NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday, February 9
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.
Friday’s NBA DFS slate was high scoring as winning GPP rosters pushed well over 375 points on FantasyDraft as a result fo 12 players putting up 50+ fantasy points. Andre Drummond, Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo all put up 60+ point performances as the top raw point plays on the night but the key really was how many of the 50+ point mid-tier plays you were able to fit into your builds as guys like Hassan Whiteside, Lauri Markkanen, Andrew Wiggins, Kelly Oubre and Andrew Wiggins all got 50+ point nights for mid-range price tags!
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 Slate Breakdown and a FREE ROLL!
Before we get into today’s slate, what better way to kick off the weekend then with a NBA DFS FREE ROLL from our friends at FantasyDraft who bring us another $50 Picks and Pivots Free Roll! Get in now before it fills!
One thing to note – the NBA has a standalone game at 5PM EST tonight between the Spurs and Jazz and a 7PM EST game between the Cavaliers and Pacers that are taken out of the player pool on FantasyDraft as this seven game slate starts at 7:30PM EST so make sure you note the later start time when getting your lineups ready for tonight!
The best part about these Saturday Night NBA slates is that the league does a great job of getting featured games on national TV and tonight is one that regardless of your DFS interests, you are going to want to watch as we get the Thunder/Rockets, Westbrook versus Harden on ABC at 8:30 PM EST.
This game has everything you could possibly want for NBA DFS purposes – a slate high 235 total, a 2 point spread and the second fastest projected pace game environment. We get a player pool that is loaded with top end stars that can break the slate and my guess is this becomes stop #1 on most peoples roster build path today.
OKC is playing at a breakneck pace recently, ranking second in the NBA in pace over the last 15 games while their star, Russell Westbrook ($20.3K) has a ridiculous 8 game triple double streak heading into tonight.
These two teams have faced off twice this season, most recently on Christmas Day, and it has been Paul George ($18.1K) leading the charge for the Thunder with 56-57 fantasy points in both match-ups with Houston this season.
James Harden ($21.5K) dropped 65 fantasy points in this spot back on Christmas Day and comes into tonight with 70+ fantasy points in four of his last six games despite the return of Chris Paul ($13.4K) to the lineup. CP3 himself is rounding into form, playing at least 29 minutes in each of the last three games while putting up his best outing fantasy wise, a 40 point effort against Sacramento, the last game out.
I think the Harden-Westbrook pairing will be incredibly popular today and for good reason. Listen any time you get stars versus stars in the NBA, I always recommend running the correlation and hoping for a shootout. Taking these two $20K stars is a pricey endeavor and if you try to expand it to include their co-stars in PG13 and CP3, you are left with only $6.7K per player for the last four spots on your roster which makes this a really challenging Stars/Scrubs build if you opt to go this route.
NBA DFS – Going Stars and Scrubs:
The Stars and Scrubs route is one that seems to be finding more consistent success in NBA DFS this year more so than I can recall in past years and Trade Deadline week seems like the perfect time to attack this route with so many players on the move and priced out of whack with their new potential roles.
If we work under the assumption that Westbrook, Harden and PG13 are must plays tonight – that leaves us with over $8K per player for the last 5 spots and it dips down to $6.7K if we try to shoehorn in CP3.
The interesting thing about this slate is that we really do not have to go too far to find value in the $7-$8K range, as this Rockets/Thunder game has a substantial amount of playable pieces in this range with the focus really on the Rockets side.
Eric Gordon ($8.7K), PJ Tucker ($8.5K) and Gerald Green ($7.9K) are all secondary plays with 20-30 minutes roles and when you swap in Iman Shumpert ($7.5K) for the departed James Ennis, you have four legit options on the wings for Houston with clear paths to roles at cheap prices.
If we look at the last game against the Kings, the Rockets played Tucker (34), Gordon (22) and Green (29) with Ennis (28) and Austin Rivers (29) in similar roles and so if you simply swap Shumpert in for Ennis, I think there is a path for every single one of these guys to play major minutes for a Rockets team with the slates highest projected total.
Gordon and Green were volume monsters in their court time last game, shooting the ball 14 and 17 times between them and it is that kind of volume you are hoping for if you use them. Now, if you choose to go this route – my recommendation is to use them alongside Harden while leaving out CP3.
Let’s be honest – I do not care how well these secondary guys may be playing, Harden is going to soak up all the usage he normally does, so any usage and volume that these secondary plays grab, I think comes at the cost of CP3.
Look at the last game versus the Kings, Harden did what he always does – a near 40% usage rate but it was Green (31%) and Gordon (30%) that were right behind him with CP3 a distant 4th at only 26%. That is the script you are looking to replicate if you go this route – fade CP3 and instead take guys like Gordon, Green, Tucker and Shump as your correlation in a game stack.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays and More Value:
FantasyDraft has this rule where you HAVE to play guys from three games, so I guess we cannot simply focus on the Thunder/Rockets tonight and will have to look for players in other spots. Thankfully, there looks to be some serious value for us across this league – again, furthering the argument that Stars and Scrubs is the way to go.
With players just starting to suit up for their new teams post trade deadline, we need to keep an eye on starting lineups to see how these new look teams roll them out. The Clippers are one of the more interesting teams as they have essentially hit re-boot on their roster but are publicly stating they intend to push forward in the playoff race.
With Ivica Zubac ($7.3K) now looking like the man in the middle for the Clippers, it is hard to argue with the point per dollar upside for a player who when given the minutes has dropped 50+ fantasy points in recent starts for the Lakers.
With the Lakers three-headed monster behind him and the Boban/Gortat duo out of town, Zubac as a clear path to a major role as the starting center for LA and even though the match-up against Boston is a tough one, this price point feels far too cheap.
Speaking of trades, the Bulls shipped Bobby Portis and Jabari Parker to the Wizards for Otto Porter and now just two days later we get an ALL OUT REVENGE SPOT as the Bulls/Wizards play in the Picks and Pivots Narrative Bowl (name pending approval). The Portis/Parker duo dropped 85 fantasy points between them last night and you can pretty much guarantee that the narrative buzz is going to be through the rough on these guys as mid-tier plays.
The one spot to watch tonight is Toronto, as they head to Madison Square Garden to take on the Knicks where newly acquired Marc Gasol is expected to join the team but it is not yet clear if he will play. The big news is that Kawhi Leonard is questionable and let’s be honest here folks – why on earth would Toronto push their guys against the Knicks of all teams.
If Kawhi is out and Fred Van Vleet ($9.9K) draws another start, after his 46 FPT outing last game, he once again jumps to the top of the point per dollar pool against the Knicks horrendous team defense.
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: James Harden
G: Eric Gordon
F/C: Paul George
F/C: PJ Tucker
F/C: Ivica Zubac
UTIL: Gerald Green
UTIL: Iman Shumpert
Slate Overview: This is setting up to be a really interesting slate as I tink you can make a strong argument for a Stars/Scrubs build or look to go more balanced and hope that Friday Night’s results repeat themselves as we saw the mid-range loaded with 40-50 point plays.
My take, especially on FantasyDraft, is that I will side with the raw point stars and build around them when the slate dictates and I think this is one of those slates with the value we have already.
Look at the player pool here tonight – with AD out, the high-end stars are basically Giannis and the trio in OKC-Houston. Now you can opt to fade and go more balanced but I think if you play this slate out 100 times, the Westbrook/Harden/PG13 trio will likely land among the top 5 raw point plays in the majority of times and there is enough value with 30+ minute roles where I don’t see a reason to get cute.
Keep an eye on the news – watch for the value and sit back and enjoy. Oh yeah, and get in that free roll my friends!
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