NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday January 22
Welcome to the Tuesday 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.
The scores across both of Monday’s NBA DFS slates were a tad lower than usual with winning GPP lineups putting up around 325 fantasy points which was driven largely by the lack of ceiling games from the stars on the slates. Only Kyrie Irving and Joel Embiid put up over 60 fantasy points across the two slates while guys like Westbrook, Giannis and Harden were held “in check” with pedestrian 50+ fantasy point outings.
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 – Tuesday’s NBA DFS Slate Overview and a FREE ROLL!
Before we get into this four game NBA DFS slate, let’s start your Tuesday with a little FREE ROLL! Our friends at FantasyDraft are once again sponsoring the Picks and Pivots Free Roll with $50 in tickets to Wednesday’s contests up for grabs – get in now, only 250 spots in this bad boy!
At first glance, what stands out to me on this slate is that even with only four games available to us, we have high scoring/pace up or neutral game environments across the board which should make our player pool a bit larger than a normal four game slate. Three of the four games tonight have totals of 228+ and across the board, every team sees either a neutral pace environment or a pace boost.
I think the one key decision right off the top is which star(s) are you going to anchor your lineup to on this slate? To me there are two clear paths you can do down which either lead you to Russell Westbrook and/or Paul George or put you on Karl-Anthony Towns against a Suns team he just dominated.
Towns at $18.6K feels like the clear path to a ceiling as the Suns will be without DeAndre Ayton once again and this was a match-up KAT just dropped 61 fantasy points on in their previous game. Towns has now faced the Suns twice this season and put up 59 and 61 fantasy points which would give him an average output of 3.2x at this price point. There is not a real strong argument I can make for fading him at this price point and my guess is he will be the highest owned star on the slate.
On the OKC front, PG13 and Westbrook travel from NYC back home to take on Portland in a rematch of their January 4th battle where both Thunder stars put up 53 fantasy points. From a pure match-up perspective, Paul George ($18.3K) gets the better of the individual match-ups as Portland is ranked 24th in the NBA against SF’s while they rank top 10 in Def-Eff in defending the PG position.
Westbrook is basically a lock for 50+ fantasy points, having hit that mark in each of his last 5 games against Portland but it is interesting that he has only gone for 60+ in one of those meetings. At $19.4K, you are going to need that ceiling performance to pay off this price tag but I actually love how this slate sets up for Westbrook in GPP’s as won’t most simply take the discount and what appears to be an easier path to 60 fantasy points with KAT? If Westbrook is going to be low(er) owned tonight then we would be crazy not to at least consider him as a tournament building block.
NBA DFS – Building Around the Stars:
One of the more interesting secondary decisions you have on this slate will likely come down to Devin Booker and Damian Lillard as my guess is, most will look to pair their choice of superstars (KAT or Westbrook/PG13) with one of these guys in a run-back scenario.
Seeing Lillard priced at only $14.8K, a $500 discount off Booker, is an incredibly appealing price point for the Blazers star as despite his lack of ceiling games, he has gone for 40+ in four straight games, averaging 45.6 fantasy points which would put him over 3x value at tonight’s price. The discount on Dame feels like a spot we need to price enforce as even with a “normal” game, he would hit cash game value and we know he has a 50-60 point ceiling which would simply crush value at under $15K. Over the last two weeks, Dame is still sporting a team high 32% usage rate with 1.3 FP/M so if forced to choose, I would prioritize Dame in this “second-tier” of plays.
Portland sees the largest pace boost on the slate and normally in those game environments, Al-Farouq Aminu ($10.3K) excels as he did the first time they played the Thunder and he racked up 40 fantasy points on the back of 16 points and 15 rebounds.
Rather than lock in Booker tonight, the Suns value may be the best way to get exposure to the Phoenix side with Ayton doubtful and Richaun Holmes questionable.
Dragan Bender ($7.5K) drew the start over the weekend with both Ayton/Holmes out and returned 31 fantasy points on the back of a 12 point/10 rebound outing. If both of the Suns big men are out again tonight, I am not sure how you avoid Bender here – the price remains simply too low for the minutes floor he would see in this situation.
He may not sit in this second tier price wise, but it is hard to argue with the point per dollar upside of DeAndre Jordan ($12.5K) in his third revenge spot against the Clippers this season. In his first two games, DJ has gone for 54 and 48 fantasy points against the Clippers and would only need 37 FPTS to hit value at this price point – this feels like a mid-range plug and play with massive point per dollar upside.
NBA DFS – Can you go Stars and Scrubs?
One thing I always do when I go through a slate is try and build first look rosters and try to map out likely scenarios around value. If we go back to the stars here tonight and we assume KAT gets another 60, Westbrook/PG13 are good for mid-50’s and Dame has a 45 point floor – you are very quickly seeing a core four, while pricey, that can get you into the 215-220 range by themselves with clear ability for upside.
The question is – if you lock in all four, that leaves you only $7.2K per player for the last four spots in your build – and you would need say 25 points from each of those to make you feel like a 300+ path is reasonable.
So can it be done?
We already touched on Bender at $7.5K and that could easily be pivoted to Richaun Holmes ($8K) is we get word that Holmes will play and draw the start.
The Suns more broadly seem like the best spot to load up on value as outside of Booker, Oubre and Warren, everyone else is $8K or lower. What is interesting to me in looking at the game flow of their contest against Minnesota is how the closing rotations without Ayton on the floor included Mikal Bridges ($7.2K) and Jamal Crawford ($6.8K). Both players carry risk, but when looking in this price range, they are one of the few handful of players with clear paths to minutes and it is obvious that the Suns felt they matched up best with Minnesota down the stretch in a close game over the weekend with these two on the floor.
One other spot we need to watch today is in Dallas as it appears that Dennis Smith Jr. will return to the club but there is no real clarity on what, if any role he will have.
Sources: After Dallas head coach Rick Calisle and guard Dennis Smith Jr. spoke on a call, Smith will report to the Mavericks on Tuesday and play against the Clippers. Carlisle and Smith had productive conversations.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) January 20, 2019
Jalen Brunson ($7.5K) drew the start at PG yesterday versus the Bucks and had a strong game with 28 fantasy points in 30 minutes of court time, backed by 16 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds. If Brunson draws the start again tonight, and we get any sort of clarity on DSJ’s minutes, he could become a viable salary saving option.
The Kings-Raptors game is not one I have a ton of interest in, especially if the Raptors are fully healthy, but there may be some value in this game, especially on the Kings side. One interesting note from their game with Brooklyn on Monday, Justin Jackson ($6.9K) started the second half over Nemaja Bjelica, played 29 minutes and racked up 25 fantasy points so it will be interesting to see the if the Kings stick with this lineup construction tonight. We have also seen the Kings routinely sit Iman Shumpert on the tail end of back to backs this season and with this being the first game on the slate, we should get the Kings lineup news well before lock.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative and should not be used as a Plug and Play lineup.
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G: Russell Westbrook
G: Damian Lillard
F/C: Karl-Anthony Towns
F/C: Paul George
F/C: Dragan Bender
UTIL: Justin Jackson
UTIL: Jamal Crawford
Slate Overview: At first glance this may not be a slate that screams Stars and Scrubs, mostly because the value is not overly evident but on a short four game slate like this, there is a path to simply building around the top raw point plays and looking to get “enough” value around them to make it work.
Because of the lack of value, I could see balanced builds being the way to go tonight which gives even greater GPP appeal to a Stars and Scrubs build, but it will require digging on your part to get the right value. I don’t see any punts being locks to crush value but there are paths in the depleted Suns frontcourt and depending on what Dallas does at PG. Keep an eye on the news and make sure you get into today’s Free Roll on FantasyDraft! Good luck all.
Next. NBA DFS Top Plays and Fades - Tuesday, January 22. dark
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