NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday January 14 – A Scary Fade

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Ho-hum, another NBA DFS slate down and another 75+ fantasy outing from James Harden with Chris Paul and Eric Gordon off the court – rinse and repeat folks. The Beard was not the only star to put up a big night as Stephen Curry was just a touch behind Harden with 74 fantasy points of his own with a whopping 11 three-pointers made and owned at single-digit ownership on a four game Sunday slate.

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 – Monday’s NBA DFS Slate Breakdown:

Oh baby, this is looking like quite the six game slate to kick-off a Monday NBA DFS schedule. Not only do we have big time studs to pay for, but Vegas is simply screaming at us to build around one game in particular while seemingly telling us to stay away from the majority of the other games – so let’s dive in.

From a pure Vegas perspective, the Pelicans/Clippers game is the clear stand out on this slate with a 240 total, 13 points higher than any other game on the slate, the fastest projected pace and the only game on the slate where both teams see a projected pace boost.

Interestingly enough, of the 12 teams in action only three teams see a projected pace increase tonight – two of them are in this one game! This also happens to be the only game on the slate where both teams involved are getting a projected point boost over their season average.

As my man Joe Metz broke down in his NBA DFS Game Stacks article today – this is clearly the best spot on the board from every possible Vegas metric so rather than simply repeat what he said, I will let him do the talking for me.

But rather than tell you to stack it, I am going to make the argument for a fade of this stack despite what Vegas is trying to tell us.

First off, anytime there is a game environment THIS juicy from a Vegas standpoint, it is going to be the focus of every DFS player, every article you read today and listen, rightfully so – but with both teams operating at full strength, is this really the time to go all-in?

The Pelicans now have Nikola Mirotic and Elfrid Payton back while the Clippers continue to run a 9 man rotation with only Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari consistently seeing over 30 minutes a night.

These two teams have played twice already this season, with one game in particular back on 10/23 being the one to focus on where both teams were at full strength. Anthony Davis ($20.6K) did AD type things in that one with nearly 70 fantasy points but look at the rest of the Pelicans – only three other players cracked 30 fantasy points in that game with Elfrid Payton, Nikola Mirotic and Jrue Holiday combining for 110 fantasy points.

That trio on FantasyDraft will cost you right around $37K tonight, meaning with similar performances you are looking at barely 3x return if the performances repeated themselves. Look back at the Clippers in that game and you will see only three players went for over 30 fantasy points (Gallo, Tobias and Pat Bev) with no player going for over 45.

Outside of AD, what worries me about this game is that the pricing relative to their ceilings with everyone healthy really limits the upside of this stack.

There are five players outside of AD that are priced over $13.3K on FantasyDraft from this game – Jrue Holiday, Julius Randle, Tobias Harris, Danilo Gallinari and Montrezl Harrell. All great plays for sure – but you would need 46-51 fantasy points from every single one of these guys to hit 3.5x value.

Obviously all of these players have those kinds of ceilings but how likely are they all to hit value with both teams at full strength? The game on October 23rd, not a single player outside of AD went for over 45 in that game – if this is where the ownership is – I think you can make a strong case to fade it.

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays – A Scary Fade:

With the late night hammer between the Pelicans and Clippers getting the attention of everyone on this slate, I think you can make a strong case for simply grabbing Anthony Davis ($20.6K) from that game and fading all the over-priced secondary pieces.

I do wonder how the focus on Anthony Davis will impact the ownership of James Harden ($21.9K) as it would seem likely that they will prioritize AD over Harden due to the contrasting game environments.

You know what is funny about game environments – they are 100% irrelevant when you are talking about James Harden without Chris Paul and Eric Gordon on the court. Harden has gone for 75+ fantasy in four of his last seven games with those two out, including 80.5 fantasy points against the same Memphis team he plays tonight.

I am not fading Harden on any slate until CP3/EG come back – it is that simple.

The tricky part is that if you want both AD AND Harden tonight, it means finding some value stacks/plays to make it work and I believe we need to look no further than the very first game of the night between the Nets/Celtics for a path to this build.

We have a game with a 221 total and a 4 point spread with the big news being the status of Kyrie Irving, who is officially questionable for this game and is the key piece of news we need to monitor in order for this idea to work.

We know the deal with the Celtics when Kyrie is out – Terry Rozier ($7.1K) enters the starting unit and every single player on the floor gets a usage/FP boost as a result. It is a tried and true methodology and if Kyrie is out, the scariest fade of the night may be a dirt cheap Rozier when we desperately want to fit in the high-priced studs.

What I love about the Celtics as a stack around the Harden/AD core is that the pricing is all simply too cheap assuming Kyrie is out. There is not a single player on Boston over $12.5K so really any/all of the Boston core is a viable option. Al Horford ($12.2K) finally saw his minutes limit get lifted and he responded with 30 minutes and 40 FP against the Magic – bigs against Brooklyn with no minutes limit and no Kyrie? Yes please.

Marcus Morris ($11.1K) leads the team in usage at 27% this season with Kyrie off the court while also leading the team with 1.17 FP/M – again, 30+ minutes at this price point against the Nets – lock city.

NBA DFS – Pivot Plays – Brooklyn Baby:

The Nets side is a bit tougher to gauge as I do not necessarily want to pick on the Boston defense, but if you are going after this much of Boston – I think you need to run it back with some Nets. D’Angelo Russell ($12.5K) is going to be that guy for me every single time – I know, he may draw Marcus Smart defense, he got only 11 FP against Boston last time out – yes, I know all of that – but this is a league leading usage player with 50-60 fantasy point upside and that is something you cannot find in this price range often.

The Nets will still be without LeVert/Crabbe but it is possible that RHJ returns, but the first game back, it is very possible even in a return after only limited practice yesterday that we see his minutes limited.

This may sound silly, but the fact that Jared Dudley is out may help here – listen, Dudley is not someone we were playing but he was getting 15-20 minutes every single night for Brooklyn so is absence if paired with the continued injury to RHJ could push a few extra minutes and solidify the floor for guys like Rodions Kurucs and Ed Davis who both sits under $8K on FantasyDraft.

Treveon Graham ($6.6K) drew the start against Toronto with Dudley sidelined and ended up playing 28 minutes , albeit with only 10 FP, but there is upside here – Graham put up 6 three-point attempts (hitting only one) against Toronto and on FantasyDraft where you get the 3PM bonus, it makes Graham a sneaky punt play if he is going to draw that kind of run again.

I would be careful simply looking at the box score last game if you are going to play Brooklyn though – look instead at the game flow – this was a 20+ point blowout by the 4th quarter so it is unlikely the Nets close this one out tonight again with a Kenneth Faried, Alan Williams, Theo Pinson trio.

NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

As a reminder – this is NOT an optimized plug and play lineup – this is simply meant to be an illustrative example of the logic laid out here. 

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G: James Harden

G: Terry Rozier

G: D’Angelo Russell

F/C: Anthony Davis

F/C: Al Horford

F/C: Marcus Morris

UTIL: Treveon Graham

UTIL: Jaylen Brown

Slate Overview: This entire premise hinges on one key thing – Kyrie Irving sitting out. If he is out, then I am all-in on this Nets/Celtics game but if he is in, then I am out. It is crazy to break it down that black and white but it really is true – if Kyrie is out, all the Celtics are too cheap but if he is in, they are priced right for the Celtics when playing at full strength.

Thankfully – this game is the first of the night – a 7:30PM EST tip, a 30 minute later start than we are used to – so we should have all the news we need before we lock in for the night!

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