NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday January 4

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.

Even on three game slates we are getting to the point where 400+ is the norm now for winning GPP’s – or at least those slates where James Harden is on and drops 90 fantasy point at near universal ownership. The Houston-Golden State stack came through in a big way with Harden leading the charge in a 135-134 OT thriller and if paired with guys like DeMar DeRozan, Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray from the other games, you likely had yourself a night on a slate where the minimum cash lines were well over 350!

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 – Friday Night Slate:

Welcome to Friday – we made it! OK that is a bit far-fetched since for many of us it was a short week due to New Year’s breaking it up – but hey, why not celebrate with some NBA DFS as we have a nice 9 game slate with an unusual 8PM EST start time.

One note – there is a 7:30PM EST Jazz/Cavs game which FantasyDraft has opted to leave off the slate while DraftKings and FanDuel have included it so make sure you keep track of the staggered start time which gives you the chance to set your FD/DK lineups and THEN head on over to FantasyDraft for an 8PM EST lock!

Before we jump into tonight’s slate there is a TON of injury news we need to ground ourselves in before we start looking at specific games and plays because with the names we will throw out, it is going to vault some guys to near must plays due to the value/usage that is opening up.

• Lakers – Will be without LeBron James and Rajon Rondo once again while Kyle Kuzma is questionable to play. With all three of those players off the court this season, Brandon Ingram ($12.4K) sees a near 8% usage boost, leading the team with a 31% usage rate while putting up 1.13 FP/M. At this price point, Ingram is a cash game lock, needing only 37 FPTS to hit value and considering he has gone for 40 and 48 the last two games and gets to face the Knicks tonight, you can argue he is a GPP building block despite likely high ownership.

•  Celtics – Will be without Kyrie Irving again tonight while Marcus Morris is also questionable to take on the Mavericks. With both players off the court – it should not be a shock that Terry Rozier ($11.7K) and Gordon Hayward ($10.1K) see the biggest usage boosts at 3.5-4% and considering these two just dropped 39 and 45 fantasy points last game and remain priced reasonably, they too become building block types of plays.

• Grizzlies – The big news here is Mike Conley is questionable to play against Brooklyn which would not only open up value with a play like Shelvin Mack ($8.2K) who would likely draw the start, but it also pushes Marc Gasol ($15K) to the forefront of the plays on this slate. Gasol put up 50+ fantasy points already against the Nets earlier this season (OT game) and with the added usage and fantasy production with Conley potentially out, would be one of the best point per dollar plays on the board.

• Minnesota – Will likely be without both Jeff Teague and Derrick Rose again tonight while Rovbert Covington has already been ruled out so can we go right back to Tyus Jones ($11.3K) who has put up 34, 35 and 41 games in his last three starts? Do not overlook the usage bump this has had on Karl-Anthony Towns ($18K) either who over the last week with this trio off the court, is sporting a 38% usage rate with 1.9 FP/M.

NBA DFS – So Much Value – Not enough Studs?

One of the interesting aspects of this slate is that we have so much value with the injury news we already know about but if you look at the price points, the players impacted all sit in the mid-range as opposed to pure punts. Now, there is still some serious profit potential on those guys like Ingram, Rozier etc – but what it may lead you to is a more balanced build rather than forcing in the stars on this slate.

We already touched on Karl-Anthony Towns, but there are two players priced above him in Russell Westbrook ($19.8K) and Giannis Antetokounmpo ($20.8K) that become “easy” to fit in even with this mid-range value.

Giannis is an interesting case as he gets arguably the best pure match-up against a league worst Atlanta Hawks defense where he and the Bucks see the biggest pace boost on the slate. The issue is at his price point, and with a 14 point spread, this may be more risk than profit left at his price.

For my money – I would much prefer to go after Russell Westbrook despite his recent “struggles.” How many other NBA players can shoot 15% from the floor (3-20) like he did against the Lakers and still put up 58.5 fantasy points. Seriously, think about that – he had THREE makes from the field but by virtue of his 16 rebounds, 10 assists and 4 blocks/steals was able to return almost 60 points.

Now, Portland has been tough on him in his career – “limiting” him to only 51, 53, 55 and 60 fantasy points in their last four meetings so you can argue the ceiling has not been there but what is there – very clearly, is a floor that seems bullet-proof and if Westbrook is feeling it at all, well you are looking at a 70-80 point fantasy night as the late night hammer.

In my mind, with the blowout risk to Giannis and the, shall we say “inconsistency” of KAT, Westbrook would be my priority spend on this slate.

NBA DFS – Balanced Build:

One potential route you can look tonight is to simply build balanced as you can argue that there are a plethora of guys in the mid-tier capable of getting you 40-50 points and if you build a roster with that target in mind, you are looking at a team score of 320-350 which on most nights would be more than enough.

My only concern with that approach as we are seeing lately, scores are pushing closer to 400 on the back of superstars like Harden/AD etc who put up 75-80 and make it nearly impossible to cash without them!

Hassan Whiteside ($12.6K) is one of those mid-range plays that stands out in the mid-tier for GPP’s as the match-up with the Wizards on paper is one he should dominate. Whiteside put up 48 fantasy points the last time these teams met in a game that Dwight Howard played and now with Thomas Bryant left alone to man the interior with Howard and Markieff Morris out, the only thing stopping Whiteside from another big game is his own team/coach as he has only played over 30 minutes twice since the beginning of December.

The Brooklyn Nets will once again be without Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, Allen Crabbe and Caris LeVert tonight in what could end up being a battle of two-shorthanded squads with Mike Conley misses for Memphis.

We saw a similar situation against New Orleans last game where all of D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris had 29% or higher usage rates with a FP/M of production. Dinwiddie and Harris actually saw 6-8% usage bumps and while D-Russ still led the team with a 33% usage rate it was actually a 3% decrease off his season long numbers.

The first time these teams met, Russell dropped 45 fantasy points against Memphis but remember when looking at the game logs, that game went into 2 OT’s so be careful simply plugging and playing based off game logs.

The one guy I think I have the most interest in here is actually Jarrett Allen ($10.1K) as we have seen the Nets lean on him in the same match-up against Gasol for major minutes (39 in that 2 OT game) and he just topped 30 minutes and 30 fantasy points against AD and the Pelicans.

Speaking of big men that feel under-priced, Wendell Carter Jr. ($9.6K) gets a match-up against the Pacers tonight – one he has had twice already this season and put up 33.5 and 38.8 fantasy points which would return 3.5x-4x his price point tonight with similar outputs.

Now, after playing 32 and 33 minutes in back to back games against Washington and Toronto, Carter was relegated to only 13 minutes in what was clearly meant to be a message game where the Bulls were getting their doors blown off by Orlando. Now, you can say going back to him tonight is risky or you can look at this as the perfect bounce back spot where most will overlook him and he has already proven he can succeed in this match-up against Myles Turner/Domanatas Sabonis and Indiana.

NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note this is a sample lineup meant to be illustrative only and should not be used as aPlug and Play lineup. 

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G: Terry Rozier

G: Tyus Jones

G: Russell Westbrook

F/C: Brandon Ingram

F/C: Gordon Hayward

F/C: Marc Gasol

UTIL: Jarrett Allen

UTIL: Wendell Carter Jr.

Slate Overview: If the last week as taught us anything in DFS, it is that we need to take advantage of the point per dollar value when it comes to us and we have to anchor our lineups around at least one stud that can give you 70-80 fantasy points. That formula has seemingly given us near 400 point fantasy scores on a nightly basis and I could see that again tonight.

We have a ton of early value and although guys like Tyus Jones, Terry Rozier and Brandon Ingram aren’t true “punts” – they still remain priced too low for their upside considering their new roles.

One thing I always do when I build a sample lineup, is a chart out a path to 350 fantasy points just to sanity check if the path is really there if I am being honest and not just looking at the players names as individuals but how they work as a DFS lineup. 350 is not a fail safe target – that would have barely min-cashed last night but it is something that becomes a helpful first look barometer.

You start with Westbrook and Gasol – you are expecting something like 70 and 50 fantasy points from those two here which gives you 120 points and leaves you 230 fantasy points for the remaining 6 players – an average of 38 fantasy points per player would be needed to get you to 350.

• Rozier – just put up 39 in his previous start and now will likely have Morris out.
• Tyus Jones – averaging just under 37 FP/G his last three starts
• Brandon Ingram – averaging 44 FPTS the last two games and now Kuzma could be out
• Hayward – 45 FPTS last game with Kyrie out
• Allen – 31 FPTS against Pels, had 41 against Memphis in earlier OT meeting
• Carter – Averaging 36 FPTS/game against Indiana this season.

So what does this tell you? Listen, past results never predict the future but what it tells me is there is a path – a reasonable one – to a strong night with this roster build and as long as you can make the case and see the path to your target, then I think you start your roster builds off in a much better place and you can adjust as the day goes on. Enjoy the slate all!

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