NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday, February 7

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 slate was screaming Stars and Scrubs all day long as a result of the San Antonio value we had and with the success that has had recently as a GPP strategy, I went all-in – locking in as many cheap Spurs as I could with all the Giannis/Harden pairings! Well on this night, even though Giannis put up a slate leading 62 fantasy points, it was the more balanced builds that took down GPP’s. Overall, there were 10 players, including Harden/Giannis that went for 50+ on this slate with a strong mid-tier crew led by a pair of Bulls in Zach LaVine and Lauri Markannen.

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 – Thursday’s NBA DFS Slate Breakdown and a FREE ROLL!

Before we jump into today’s NBA DFS slate, our friends at FantasyDraft were nice enough to sponsor another Picks and Pivots Free Roll with $50 of NBA DFS tickets up for grabs – so jump in, only 250 spots are available!

Today is NBA Trade Deadline ladies and gents, with a 3PM EST deadline that is going to likely send shock-waves through the league and this slate – so my initial take – do not get married to your build too early and if you are not going to be around pre-lock to sort through the news – take the day off and come back on Friday.

With that said, we are going to attack this slate with what we know and be prepared to pivot – with only one game (Spurs/Blazers) having a total/line, we will do our best to sort through the noise and give you an idea of what could potentially come today.

First, the trades. Probably the most interesting team on this slate to focus on is the Memphis Grizzlies, who may end up trading their franchise cornerstones in Marc Gasol and Mike Conley before the deadline hits. Gasol has already been ruled out for this game and Joakim Noah is questionable which could mean another start for Ivan Rabb ($10.3K) who saw his price spike after his double-double 40+ fantasy point effort last game.

The Grizzlies news becomes important not only for the value, but in what we do with arguably the top two plays on the slate with the OKC Thunder’s Russell Westbrook ($20K) and Paul George ($18.1K) bringing their seven game streak of both going for 50+ fantasy points to the court tonight.

OKC is playing at the second fastest pace in the NBA over the last 10 games and really your hope here is that Memphis is able to keep it close enough so you get four quarters of run from the OKC stars.

Meanwhile the Mike Conley rumors continue to float out there about a potential trade to Toronto with Kyle Lowry involved which has a direct impact on the Raptors/Hawks game tonight which is the fastest projected pace game on the slate.

If a trade were to go down with Lowry, you know the deal by now – fire up chalk Fred Van Vleet ($8.5K) and the two biggest usage beneficiaries in Kawhi Leonard ($17.1K) and Pascal Siakam ($12.3K).

Last but not least – there is this team on the slate tonight called the Lakers – and I am not sure if you have heard the rumors, because they are certainly subtle, they have some interest in this uni-browed star in New Orleans.

Listen, this could be the slate and league changing move that comes by 3PM or it could be nothing and the Pelicans simply wait until the off-season to make their franchise altering move. The Lakers have made potentially their entire roster available which means if a trade did happen, I don’t even know how they would field a team tonight.

The fact that they play the Celtics, the other biggest suitor for AD, is a delicious bit of irony and as if this slate isn’t hard enough to predict – LeBron James name came up as a possible “load management” spot tonight. Well, don’t worry – it is a National TV game so they couldn’t possibly sit him out again like they did against the Warriors on Saturday right?

Get ready for chaos people.

NBA DFS – Looking for a Safe Spot:

The only game with any Vegas data right now is the Blazers/Spurs which has a solid 227.5 total but with it, the lowest projected pace on the slate. One night after sitting their stars, it is expected that San Antonio will have LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan back in the lineup tonight.

These two teams last played on December 2, in a game that totaled 249 points and saw the games biggest stars, but up monster nights. The Spurs dropped 131 points in that game with Aldridge ($14.1K) and DeRozan ($13.8K) putting up a combined 102 fantasy points which would exceed 3.6X value at this moderate price points tonight.

Damian Lillard ($15.8K) on the other side of this game, dropped 61 fantasy points in that game and has gone for 60+ fantasy points in 2 of his last 4 games. The interesting thing about Portland here is how well rested they are – having only played one game so far in February, so this could be a spot, assuming no trades, where Portland becomes a safe gash game build with some GPP appeal in what Vegas expects will be a close game.

The nice thing about the trio of stars in this game, is you can build around LMA, DD and Dame and still have over $11K for the last five spots on your roster so this becomes a viable mid-range build if you want to pivot off a Stars/Scrubs build.

Speaking of Stars/Scrubs – back to the OKC stars and what to do with them tonight. There is honestly no duo in the NBA right now that feels like a safer night in and night out pairing than Westbrook/George and with so much value likely finding its way to this slate, it may be the path of least resistance to just lock in both players – take your 100+ fantasy points and move on.

If we can find a way to get the right punt value – consider this for a second:

You can lock in Westbrook/PG13 AND the Portland/Spurs trio and you would have just above $6K, meaning stone minimums for the last three players in your build.

Now this is risky for sure, but you are basically building a 250 point floor with this 5 man core, so the question then becomes can you find a punt trio that makes this all work?

If you want to save a bit of salary and you think this OKC-Memphis gets a bit out of hand – with confirmation that LeBron James ($18.4K) is playing – you can pivot off Russ/PG13 and go with a LeBron and Kyrie Irving ($17.8K). Same basic logic applies here in a Stars/Scrubs build as you would have $6.7K per player for the last three spots on your roster.

NBA DFS – Pivots and Punts:

With the early context that there is GOING to be value on this slate post trade deadline, my initial builds are going to be extreme Stars and Scrubs and hope that I can find the right value to make it all work.

As I mentioned, a core build of Westbrook/PG13/Dame/LMA and DeRozan is doable but it means you only have $18.2K left for the last three spots on your roster – so get ready to dumpster dive my friends!

First, lets stay in Memphis – where there is going to be SOME value, we just do not quite know where yet. Besides the front-court value that will likely be popular, if Kyle Anderson remains out, we could see Julian Washburn ($6.2K) draw another wing start as he did against Minnesota last game out. Washburn played 33 minutes and put up 18 FPTS and that was with a poor shooting night (going 3-10). If you guarantee me 30+ minutes and double-digit shot attempts again tonight at $200 over the stone minimum on FantasyDraft, I have some interest!

The second spot to watch tonight is the Clippers, who have traded away Tobias Harris, Mike Scott and Boban Marjanovic, while the newly acquired players will have to wait another day to make their debuts.

The big question mark here is whether Gallo makes his return and with the Clippers basically shipping this season in, do we really expect the oft-injured wing to come back from back spasms and play 30+ minutes here tonight?

If we look back at last game for the Clippers, Tobias (36 minutes) and Mike Scott (24) combined for 60 minutes of court time that will no longer be available. Guys like Lou Williams, Avery Bradley and Patrick Beverley may all see usage boosts but the reality is, this trio averaged 34 minutes of court time in that game so the extra minutes are going to have to go elsewhere.

Sindarius Thornwell ($6K) played 13 minutes off the bench in the Clippers last game and it is these types of punts where I think you can find sneaky value tonight. As I said, the minutes for Tobias and Scott have to go somewhere and it is not realistic to think the core Clippers starters can take on 60 minutes that freed up, so if someone like Thornwell gets a minutes boost and now sees 20+ minutes off the bench, you are looking at the potential for a low-owned GPP play with a path to profit.

As my man Mike Marteny highlighted in his DraftKings article today, Luol Deng ($6.1K) is turning back the clock with Minnesota, having now played over 21 MPG in his last five games and has averaged 20 FPTS per game including a 30+ fantasy outing last time out. I can’t believe I am saying this but the corpe of Luol Deng is in play tonight which tells you everything you need to know about this slate.

NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative ONLY and should not be used as a Plug and Play lineup. 

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Let me start by saying – a sample lineup today is basically worthless, but hey read on, I guarantee you its worth it. There are just way too many unknowns to really feel good about it – so instead I will chart out a potential roster path that we can mark down and see if the value falls in a way to make it work.

Extreme Stars and Scrubs:

Damian Lillard

LaMarcus Aldridge

DeMar DeRozan

Russell Westbrook

Paul George

This means you have $18.2K per player – so you are looking at guys like Julian Washburn and Sindarius Thornwell as pure punt plays with 20+ minute paths to fill out this build.

The Lakers part of today is really what could open this up – imagine the AD trade actually happens and the Lakers ship off Ingram, Kuzma, Ball etc – think about all the potential value that would open up there.

This is a total Wait and See kind of slate – but I do think there is value in building lineups like this one early on today and seeing if the news breaks in a way that allows your build to work. At 5AM EST as I write this, I don’t see 3 punts I feel great about – but by 5PM EST, life post deadline could make this extreme Stars and Scrubs build a possibility.

Be flexible today – that’s all I can say – be willing to adjust the news, eat the chalk if we get another Ivan Rabb situation like we did two nights ago and let others make mistakes. Good luck navigating this one guys – if you thought NBA DFS was hectic normally, trade deadline day is going to test your limits!

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