NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday January 2

Welcome to the Wednesday 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.

Tuesday’s first 2019 NBA DFS slate was a tricky one with the status of Joel Embiid not clear before lock but that didn’t stop 20% of people from rolling the dice in GPP’s – proving that people are more willing to take risks on these smaller slates. Although Embiid did put up 60+ fantasy points and end the night among the top scorers, the night belonged to Jusuf Nurkic who was just under 50% owned in GPP’s, and posted a monster 86 fantasy point night on the back of 24 points, 23 rebounds, 5 steals, 5 blocks, 7 assists and a partridge in a pear tree. My goodness.

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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 – 9 Game Wednesday Slate:

With many of us heading back to work today after spending New Year’s Day recovering, we get greeted by a nice 9 game NBA DFS slate with a ton of big name injury news which will open up value across a slate this large and give us multiple routes to build our rosters.

In my mind, the first and most interesting decision tonight is what you plan on doing with Anthony Davis ($20.9K) who is probable to return tonight from an illness and steps in as the slates most expensive player. You all remember AD right? He is the guy who ruined the final night of 2018 for many with his late scratch and you all swore you would never play him again! Well, get ready to test that New Year’s resolve because here comes a match-up with the Brooklyn Nets.

You don’t need me to tell you the risk and reward that comes with The Brow – and for that reason, it is tough not to love him in one of the best match-ups for opposing big men when the ownership will be a tick lower than it should after everyone was just burned. After going for 60+ fantasy points in four of his last five games, if the late scratch had not happened – wouldn’t everyone be salivating over this spot? Instead recency bias could lead people elsewhere especially with viable high dollar pivots like Russell Westbrook in a pace up spot against the Lakers.

The Pelicans/Nets game has a 230 total, a Pick ‘Em spread and the third fastest projected pace on the slate – so check all the boxes there. It has the high-end stars and some sneaky good value with Nikola Mirotic, Caris LeVert, Allen Crabbe and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson all out, which makes this a viable game stack here tonight for GPP’s but it all starts with AD.

With Nikola Mirotic out and the Nets being short-handed up front, I think you can attack Brooklyn with a mini-stack of AD and Julius Randle ($14.4K) up front. Elfrid Payton ($10.4K) is an interesting tournament play after his return to the court in 25 minutes as his price point is primed for profit potential if we get any news that he will trend closer to 30 minutes here tonight. With AD back, I will likely ignore the fringe pieces like E’Twaun Moore and I think Jrue Holiday is a bit of an overpay at $15.3K when you can get someone like Bradley Beal at a similar price point.

The Nets side of this game is really interesting to me with all of Levert, Crabbe and RHJ off the court as we get the benefit of some serious value and some high upside point per dollar plays. This season with all three players off the court – both D’Angelo Russell and Spencer Dinwiddie are sporting 32% plus usage rates with Dinwiddie getting a team high 7% usage boost.

Very rarely do these two players correlate well so you are likely better off taking an either/or approach when deciding between the two. The Nets have the second highest point boost and 4th highest pace boost on the slate and with them being short-handed, I think you are going to want multiple pieces from Brooklyn.

The front court will likely see DeMarre Carroll ($7.8K) slide into the PF role as he got the start in the second half versus Milwaukee when RHJ was unable to return and he provides excellent salary relief.

Kenneth Faried ($7.3K) came out of the coaches dog house in a big way after RHJ’s injury with a vintage Manimal 21/10 performance and although most/all of it came in garbage time – this is a situation worth monitoring to see if he gets the extra run especially with the size the Pelicans have up front.

NBA DFS – Injuries and Value Plays:

With a slate this large, it is no surprise that we have a ton of injury news to sort through which means we get a significant amount of value to help us afford the studs we want to build around.

The Magic will likely be short-handed again tonight with DJ Augustin and Jonathan Simmons looking unlikely to play which could mean another start for Jerian Grant ($7.4K) in a REVENGE SPOT against his former Chicago Bulls team. Nikola Vucevic ($17.1K) is not on the official Magic injury report but he did leave last game with a leg injury that kept him sidelined – its unclear if this injury will cause him to miss tonight or if he got minimal time due to the blowout but obviously his status is a key one to watch tonight.

All too often in DFS, we find ourselves reacting to the “new news” which may lead us to overlook the injury news where we have clear sample size data to pull from and that is the case with the Washington Wizards once again. The Wizards will be without John Wall for the remainder of the season and they get a match-up against the Atlanta Hawks, in a game that is expected to be the fastest projected pace game against a Hawks team ranked dead last in Def-Eff this season.

We saw a similar game script back on December 5 when the Hawks/Wizards played without John Wall but it was a game where Markieff Morris (OUT) and Austin Rivers/Kelly Oubre (traded) both played. In that game Bradley Beal ($15.7K) dropped 58 fantasy points while guys like Otto Porter (43), Tomas Satoransky (37) and Thomas Bryant (33) all had strong outings and will be counted on again here tonight. As we have been so often lately, I think you can make the case for 3-4 Wizards in your lineup and it allows you to lock in multiple studs into your builds.

The Hornets look like another team that will be short-handed tonight with Cody Zeller already ruled out and Jeremy Lamb doubtful which gives us even more value to target. We saw Devonte Graham ($7.1K) step into Lamb’s spot in the starting lineup when he left last game due to injury and it would seem likely that Wily Hernangomez ($7K) draws the start in place of Zeller which makes them both elite value targets. Malik Monk ($6.8K) had a near 31% usage rate last game with Lamb/Zeller off the floor while putting up 1.3 FP/M in 22 minutes of court time and becomes another viable punt play.

NBA DFS – Slate Overview and Sample Lineup:

Looking over this slate, it becomes apparent right off the bat just how much value is going to be available to us – and that doesn’t even include potential injuries to guys like Kyrie Irving or the fact the Lakers remain without a certain superstar. With that context it is shaping up, again, to be another Stars/Scrubs night and I think you can make the case on FantasyDraft to lock in both Anthony Davis AND Russell Westbrook, despite the fact they both cost $20K+.

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Just for illustrative purposes – let’s see what a sample lineup would look like:

G: Russell Westbrook

G: Bradley Beal

G: Spencer Dinwiddie

F/C: Anthony Davis

F/C: Guillermo Hernangomez

F/C: DeMarre Carroll

UTIL: Jerian Grant

UTIL: Devonte Graham 

Just using the value we know in Washington, Brooklyn, Orlando and Charlotte, this becomes a build that really feels – well, easy. You realistically are looking at locking in the two top plays on the slate, a guy in Beal who seems like a lock for 50+ with Wall out in this match-up and you are surrounding them with guys all looking at locked in starters minutes.

With a nine game slate on tap, I am not certain I will lock into any build too early on as so much can change, but this much I know – the Stars/Scrubs build is a path we can go down tonight and it should mean another night of high scores!

Stay tuned to fantasy CPR for all the latest NBA DFS news and analysis each and everyday across FanDuel, DraftKings and FantasyDraft.