NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, February 12

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.

Holy Paul George Batman! PG13 was the must have play of the slate and although he was popular at 44% in GPP play, if you did not have his 87 fantasy points which lead the slate, well you likely did not come close to cashing. Overall with 7 players going for 60+ fantasy points on the night, we saw winning GPP scores well over 375 fantasy points with the cash line at 320+ across most contests.

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 – Slate Overview and a FREE ROLL!

Before we get into today’s NBA DFS slate, our friends at FantasyDraft have hooked us up with another $50 Picks and Pivots FREE ROLL for the first 250 people to join so get in early and let’s fill this one up!

We have a five game slate tonight which kicks off at 7:30PM EST, giving us an extra 30 minutes to tinker with our NBA DFS lineups. What strikes me about this slate at first glance is how front-loaded the player pool seems to be and how we can seemingly turn this into a two game slate with relative ease as we start crossing off games.

The Spurs/Memphis game has a 209 total, the slowest projected pace and the only game where both teams see a pace decrease. These two teams just played on January 9th and you want to know how many Spurs got over 30 fantasy points? Zero. The only two players to eclipse 30 FP on the Memphis side were Marc Gasol and Jamychal Green who are no longer on the team. Can you argue this as a super contrarian tourney stack? Maybe, but you are likely better off just crossing this game off your player pool.

The Pelicans/Magic and Warriors/Jazz both stand out to me as the contrarian plays on this slate with the focus being elsewhere as they have the star power necessary to help you win big but it is tough to argue these spots with much conviction in the context of the slate.

The Pelicans went from a high-scoring, fast paced team we all loved to target to seemingly a total stay away for DFS purposes as this weird Anthony Davis purgatory just makes it an impossible situation to navigate. AD has played two games since the trade deadline, playing 24 and 33 minutes and topping 50 fantasy points both times but at $17.9K it becomes nothing more than a multi-entry, large field pivot to take him over the other stars in this same price range tonight.

The Warriors/Jazz game is filled with strong plays for two teams that run a highly concentrated rotation but finding the ceiling plays for GPP’s here feels like a struggle. These two teams played back on 12/19 before Boogie re-joined the Warriors and although guys like Curry and KD had solid games, they were both held under 50 fantasy points. At price points in the $16-$17K range, Curry and KD feel like interesting pivots considering they have the second highest total on the slate but I just continue to question the ceiling for DFS purposes as long as this starting five is all healthy.

Look back at last game against Miami, it was a close game throughout, we got a full 4 quarters of the Warriors stars and only one player, Kevin Durant, even managed to top 40 fantasy points. Taking it a step further, his 53 fantasy points was his highest output in 10 games and even that is barely over 3.1X value at this $17K price point.

Now that I have thrown cold water on 60% of this slate, you are probably thinking – well this slate sounds super fun. I do think there are two obvious games that will draw most of the attention on this slate and I would argue those spots look to be the “path of least resistance” when diving into your player pool.

NBA DFS – A Two Game Slate?:

As much as I want to find a reason to pivot and get different in GPP’s tonight, the simple path on this slate seems to be to build around two obvious game environments tonight.

The Lakers/Hawks and Sixers/Celtics are the two fastest projected pace games and with a 236 and 226 total respectively, they have strong Vegas data that aligns with a star-studded player pool with significant ceiling potential.

Let’s start with the stars here – LeBron James ($18.8K) and Joel Embiid ($18.5K) who are the two most expensive plays on the slate. The big question mark here is LeBron and you may be thinking – he is listed as probable with the “load management” designation – so why is that a big deal?

The fact the Vegas data is out probably dispels this idea, but wouldn’t this be the perfect game for King James to sit against the Hawks? After playing 33 and 37 minutes against the Celtics and Sixers, and with games coming up against Harden and the Rockets and AD and the Pelicans, wouldn’t this seem like the spot to sit LeBron who is only 4 games back from his groin injury?

Totally speculating – but just putting it out there – and if it happens, it would completely turn this slate on its head.

Everything tells you to load up on the Lake Show here tonight as they have a slate leading 120 team total which is over 8 points higher than their season average and they get the largest pace boost of any team on the slate.

Over the last 10 games, the Lakers and Hawks rank 2nd and 3rd worst in the entire NBA in Def-Rtg, while they are giving up 125 and 121 points per game to their opponents with ranks dead last (Lakers) and 28th in the NBA (Hawks) – so we have a fast pace game with two awful defenses – sounds like DFS heaven.

Assuming LeBron plays, and again, just my total speculation he sits, he is the only player in this game priced over $14K so there is ample stacking potential in this game on both sides. Kyle Kuzma ($12.1K) is coming off a monster game on Sunday and is averaging 42.5 FP/G in his last two outings which would exceed 3.5x GPP value at this seemingly too cheap price point.

JaVale McGee ($9.9K) is fresh off a 43 fantasy points outing against the Sixers and remains under $10K despite a new role win which 25-30 minutes a night seems like a certainty with Ivica Zubac out of the rotation.

The Lakers opted to shift Rajon Rondo to the bench against Philly and he played only 15 minutes while new Laker Reggie Bullock ($6.4K) drew the start and played 30 minutes despite not doing all that much. If Bullock draws the start, it is hard not to just take the salary savings on a player near minimum priced who has a clear path to 30+ minutes against the Hawks, but he we said the same thing about Chasson Randle last night and that played out like a fart in church.

Watching that game on Sunday, Brandon Ingram ($10.9K) looks like a total after thought in the Lakers pecking order – and his 22% usage rate in that game would seem to support it.

Listen, all these guys are in play here because it’s the Hawks and the pricing is soft enough where you can fit in 3-4 Lakers without much trouble. If you are going that route, running it back with the Hawks duo of Trae Young and John Collins makes this most sense as the team leaders in usage. Young at $12.5K feels like an elite mid-range play here and considering he put up 46 fantasy points the first time these teams met which would near 3.7x at this price, will likely make him one of the more popular plays today.

NBA DFS – Celtics and Sixers:

If the Lakers/Hawks is not the most popular spot for your player pool then it will likely be this Celtics/Sixers national TV game with tons of star power and value at our finger tips. With Kyrie Irving out, the Celtics secondary plays all get major boosts as we have seen time and time again and with no player priced over $13K on FantasyDraft, mixing and matching all these Boston plays feels like a viable route.

If you take Kyrie off the court for Boston over the last two weeks, what you will find is that basically everyone in Boston is benefiting, with 7 players putting up over a FP/M while the usage is essentially split with 5 players between 21-27% usage.

The last game Kyrie sat versus the Cavs, you had four players top 30 fantasy points with Jayson Tatum leading the way with 44 fantasy points. Against the Hornets the game before that, another four players went for 30+ with Terry Rozier leading the way with 46 FPTS. One game before that against Brooklyn, it was 6 players going for 30+ with Al Horford leading the charge with 49 FPTS.

Why did I take you on that little game log stroll? The takeaway for me is that the Celtics all look like solid plays but I would argue none of them are of the slate breaking variety.

Terry Rozier ($12.9K), Al Horford ($12.4K) and Jayson Tatum ($11.8K) are all priced right where they should be it seems with their price points requiring 41-45 fantasy points in order to hit GPP value at 3.5X.

Over the last three games Kyrie as missed, that trio has each hit their ceiling mark in 1 of 3 games so what that tells me is that stacking them, may leave you underwhelmed as they have not proven they can all hit ceiling value in the same game.

The Sixers come into this game flying high after big home wins against the Nuggets and Lakers and this loaded lineup looks ready to take them deep into the playoffs. Here is the issue though – this team is almost too stacked and with two games under their belt, I think we can seriously question the ceiling potential of the Sixers starters.

In two games so far, including a 140 point outburst against the Lakers, only one player in two games has topped 45 fantasy points which was Joel Embiid on Sunday against the Lakers when he dropped 60+.

So let me ask you something – if this game becomes popular, and I think it will – are we really sure this spot is any different from all the reasons we stay away from a team like Golden State? We have a stacked starting 5, all priced up with questions about their ability to consistently hit their ceilings.

On top of all of this, the Celtics rank 8th in the NBA over the last 10 games in defensive rating. Now you can go back to their Christmas Day game and you will see that Embiid (61), Butler (42) and Simmons (41) all had strong fantasy days but it took going to OT for them to hit those marks and that was before Tobias Harris joined the crew.

I am never going to argue that the Sixers are bad plays but I do think this game in general will draw more ownership than most and it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the path to ceiling type games for the player pool here are harder to see playing out.

NBA DFS – Now What?

The more I look at this slate, well I hate it.

I do not want to play San Antonio/Memphis and I am not enthused about dealing with Anthony Davis and the mess in New Orleans.

The Lakers/Hawks feels like the easiest path to go down although I cannot help but shake this suspicion that we get a “Load Management” notification on LeBron which would completely change this change.

More from FanSided

• Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
• NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
• 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
• Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
• Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet

The Celtics/Sixers feels like the chalk game and although I can argue all the plays are solid in a vacuum, I really question the ceiling relative to their price points and deep starting units.

So that brings me back to the Warriors/Jazz – basically the exact same argument I am making against Philly/Boston – I am arguing for here. Makes total sense right?

Hear me out – this is a GPP strategy where I am simply surveying the landscape and thinking that this game for all its similar flaws, comes in at a fraction of the ownership as the earlier games. The fact that this game kicks off at 10:30PM EST which is 2+ hours after every other games will also likely lead to reduced ownership as it stands as this weird standalone.

Look back at Sunday – a 5 game slate on FantasyDraft, where the Heat and Warriors was the late night hammer which had far less intrigue then the sexy Lakers/Sixers game that kicked out hours earlier and the ownership absolutely showed how people viewed it.

Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry were 6% owned. Klay Thompson at 1%. Draymond Green at 2%.

If the Warriors stars are going to be this low-owned, are we really ready to say this All-Star starting five is that much worse of a play than the Sixers against Boston? The Jazz rank 8th in defensive rating while the Celtics are 3rd. This is essentially an identical pace game environment to the Sixers/Celtics and Golden State’s 118.8 projected total is right in line with their season average. Yes – the upside being capped is a totally valid argument with everyone healthy but I think the exact same argument applies to the Sixers and if I can get the Warriors stars at a fraction of the ownership tonight, I think that is a route I am willing to explore in GPP’s.

In the first meeting this year back in October between these teams (no Boogie obviously), Curry (53), Durant (63) and Draymond Green (38) all had strong fantasy games putting up 154 fantasy points combined which would exceed 3.4x value at their price points today – so there is a path to a low-owned GPP strategy by stacking the Warriors when I assume almost nobody does.

The Jazz are a team that I think gets totally ignored tonight both as a result of match-up but more as a result of pricing. Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert are at $15.7K and $15K which is the same price as getting Joel Embiid/Tobias Harris or LeBron James/Kyle Kuzma. From a pure ownership perspective, this makes them an ideal pivot spot when you start looking at 2v2 salary comparisons. Mitchell/Gobert have averaged only 77 fantasy points a game combined against Golden State this season (2.5x value) so this duo sure feels over-priced but as a low-owned game stack pivot, I love the strategy.

I really think you could stack this Golden State/Utah game and you could realistically not have a single player with double-digit ownership which is something that is really appealing in GPP’s.

Slate Overview: This is setting up as a GPP only slate for me quite honestly as I think I will look to build more based off ownership and game theory than I would normally. If the chalk all goes to the Lakers/Hawks and Sixers/Celtics (and rightfully so), then I think pivoting to GS/Utah is a great late night option. I would also argue that living in the mid-range and ignoring the stars is a viable path as we can spent the better part of 5 pages arguing about the capped upside of the slates stars.

Good luck all!

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