NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday, February 13
Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
Tuesday’s NBA DFS slate was simple enough looking back at it, as the decision to play LeBron James against the Hawks likely determined your fate. Even though LeBron was over 70% owned in GPP play, the fact was that if you didn’t have his slate leading 77 fantasy points, which was over 20 points more than anyone else on the slate, you likely did not come close to cashing. The slate opened up later in the day with some serious value once Mike Conley was ruled out which made Delon Wright one of the most popular plays, but the punt of the night was Avery Bradley who came out of nowhere for 52 fantasy points at $200 above the bare minimum price, good for 4th most raw points on the 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.
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 – Wednesday Slate Breakdown:
We have just two slates left before the All-Star Break which means a full week off from NBA DFS – oh the horror! I am sure my wife and kids will realize something is up when I do not “use the bathroom” at 6:45PM EST every night as per the usual hiding ritual. Tonight we have our last big slate before the break as Thursday only has three games, one being the Knicks and Hawks, so tonight is probably the night to really enjoy.
The NBA schedule kicks off at 7PM EST with two games (Nets/Cavs and Bucks/Pacers) however please note that FantasyDraft has taken this down to a 9 game slate, excluding those two games and starting the slate off at 7:30PM EST.
Even though that means we cannot use Giannis, do not worry – this slate is absolutely loaded with stars, although I will say it is interesting that FantasyDraft only priced James Harden ($21.5K) above the $20K mark with the rest of the studs all sitting in much more comfortable price points.
Harden is coming off a 62 fantasy point outing against Dallas and as predicted his ownership was in the mid-teens in GPP play as the overwhelming narrative is that his price remains too high with CP3 back on the court.
Harden would need 64.5 fantasy points just to pay this tag off, a number he has failed to reach in three straight games while his teammate Chris Paul ($13.8K) has exceeded salary based expectation in all three of those games going for 41, 44 and 50 fantasy points.
With his price as high as it is, CP3 back in a major role and the plethora of cheaper stars to pivot to – I think this is going to be a crazy low-owned Harden spot. With it being the last game for many of these teams before the break – make sure you watch the news as players routinely get rested, especially the stars, so if that happens and we get a ton of value, it may make sense to work Harden into your builds if he is going to be overlooked on this slate.
NBA DFS – Building Our Core:
One of the benefits of the daily grind in NBA DFS is that we spend so much time digging into data each day and finding plays we love, but the tricky part is that we are conditioned to move on to the next day and almost leave behind what we thought less than 24 hours prior.
Yesterday, if you read Picks and Pivots, you know I was all over the Warriors stars as low-owned pivots and ultimately it played out where guys like Steph Curry (15%) and Kevin Durant (5%) were completely over-looked. Well, I hope you enjoyed that because tonight, I think we get the complete opposite.
Not only is the Warriors/Blazers game projected to have a slate high 235 total, but it also has only a 4 point spread which means we get the high and tight game environment we want when paying up for our studs. Part of the reason the Warriors were and have been low-owned, is the impact that DeMarcus Cousins has had on the usage of the remaining 4 starters – well, tonight we already know Boogie is going to sit on the tail-end of a back to back which drastically changes how we approach Golden State.
With Boogie off the court – it puts all the usage squarely back on the shoulders of Stephen Curry ($16.7K) and Kevin Durant ($17.6K) who are priority plays with price points that are depressed as a result of Boogies return to the court.
https://twitter.com/ClutchPointsApp/status/1095533495303036928
Although Steve Kerr said that Klay Thompson would be available tonight, take a look at his finger after injuring it last night. Seriously – look at that. A catch and shoot scorer with a finger injury even on his off-hand – would it shock anyone to see Klay get ruled out tonight as well?
If all that were to happen – and frankly even if it doesn’t – I don’t see a reason to move off Curry and KD here tonight with so much profit potential at these price points and the added usage boosts with minimally, Boogie off the court.
Durant has gone for 60+ in two of three meetings with Portland this year, while Curry has gone for 50+ in two meetings – with Boogie not being on the floor for any of those games – giving us a strong data set to work with.
Sticking with yesterday’s lessons – can we get Mike Conley to sit out one more game? If this happens, and frankly on a B2B before the All-Star Break in a lost season – I am not sure why Conley would push to come back – it means we go right back to the Grizzlies punt guards in the perfect match-up against the Chicago Bulls.
Delon Wright ($6.9K) and Avery Bradley ($6.6K) combined for 76 fantasy points last night against the Spurs which is a ridiculous 5.6x value on FantasyDraft at these price points. Bradley shot the ball a whopping 21 times last night and although we certainly cannot expect a repeat 50 burger, I am not sure I can advocate fading these two with clear 30+ minute paths against a Bulls defense that is one of the worst in the league.
Go ahead and start your builds with Wright, Bradley, KD and Steph – you have over $13K per player for the rest of your roster – can you say Stars and Scrubs?
NBA DFS – Stars/Scrubs and a Game Stack
With so much focus on the Warriors stars with Boogie out, and so much potential value in Memphis, this game stack of Golden State and Portland feels like the natural build today without really having to dig too deep.
With Curry/KD as core plays, you can easily expand that to include the correlation of Draymond Green ($11.8K) who put up 44 fantasy points earlier against this same Portland team when Boogie was sidelined. Take this one step further and lock in Damian Lillard ($15.8K) and Jusuf Nurkic ($13.8K) who combined for over 100 fantasy points against Golden State when they last played on 12/29.
Al-Farouq Aminu ($8.8K) is not normally a player I would make a point to roster and he likely only makes sense in a game stack, but he feels too cheap considering the pace up spot and a match-up he has done well in all season. In three games versus Golden State, he has averaged 25 FP/G and is coming off a 29 FP game against OKC in a similar pace up game environment.
With Boogie out, most of the focus will be on the impact it has for the Warriors stars, but do not overlook someone like Kevon Looney ($7.3K), the starting Center before Cousins came back who has seen his priced pushed way back down to align with his bench role. Looney started both previous games against Portland at the end of December, playing 25 and 28 minutes and averaging 22 FP/G which would exceed 3x value at this price point.
When you start looking at other games on the slate with a ton of blowout potential, this Warriors/Portland game becomes even more appealing as you have a ton of stars with ceiling potential and some value with guys like Aminu/Looney that make stacking it a viable strategy.
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 build.
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Value Punts:
- Delon Wright
- Avery Bradley
Game Stack:
- Stephen Curry
- Kevin Durant
- Damian Lillard
- Jusuf Nurkic
If you choose to go this route tonight, assuming Mike Conley sits of course, you would have $11.3K per player for the last two spots on your roster.
You can look to go a few different paths at this point – you can simply expand on the game stack and include guys like Draymond Green, CJ McCollum and Klay Thompson (although I would not after seeing his finger) – as all three of these secondary plays sit in the $11-$12K range on FantasyDraft.
You can go cheaper in that game stack and use Aminu or Looney and pay up for a high dollar one-off spend in another game.
Basically, this core gives you significant flexibility and I would argue it can be the basis for cash games or GPP’s tonight.
With it being the last big night before the All-Star Break and so much rest potential on a slate this large – my advice is this – build your core and be ready to adjust. If we get even more value news, going towards a Stars and Scrubs extreme build may be the way to land before we lock it down at 7:30 PM EST.
Enjoy the last big slate before our league mandated break!
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