NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday, February 24
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
For the second straight night of NBA DFS we saw scores push near 400 for winning GPP’s on FantasyDraft as the cash line was near 350 as a result of some clear chalk builds all hitting. When James Harden was ruled out, it pushed everyone logically to Russell Westbrook, which ended up leaving him at nearly 80% ownership in tournament play. With multiple chalky punts including Cheick Diallo (75% in GPP’s), the Stars and Scrubs builds were plentiful as the winning entry in the $25 Pick and Roll had all of Westbrook, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo as a result of the value plays including Diallo and Taj Gibson.
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 – Sunday’s Three Game NBA Slate Breakdown:
After back to back huge NBA DFS slates, we are left with an underwhelming three game slate on Sunday which kicks off at 3:30 PM EST with a the Magic and Raptors and concludes with the “late night hammer” – a 7:30PM EST tip-off between the Knicks and Spurs. Get excited people.
In between these two games is the clear best game on the slate -the chalk du jour – the Nuggets and Clippers with a slate high 232 total which is 10 points higher than either of the other games and also has the fastest projected pace. Interestingly enough, only two teams of the six today see pace boosts – the Nuggets and Magic, so when narrowing down your player pool, keep this in mind.
What really stands out to me on this slate is the pricing on FantasyDraft, as Nikola Jokic ($18.2K) is the only player over $18K which puts us in a position where we likely can build whatever roster we want.
The Nuggets outside of Trey Lyles are all healthy for this game and looking back at their last game against Dallas, the rotations seem to be pretty clear. All of Jokic, Paul Millsap ($11.5K) and Jamal Murray ($12.7K) played 30+ minutes while guys like Will Barton and Malik Beasley saw their minutes take a slight dip into the high 20’s as the Nuggets used Gary Harris and Isaiah Thomas off the bench.
The Nuggets did run some smaller lineups last game with Harris, IT2 and Monte Morris all on the court at the same time and I think having this 6 guard deep rotation is going to severely limit the ceiling on these Nuggets on most nights. Thomas at $7.2K is in interesting punt as even though the minutes are still limited, 16 last game, he threw up 11 shot attempts in that game and led the team with a 35% usage rate when he was on the court. If we see IT2’s minutes creep up around 20 today, this could be a spot for profit potential at his near minimum price.
The Nuggets get the biggest point and pace boost on the slate and a three-man stack of Jokic/Millsap/Murray is cost-effective enough, leaving you over $11K per player for the rest of your build, that this feels like the easiest path to take on the slate. Will it be chalky? Sure, but that doesn’t mean its the wrong play. These two teams last played on January 10th and Jokic in 27 minutes dropped a 57 fantasy point triple double – on a slate lacking the Harden/LeBron/Giannis types – Jokic feels like a near must play.
NBA DFS – Game Stack:
On three game slates like this, I am normally a big fan of planting your flag and simply game stacking the best spot. If we know that Nikola Jokic is the chalk play, then why play him as a one-off? Instead, assuming he has a ceiling type game – run it back with the opponent, in this case the Clippers, and hope this game stays close and you get a high scoring/fast paced game environment.
If you step back and look at the other games on this slate – unless we get some news (and it certainly could happen) that the Raptors sit Lowry or Kawhi or the Spurs sit LMA or DeRozan, those games become far less appealing at full strength. Now, I will say, if we get news of any stars sitting in either of those games – I think that becomes priority #2 in your builds behind locking in Jokic.
Absent that information, simply loading up on the Nuggets and Clippers may be the route to go.
The Clippers welcomed back Danilo Gallinari ($12.8K) to a full complement of minutes against Memphis last game out as he stepped into a 30+ minute role and lead the starting unit with a 32% usage rate while putting up 1.36 FP/M. Normally I would look back at previous games since the Nuggets and Clippers have played three times this season but considering Tobias Harris played in all three of those, the comparison’s to the Clippers team we see tonight are relatively meaningless.
Against Memphis, three Clippers had usage rates over 30% – Gallo, Montrezl Harrell ($12.3K) and Lou Williams ($13.6K) while also being the only three Clippers to put up over a FP/M of production.
Without getting overly cute – you can lock in a 3v3 game stack here running Jokic/Millsap/Murray and run it back with Gallo/Trez/Lou and still have nearly $9.5K per player for the last two spots on your roster.
NBA DFS – Looking outside of LAC/Denver:
Nobody is going to open this slate today and get excited about rostering New York Knicks but on a three game slate, we cannot simply cross them off our player pool – can we?
Part of me wants to say yes but there is some injury news here that will likely push massive ownership towards one play in particular. DeAndre Jordan played 32 minutes last game for the Knicks at Center but is doubtful to play with an ankle injury which means we likely get all the Mitchell Robinson ($9K) we can handle for the Knicks!
We have seen when given the minutes, Robinson has a massive ceiling as evidenced but his 45 fantasy point outing off the bench against the Sixers when he played 28 minutes. Now, this is still the Knicks – so David Fizdale could end up starting Charles Oakley and playing him 40 minutes at Center, but it is hard to ignore the upside Robinson has in this spot.
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Robinson is going to be a popular play so there is always merit to the fade – this is a Knicks rotation we can almost never count on and Robinson has struggled with fouls at times during his rookie season so I look at this play as a potential GPP fade assuming the ownership gets high on a three game slate.
Speaking of LaMarcus Aldridge – this is the spot I think we need to watch on this slate for a potential scratch. LMA is listed as probable with an illness, the same illness he dealt with on Friday and still was able to play – albeit quite poorly – going only 2 for 8 from the field. Would it shock anyone to see Pop sit LMA here in a game they should win easily?
If that were to happen, I would push DeMar DeRozan ($15.2K) to a near must play on this slate – however if LMA is in, DD likely is too expensive for me to consider.
Slate Overview: So where does this leave us? The path of least resistance seems to be to simply load up on Nuggets and Clippers and call it a day.
Assuming the Spurs and Raptors play at full strength, I have a hard time looking at either of these two teams stars but if you get any “load management” news this will completely change how you attack the slate.
On FantasyDraft, with smaller contests sizes – I do not see a reason to get cute – sure if you play on FanDuel or Draftkings and want to chase after the massive contests and stack the Magic or Knicks – go for it – but on FantasyDraft, I think you simply play it safe – take as many Nuggets/Clippers as you can (7 of your 8 positions are allowed) and simply plug-in one play from the other two games.
Play smart – but play – there is still money to be made on these smaller slates!
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