NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday January 5 – The Butler Did It!
Welcome to the Saturday 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.
We finally saw winning GPP scores return back to normal 350 levels – which I guess is what happens when we don’t have James Harden dropping 90-100 every night. In all seriousness though, looking back at the slate, the lack of “slate breaking” games by the top end stars is really what kept the scores “normal” on this night as no player went for over 60 fantasy points and only six went for over 50, with teammates Russell Westbrook and Paul George being two of them.
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 – Saturday Night NBA DFS:
Today is going to be a simply AWESOME DFS Saturday. Not only do we get a 7 game NBA DFS slate but we get the start of Wild Card Weekend in the NFL which gives you the chance to play some Fantasy Football and NFL DFS as well. With a full day of DFS ahead of us, don’t worry – we here at Fantasy CPR have you covered with a ton of NFL DFS content and our usual bombardment of NBA DFS content for every possible DFS site/format you could play on. Hope your bankroll is ready!
Let’s just get this out-of-the-way to start. Go into your NBA DFS app of choice right now, hit create line-up, find James Harden, add him to your roster and then go get a cup of coffee. No seriously, I will wait – just go do that first and then we can continue.
James Harden ($21.4K) is expensive sure, but he is not expensive enough for as long as Chris Paul and Eric Gordon remain out. Harden has now put up 71, 80 and 90 fantasy points in his last three games and is at the point, much like Russell Westbrook a few years ago where there is simply not a price tag you consider him too expensive to roster – you lock him in and figure out the rest later. In the last two games with the Rockets down both CP3 and Gordon, The Beard has an insane 45% usage rate while putting up 1.95 FP/M.
On FantasyDraft, you can lock him in and you still have $11.2K per player for the rest of your build which is more than fair. There is simply no reason to fade him here tonight – anything less than 100% exposure is a mistake at this point.
For me the next logical decision on Harden is whether you run him solo or as part of a larger Portland-Houston game stack. The game is a mixed bag when it comes to our normal game stack checklist as it has the high-end studs and value plays to correlate but the Vegas data is underwhelming with only a 216 total and the second slowest pace in front of only Memphis/San Antonio.
The roster build works rather easily – as you can lock in Harden and Clint Capela and run it back with Damian Lillard and Jusuf Nurkic and you still have $8.5K per player for the last four spots on your roster. With a cost-effective secondary player pool in this game including guys like Austin Rivers, Gerald Green, Al-Farouq Aminu, James Ennis, Moe Harkless etc., this is a game stack you can build with relative ease and the 1 point spread from Vegas gives you a game script that will likely lean on the core plays here tonight.
NBA DFS – The Spot to Stack….and Watch:
For a 7 game slate we actually do not have a ton of injury news to watch for, but there is a significant piece we need to watch and that lies in Philadelphia as both Jimmy Butler and Wilson Chandler are questionable for this match-up with the Dallas Mavericks.
Yesterday we got the news that Jimmy Butler missed practice with an illness that kept him out of of their last game with Phoenix and simultaneously saw the reports of his shouting matches with coach Brett Brown due to his displeasure with his role in the teams offense. What a mess.
Here is the thing – if Butler, and Chandler miss again tonight, then I think your next stop in your roster build needs to be locking in Joel Embiid ($19.2K) who has a 39% usage rate and is putting up over 2 FP/M with Butler and Chandler off the floor in the last month.
With Harden being a priority, it will be interesting to see how the ownership on the other high-end stars shakes out with guys like Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Embiid all over $19K which makes roster builds a bit more challenging if you intend to spend up for two top end guys.
The nice part about Butler sitting, in addition to what it means for Embiid, is that it opens up a ton of value on the Sixers side that makes this a spot I think we can stack around. Furkan Korkmaz ($7K) would likely see the start again in place of Butler, and this is a player who has gone for 21 and 36 fantasy points in two of his previous three starts so there is considerable ceiling here.
T.J. McConnell ($6.8K) has hit 3x value in six straight games and yet, his price refuses to budge despite the fact that his minutes are rock solid in the 25-28 minute range with the fantasy production to follow.
If Chandler misses the game, it will be interesting to see if Mike Muscala ($6.8K) or Jonah Bolden ($6K) draws the start. Bolden got the start against the Suns but picked up 4 fouls and was limited to only 15 minutes but at minimum price, if he drew another start could be an interesting punt play.
It really all boils down to the status of Butler and with this game being a 7:30PM EST tip, my hope is we have this news before lock as it would push Embiid to near must play status and open up a ton of value on Philly that makes an Embiid-Harden stack quite doable.
NBA DFS – Run it back with the Mavericks:
We do not yet have a game total on this Dallas-Philly game due to the injury/illness/craziness status of Jimmy Butler, but we do now that it is expected to be the second fastest paced game on the slate behind Golden State/Sacramento – with these two games being the only two where both teams see a projected pace boost.
Over the last 10 games, the Sixers (6th) and Mavericks (9th) are playing at top 10 paces so this has the potential to be an up and down track meet and the beauty of this game is that you can stack it (assuming Butler is out) while using James Harden as your one-off.
Dallas will be on the tail end of a back to back, traveling from Boston to Philadelphia and playing their third game in four nights but due to a blowout against the Hornets on Wednesday, this is not the typical 3 in 4 as the starters got some significant rest in that one.
Watching Dallas/Boston last night, you could see that when the starting unit was on the floor – they looked to push the pace with Luka Doncic ($14.2K) and Dennis Smith Jr. ($9.8K) and the fact DSJ was able to play over 30 minutes last night, gives me confidence in going right back to this duo tonight.
DeAndre Jordan ($11.6K) is fresh off a 40+ fantasy point outing against the Celtics and we know he will get significant court time opposite Embiid here tonight while the price feels far too reasonable.
Outside of this trio, you can certainly make the argument for guys like Harrison Barnes and Wes Matthews as you know the minutes will be there but at $10.9K and $8.5K, these feel like better cash game plays than guys with GPP upside.
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 build.
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G: James Harden
G: Luka Doncic
G: Dennis Smith Jr.
F/C: DeAndre Jordan
F/C: Joel Embiid
F/C: Jonah Bolden
UTIL: JJ Redick
UTIL: Furkan Korkmaz
Slate Overview: Looking at this slate at first glance, the obvious starting point was James Harden but the question became where do you go next? The easiest spot would be to just stay in that game and stack up Harden/Capela with Dame/Nurk and all the value and you plant your flag there.
You could try to find a way to stack up the best Vegas game on the night in GS/Sacramento with a massive 238 total and slate high projected pace but doing so alongside Harden with the price points on the Warriors stars make this a tough roster build as this game really lacks the value necessary to make it work.
Now, you COULD go this route and stack the game with the Kings and the secondary Warriors (ie. Draymond/Klay) and it works alongside Harden’s price but I think this is only a route I would go IF Jimmy Butler is ruled in.
The Butler status to me is really the most critical decision point – if he is out, Joel Embiid is a must play and there is enough value on Philly to make the roster build and a game stack of two fast paced teams, fit without too much sacrifice as I have shown in the sample build.
Enjoy this day all – we have a great day of NFL DFS and NBA DFS so make sure your fridge is stocked, the chores are done and your kids have Netflix loaded up because you are going to want to sit back and enjoy tonight without any distractions.
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