NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday January 10
Welcome to the Thursday 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.
Wednesday’s NBA DFS was absolutely dominated by the stars as Anthony Davis, James Harden, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid were the top raw point plays and only four who went for 60+ on this night which made it necessary to have at least one, if not two of those plays in your builds. The winning GPP scores on FantasyDraft were right at 350 with the cash line at 300 which has been a pretty consistent target throughout the season, helping us prove out our 3x-3.5x value targets work on most nights.
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 – Thursday Slate Overview and a FREE ROLL!
Before we jump into tonight’s NBA DFS slate – we have another Picks and Pivots Free Roll from our friends at FantasyDraft with $50 worth of NBA DFS tickets up for grabs to the top 10 finishers. Get in now before it fills!
When looking at this slate at first glance, my general feeling is that every one of the four game environments feels jumbled together with no single spot really standing out. Every single game has a spread of 5 points or less, three of the four games sit in the 220-225 total range and no game on the slate is expected to be a pace boost to both teams involved.
One of the first questions becomes what do we do with Russell Westbrook, the only player above $20K on this slate who will take on the Spurs in San Antonio in a significant pace down spot for him and the Thunder.
While the Thunder have been playing at one of the fastest paces in the NBA over the last 10 games, this game also features two of the top seven teams in terms of Def-Eff over that stretch and with the game being played in San Antonio, the home team generally dictates the pace.
As much as you can make the case against the match-up for Westbrook and argue the price tag is too high, go ahead and look at the rest of the slate and tell me where exactly you want to spend your budget and where exactly you think the upside exists to match even a floor game for Westy.
If he gives you even 60 fantasy points, I think there is a very real chance he ends the night as the top raw points play and with it being a four game slate, that raw points thinking becomes critical.
The general underwhelming nature of this slate, the slow-paced match-up and the high price tag may actually keep Westbrook’s ownership lower than you would think on a short slate like this and even on FantasyDraft where you have significant position flexibility, I am finding it hard to even find three guards I like if I take Westbrook out of my player pool.
For now, I am going to pencil him in and see what else I can build.
NBA DFS – Pivots off or build around Westbrook:
One of the reasons I am finding myself paying up for Westbrook is that the spend up pivot plays seem underwhelming. Nikola Jokic ($19K) has faced this same Clippers team twice already this season with only 32 and 44 fantasy points – if you pay that price for Jokic and that is all you get, well you know how your night is going. Say what you want about Westbrook, we know he has a 55-60 point floor most nights and so I would much rather find the extra $1K to get up to him.
Paul George ($18K) is just too expensive in this specific match-up, it is hard to argue for him as the third most expensive player on the slate in a pace down spot. Kyrie Irving ($16.5K) is the logical pivot at guard but we are paying full price for a guy who is not yet back to over 30 minutes on a Celtics team that is fully healthy and runs a deep and talented rotation.
So it leads me to the Pistons big men – either as a pivot or more likely, guys I want to play alongside Russ.
Blake Griffin and Andre Drummond sit just under $17K on FantasyDraft and with a match-up against the Sacramento Kings, they get the biggest pace boost on the slate and get to face the worst defensive team of all 8 teams tonight. I know they let folks down last night against the Lakers, but I am going right back to the well tonight with these two and locking them in around Westbrook.
On the other side of this game, I would have no issue running it back with De’Aaron Fox ($13.9K) and Willie Cauley-Stein ($12.1K) as we know WCS is going to get major run in this match-up and Fox gets perhaps one of the best individual match-ups against a Pistons team that ranks 26th in Def-Eff against the PG position.
So you may be thinking – great Brian, you are telling me to play all the expensive guys and I am not sure you are aware, there is this “salary cap” thing where you cannot simply click all the pricey players – I have tried, FantasyDraft will not allow it.
What I am trying to paint the picture on tonight’s NBA DFS slate is that we need to prioritize our spend ups and rather than settle for decent plays in the mid-range, instead take the approach of building around the core you absolutely want and then talking yourself into the value plays that you can stomach.
Listen, it’s not going to look pretty – but let me show you what I think this build can look like if you choose to go this path.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
As always – this is NOT a plug and play line-up yada yada yada – this is ILLUSTRATIVE and meant to help you understand the context in which I am viewing the slate.
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Building our core:
G – Russell Westbrook
G – De’Aaron Fox
G –
F/C – Blake Griffin
F/C – Andre Drummond
F/C – Willie Cauley-Stein
UTIL –
UTIL –
Remaining Salary Per Player for Last Three Spots – $6.7K
So if you take a step back and look at this core, you have what I think are arguably the top three plays on the slate in Westbrook/Griffin/Drummond – all with considerable ceilings where I could see this trio landing as the top 3 raw point plays. You can pair them with Fox/WCS, two players that I think you could feel good about locking in 35-45 fantasy points from and you have a core that give you the ability to chase the ceiling.
The issue is finding the cheap guys to work around them and on this slate – it is not easy. There is not a ton of injury news that gives us a clear value play but with so many teams in back to backs, I suppose that could open up during the day.
Gary Harris is the one big name to watch as we could get another Malik Beasley ($7.4K) start and if you are guaranteeing me 30+ minutes for a guy who has gone for 40+ fantasy points in two of the last three games he played 29 or more minutes, this is a play I think that fits your builds perfectly. To me, Beasley would be a lock play IF Harris is ruled out again – but adding him brings our available salary down to $6.4K for the last two spots and that is where it becomes a tougher sell than trying to convince Jets fans that Adam Gase was the best hire (yes I am a Jets fan and yes I am bitter).
Dig deeper and it means living near the minimum but there are plays under $6.5K that all have paths to 20-30 minutes and when you start dumpster diving, all you want is minutes. Terrance Ferguson ($6.5K) has a clear path to minutes with OKC being short-handed at SG/wing and has played 25/33 minutes the last two games while putting up 23 fantasy points against Minnesota. If you told me I can sign up right now for 23 fantasy points again tonight, I would take it and not look back.
You can look to stack off the Kings/Pistons with a punt like Yogi Ferrell ($6.4K), a 20-25 minute bench contributor or look to the Spurs who will be without Rudy Gay again tonight and gives you a fringe player pool of Jakob Poetl, Davis Pertans, Pau Gasol, and Marco Bellinelli to provide some salary relief.
Does it feel good living in this range? Of course not – but this is a slate where I think prioritizing the trio of Westbrook/Drummond/Griffin is paramount and if it means having to punt in 1-2 spots so be it. If you can find 1-2 punts that allow you to simply scrape by with 3x value (so think 18-20 points), that is really all you are asking for on this slate.
My gut is that winning lineups and the cash line will be far lower than usual which is why I think targeting the raw points is the way to go and that means a stars/scrubs approach. It could also mean my lineup finishes dead last tonight but hey, join that FREE ROLL link and you can mock me either way.
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