NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday, February 23

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.

Remember yesterday when I wrote up the slate and said we did not have a ton of value because it was the first big slate back from the All-Star Break and mostly everyone was healthy. Well, then the NBA did NBA things. We got news that Myles Turner would sit, a minimum priced Kyle O’ Quinn would draw the start, followed by Karl-Anthony Towns getting ruled out which pushed Taj Gibson and Dario Saric into top plays followed by JJJ getting ruled out in Memphis which brought Joakim Noah into our lives. What all of this meant was we now had a ton of value and it made rostering Russell Westbrook and/or Paul George easy rosters and boy did they deliver the late night hammer with over 150 fantasy points between them in a double OT thriller. NBA DFS is simply the best – now, lets write-up another slate that will completely change by lunch time!

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 – Saturday Slate Breakdown:

We have a massive 11 game slate on tap for this Saturday night in the NBA and with so many possible routes to go down, I think step one on this slate is figuring out the must haves and the games to cross off – we all have busy lives, so let’s try to narrow down this player pool shall we?

First let’s touch on the big injury news:

• James Harden ($20.5K) – the most expensive play on the slate is questionable with a cervical strain in a prime time showdown with the Warriors. This is obviously a huge piece of news, but the fact that many Vegas books have lines and totals out on this game lead me to believe Harden is playing. Clearly – the biggest news we need to wait on.
• Karl Anthony-Towns ($18.7K) – KAT missed Friday night’s game as he is in concussion protocol after a car accident and although he is traveling with the team to Milwaukee, this seems like a spot he could miss again and it was one of two games we do not have lines out on as I write this.
• Anthony Davis ($14.9K) – Likely exhausted from playing 20 minutes last night, AD is unsure if he can play against the Lakers tonight. Stay away from New Orleans – this team is a joke.
• Luka Doncic ($16.2K) missed last night’s game with an ankle injury which pushed me late on to the Tim Hardaway Jr. death train to “Add Funds” and frankly, I will try my best not to make the same mistake tonight against the Jazz.
• Myles Turner ($12.5K) missed last night’s game which meant a KOQ chalk fest at minimum price. If Turner sits again, O’ Quinn at only $6.3K is still firmly in play as a punt as a punt after playing 20 minutes last night while Domantas Sabonis ($11.2K) played 28 minutes off the bench.

As overwhelming as this slate may seem – we have some obvious cross off spots too.

• The Pistons/Heat and Grizzlies/Jazz have totals under 205 which we haven’t seen since James Naismith tied a peach tree basket to a pole which also happen to have by far the two slowest projected pace games.
• A fully healthy Celtics team as 10 point favorites versus the Bulls – blowout city.
• The Jazz on a back to back, after a Double OT slugfest and double-digit favorites against the Mavericks – if Luka is out, can”t we just ignore this game?

So, where can we start to build our core?

NBA DFS – Building Our Core:

Yesterday I went into the slate thinking we did not have too much value which meant I was less likely to go Stars and Scrubs – but tonight, with all the injury news and so many teams on Back to Backs – my initial take is to go as Stars and Scrubs as this slate will allow.

There are two obvious games at the top that you can pay up for – Thunder/Kings and Warriors/Rockets – with 238 and 235 game totals and all the star power you could ask for!

As scary as it sounds, especially after they dropped 150 fantasy points, last night – I am a tad hesitant to go back to Russell Westbrook and Paul George after they played 93 minutes last night.

This comes down to a simple 2v2 NBA DFS decision – would you rather pay $38.8K for the Thunder Buddies or say $37.8K for a James Harden/Kevin Durant correlation?

Let’s go under the assumption that Harden plays – with an injury tag and a streak of sub 60 fantasy points that has covered four of his last five games and there is likely going to be more buzz to fade him than to play him – especially with Westbrook sitting there at a cheaper price – which is exactly why I love him as a GPP core play.

Let’s see – Harden is publicly criticizing officials, now gets a national TV game against his biggest rivals – yeah, the one he dropped 91 fantasy points the last time they faced – giddy up.

So how can we stack this game?

Harden’s price tag over $20K obviously may give you pause, but there is enough value on the rest of the Rockets to easily offset that. Chris Paul ($13.8K) is coming off a 55 fantasy point outing against the Lakers, and would need 41 FPTS to hit value at this price – a number he has gotten to in four of his last five games. Clint Capela ($12.2K) came back against the Lakers and slotted right back into 30+ minutes and with Boogie on the other side of this game, we can now utilize more traditional centers against the Warriors. Capela simply feels too cheap.

I can make the arguments for guys like Eric Gordon and Gerald Green I suppose but there is just better value on this slate, frankly there is great value on this slate – so I likely won’t bother much with the fringe pieces here.

The Warriors side – I mean, we all know the deal by now – all five starters are in play, pick your poison. For me, I just try to keep it simple – it all starts with Stephen Curry ($16.9K) and Kevin Durant ($17.3K) – as long as Boogie is still being held under 30 minutes, I think KD and Curry are the really where you focus on as we are getting them at price points far below their talent level.

Curry and KD both dropped 60+ against the Kings the last game out and come in at a combined price of $34.2K which is a massive discount off the $38.8K you are paying for Westbrook/PG13 as an example.

So – Harden/CP3/Capela and run it back with Curry/KD – yes, I know there is a salary cap. Fun fact – this five man core leaves you $6.4K per player for the last three spots and with a slate this large and with so many injuries – I think you will find it easy to make this stars and scrubs approach work.

NBA DFS – Getting our Scrubs to match our Stars!

As I mentioned in the open, the injury news has the potential to blow this slate wide open and I am going into the day with that mindset wit my eyes open for all the punt play value.

Let’s start with what we can take away from last night – if Karl Anthony-Towns sits again due to his concussion, we simply go right back to Taj Gibson ($7.2K) who saw his price go down after playing 31 minutes versus the Knicks, with 19 points/10 rebounds and 41 fantasy points. Plug and play my friends.

Gibson is likely an obvious chalky play, but there is some sneaky value that folks may not be on.

Last night the Hornets made the decision to move Miles Bridges ($6.1K) into the starting unit and kick Jeremy Lamb to a 6th man role and there is every reason to believe this move could be permanent. Against the Wizards, Bridges played 29 minutes, racking up 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals and 1 block on his way to 29 fantasy points which would return insane 4.7x value at this minimum price point.

Tonight the Hornets plays the Nets, in one of the highest total games of the night and if you are going to lock Bridges into those kind of minutes again – he gives you elite upside and the salary savings to pay up for all the stars you want.

My man Thunder Dan writes our FanDuel breakdowns and put me on to Cheick Diallo ($6K) as a punt to watch tonight with Anthony Davis and the Pelicans on the tail end of a back to back and none of their “stars” really willing to break a sweat it seems. Diallo played 26 minutes off the bench last night, racking up a team high 44 fantasy points on the back of 16 points and 18 rebounds.

Now, we know past performance does not predict future outcomes – but think about this for a second, this trio will cost you $19.3K on FantasyDraft and is one night removed from combining for 114 fantasy points which would return a tidy little 6x profit for ya on a site we target to hit 3x.

Now, KAT could return, AD could play and Jeremy Lamb could take back his starting spot and all this is for naught – but I am going into today with the mindset of Stars and Scrubs and with this trio – there is a path to get as many of the Warriors/Rockets as I want or simply pivot to the Thunder Buddies after 150 fantasy point night on Friday.

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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G: James Harden

G: Stephen Curry

G: Chris Paul

F/C: Clint Capela

F/C: Kevin Durant

F/C: Taj Gibson

UTIL: Miles Bridges

UTIL: Cheick Diallo

Slate Overview: Insert Stars. Insert Scrubs.

NBA DFS is back and sometimes the value just forces you down this path. We saw the last two nights since we have come back from break that you simply eat the chalk value that allows you to pay for the raw point ceiling of the games biggest stars – you can fade in GPP’s if you want, but I think its getting cute for the sake of getting cute.

Tonight plug-in 2-3 scrubs and load up on the stars from the Rockets, Warriors and Thunder – mix/match/stack – whatever you want – just keep it simple.

Enjoy the slate all, this one is going to be fun!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NAB DFS news and analysis each and every day across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.