anthony Davis induced hangover goes away and you can shake off the rust and start 2019 off with a bang.
Let’s start right at the top with Giannis Antetokounmpo ($21.2K), the only player over $20K on this slate and roughly $3K more than any other player available to us tonight on a slate which starts a half hour later than usual at 7:30 PM EST.
Giannis comes into this game in elite recent form, putting up 64, 69 and 70 fantasy points over his last three outings against the Knicks (twice) and the Nets. Tonight he will take on a Detroit team that has been able to limit his fantasy production consistently over the last two seasons, with his high-water mark being 57 fantasy points while failing top 50 in five of his six meetings since the start of last season.
This price point for Giannis puts him at his ceiling, needing to return over 74 fantasy points to hit GPP value (3.5x), a mark he has only hit in 3 of 33 games this season. With Giannis being the only high-dollar stud, we could see his ownership inflated just as a result of having limited options to spend up for and with limited profit potential at his price point, this may be a night to fade him, as scary as that sounds, and look to better point per dollar plays.
The second highest dollar target tonight is Joel Embiid ($18.5K) who would normally be a logical pivot off Giannis but with him nursing a knee injury that forced him to miss Sunday’s game against Portland and his Questionable tag against the Clippers, this pick comes with some considerable risk. With Philadelphia and the Clippers being a 10:30PM EST start time, a full hour and a half later than any other game, not even late swap may save us if Embiid becomes a full GTD. After everyone got burned by AD last night, I could see people playing it safe tonight making Embiid an incredible GPP risk if we don’t have news.
The final top spend tonight is Nikola Jokic ($18K) who will take on a Knicks team in a game with a 14 point spread where the Knicks come in banged up, potentially down both Emmanuel Mudiay and Enes Kanter.
Jokic, much like Giannis, feels priced for his ceiling, needing 63 fantasy points to hit GPP value and this is a mark he has only hit three times this season over 34 games and with the added blowout risk, as crazy as it sounds, I would almost rather find the extra $500 for Embiid in my initial roster builds and go with him as my GPP high-dollar spend.
NBA DFS – Game Stack Spot(s):
If you are a Vegas data point truther when it comes to NBA DFS, then it will be hard for you to ignore the Portland/Sacramento game which has the highest total by double-digits at 230, the fastest projected pace and only a 1.5 point spread – so it literally checks every single box we have when looking for game stacks.
The fact that Portland sees the largest pace boost on the slate, going up against a Kings team that is playing at the fastest pace in the NBA over the last ten games while having a bottom 5 defensive rating, sets up for a massive bounce back spot for Damian Lillard ($15.9K).
This price point for Dame in many ways is the polar opposite of how I feel about guys like Giannis/Jokic – there is significant profit potential here and it may be a spot to price enforce. Think of it this way – Dame needs 55 fantasy points to hit GPP value (3.5x), a number he has hit 7 times in 37 games played this season or roughly 20% of the games he has played in.
Frankly this whole game seems priced at a spot where a game stack can be built without any real sacrifices as no player is over $16K on FantasyDraft.
As an example – you can stack up Lillard, McCollum and Nurkic and run it back with WCS and Fox and you still have around $10K per player for the last three spots on your roster. It is that kind of balanced build which could be the way to go tonight with the high dollar stars at less than ideal price points.
If this game ends up being the chalk spot, it may make sense to pivot off it – with the exception of Dame who feels like the optimal one-off play – someone who could conceivably end the night as the top raw point play on the entire slate.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays and Stacks:
The more I look at this slate, the more I find myself coming back to Joel Embiid and the Sixers and in their match-up against the Clippers in a game with a similar pace projection to the Kings/Blazers but with the injury status of The Process making this a much tougher place to sort through at first glance.
I cannot help but shake this idea that people will opt to play it “safe” tonight after the AD fiasco and if there is any sort of uncertainty around Embiid before lock, this could be a spot where we see him go under-owned and considering he has gone for 60+ fantasy points in over 25% of his games played, this could be the spot to plant your GPP flag and shoot for the upside.
The Clippers are a match-up we can exploit, as they rank in the top 5 in pace and bottom 3 in defensive rating over the last 10 games and rank 25th or worse in Def-Eff against every position other than SG this season – so said another way – stack up the Sixers.
Ben Simmons ($16.5K) is at a price point where he feels too expensive assuming Embiid is on the court and would only be in play for me if we get word that Embiid is out. Jimmy Butler ($13.4K) is at a price point where I think his recent game log will scare folks off and the fact he has only a 22% usage rate the last two weeks will likely keep his ownership low but we have seen wing players like KD, Kyle Kuzma and Draymond Green all have 40+ fantasy point outings against the Clippers the last week.
TJ McConnell ($6.8K) is one of my favorite plays on this slate, especially at this price point. All TJ has done is rack up 20+ fantasy points a game in each of his last four outings and is averaging 3.3x value during that time.
On the Clippers side, if Embiid plays – how do you not make a point to tune in and watch Embiid versus BOBAN ($6.9k)! These two teams played back in November (before the Butler trade), and Boban played 23 minutes and racked up 38 fantasy points against The Process.
With the Clippers back-court healthy, outside of a Lou Williams GPP dart, my focus is going to be on the front court where the production and consistency is far more stable with the trio of Tobias Harris, Danilo Gallinari and Montrezl Harrell. Both Tobias and Gallo went for 30-40 fantasy points the first time these teams faced off and when paired in a lineup with Embiid, give you a nice combination of floor/ceiling to build around.
Update: The Vegas data is now out for this game – it comes in with a 233 total which his higher than Portland/Sacramento and the line is only 2.5 in favor of the Clippers which makes me think Embiid is likely to play.
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: Damian Lillard
G: Jimmy Butler
G: TJ McConnell
F/C: Joel Embiid
F/C: Tobias Harris
F/C: Danilo Gallinari
UTIL: Montrezl Harrell
UTIL: BOBAN
Slate Overview: A night after getting burned by an AD late scratch, I am starting my day with a Joel Embiid lineup – the one high-end star who may not even play – yes, starting 2019 off with a bang. Listen, my gut says the Kings/Blazers becomes the chalk spot to attack and I do think Dame is a building block play at his price point but the Sixers/Clippers has a similar pace projection and in my mind – a better combination of stars/mid-range plays with elite point per dollar punt plays like Boban/TJ. IF Embiid is ruled out, you can keep much of the same core – just pivot down from Embiid to Simmons and use the $2-3K of savings to upgrade another position.
Good luck tonight all!
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