NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, February 26
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.
Monday’s 11 game NBA DFS slate saw some chalk bust in a major way (yeah looking at you Eric Bledsoe) while the winning GPP rosters pushed near 400 points thanks to the duo of Karl Anthony Towns (72 pts) and Luka Doncic (58) as the late night hammer! There was really no low owned play that went off on this night as for an 11 game slate most opted to use a balanced build and pay up for 1-2 studs with KAT being the critical play as the slates leading scorer.
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 – Three Game Tuesday Slate:
The NBA schedule makers are going retro to kick this week off as we put an 11 game slate sandwiched in between a pair of 3 game slates on Sunday and Tuesday, a pattern we saw many times in recent years. This looks to be the last small slate for the next week but that does not mean small slates cannot be profitable, frankly sometimes limiting your player pool and not trying to capture every possible outcome is an easier way for single lineup players like me to attack.
Unfortunately for us, the NBA DFS player, for the second straight 3 game slate – we have to sort through playing the New York Knicks. But hey, what could possibly go wrong on a short slate when you need to get Knicks exposure? Let’s get you excited about this slate and stop talking about the Knicks for a second because nobody woke up today pumped to go all in on Damyean Dotson on a three game slate.
This slate is all about finding ways to build around the highest scoring and fastest pace game on the slate – one loaded with stars – and that is simply the Thunder and Nuggets. This game has a 237 total which is 10 points higher than the Celtics/Raptors, has only a 3 point spread and is expected to be the fastest pace game on the slate.
With all that being said, one of the first things I did on this slate was I clicked on the player pool for this game and simply clicked in the top four plays from this game to see from a salary/roster construction path if it was even feasible. So go ahead and lock in Russell Westbrook ($19.2K) and Paul George ($18.5K) and run it back with Nikola Jokic ($17.8K) and Paul Millsap ($12K).
With four players remaining on FantasyDraft, you have over $8.1K per player for the rest of your build and just locked in arguably the top four players in the best game environment and you could argue that these four end up as the top raw point performers in any order tonight.
With that context in mind, my initial take is not to get cute – lock in these four because the salary builds allow it without having to dive too deep into the bargain bin and let’s find a way to build around the best game on the board.
NBA DFS – All in on OKC and Denver:
With a “Core 4” of Westbrook/PG13/Joker and Millsap, you could argue you have a 200 point fantasy floor before you really even have to “try” in your builds tonight. Westbrook has gone for 80+ fantasy points in two of his last three games with PG13 going for 70+ in two of his last four while the Nuggets big men are averaging 106 fantasy points per game as a duo the last three games. The fact you can fit in all four and still have solid options for the rest of your build makes this a “do not over think” scenario for me.
Rather than simply take the top four options from this game and move on, I think it is worth exploring the value options in this game a bit more.
First, on the Nuggets side of this game, where Isaiah Thomas ($7.2K) stands out as an elite value play off the bench for Denver in a considerable usage role where his minutes are trending up. IT2 over the last week ranks second on the team behind only Nikola Jokic with a 30.2% usage rate, with back to back games now of putting up 11 FGA and saw his highest minutes output Sunday against the Clippers with 23 minutes. Everything is trending in the direction for Thomas to outperform his value at this value price point and I think he is a core play with 20+ minutes considering the usage he is showing leading the second unit for Denver.
On the Thunder side, Markieff Morris ($7.8K) is in a similar spot as Thomas, a former starter, high usage player, now coming off the bench with a price point that leaves considerable profit potential considering his talent level. Kieff has now played 17 and 20 minutes in his first two games with OKC, and what really stood out to me was his rotations against the Kings, specifically in the second half.
Morris played 13 of his 20 minutes in the second half of that Kings game, checking in for Jerami Grant with 4 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and playing the first 9 minutes of the fourth quarter in a close game alongside Russ and PG13. Morris managed to put up 10 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks and 24 fantasy points in those limited minutes and if he is going to get this kind of court time, it not only hurts Grant but it opens the door for a considerable role that his price simply has not adjusted to yet.
Now, the one thing to keep in mind as well for OKC in that game, is that they were on the tail end of a B2B after a Double OT game the night before so its possible Markieff got this run with the starters looking a bit flat. Jerami Grant ($8.8K) had played 40 minutes against Utah with 36 fantasy points while Dennis Schroder ($8.5K) saw 35 minutes of court time in that game so with a few days off we could see the secondary plays like Grant and Schroder be the ones to get the run tonight in this national TV game.
NBA DFS – Pivots and Value Plays:
With so much focus on the Thunder/Nuggets – here is my overall take on how people will attack this slate.
Option 1: Load up on stars in Denver and OKC and use the value in Orlando/NY to make it work
Option 2: Fade OKC/Denver and build around the stars in the lower owned Boston-Toronto game
As great of a real-life game as Celtics-Raptors may be, this is a game that features two of the top 10 defensive teams in the NBA with two of the deepest rotations in the league. If both teams are fully healthy, I am simply crossing this game off my list as there is no value and the stars upside is capped with a full complement of pieces around them.
The scary part on this slate is that the Orlando and more so the Knicks value, becomes the chalky secondary build. Listen, the Knicks value was critical on the last three game slate as the duo of Mitchell Robinson ($10.4K) and Damyean Dotson ($8.7K) combined for 87 fantasy points against the Spurs.
Now before you go and just lock these guys in and assume a repeat performance – I would like to remind you this is the Knicks. Also, let me remind you of Luke Kornet. If you went around the industry on Sunday’s three game slate, many of the optimizers were spitting out Luke Kornet and it made sense – he had played 28+ minutes as the starting forward in two of his last three games and now the Knicks were going to be without DeAndre Jordan. He was cheap, there was a clear path – all systems go right?
Except here is the thing, the Knicks decided to start Lance Thomas, run him for 30 minutes and Kornet never even saw the court.
So that brings me back to Robinson and Dotson – yes, I see the game logs and the recent performances – fun fact, so will everyone else – and although I understand the logic of the plays, there is more risk than I think folks will realize.
So back to Option #1 above – instead of “chasing” the Knicks value, do we simply pivot off it and instead use someone like D.J. Augustin ($8K) on the other side of this game who has played 27 minutes in back to back games, averaging 30 fantasy points which would exceed 3.7X value at his price point?
My point is – tread carefully with the Knicks, the obvious value is not always so obvious.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup(s) and Slate Overview:
Normally I would give you a sample line-up in this space but on a three game slate, I want to attack it a bit different.
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Core 4:
Nikola Jokic
Paul Millsap
This leaves you $8.1K per player for the rest of your build to mix and match with these secondary pieces:
Pivots/Values:
Isaiah Thomas
Jerami Grant
DJ Augustin
Damyean Dotson
Slate Overview: Just playing around with builds at first glance, there are so many viable ways to go with the $8.1K remaining per player that I simply see no reason to move off my Core 4. Really it all comes down to how much Knicks exposure you want to take on – if the New York value is the chalk roster build to complement the Thunder/Nuggets stars then I think using Augustin as a pivot or stacking up the secondary plays in OKC/Denver is a viable alternative.
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