NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday, March 7 – Thunder Buddies!
Welcome to the Thursday 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.
Wednesday’s NBA DFS slate for such a large amount of games ended up with some wildly chalky plays as Ben Simmons came in at 60% plus in GPP’s which was the highest ownership on the board while the late breaking Kyrie Irving news pushed values like Terry Rozier to near 50% ownership in tournaments. Ultimately it was two “second-tier” stars who were less than 20% owned in Luka Doncic and Andre Drummond who were the key winning pieces as the only two players to go for 60 plus fantasy points on a night where winning GPP lineups just hit the 350 mark.
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 – Two Game Slate Breakdown and a Free Roll!
Before we jump into this quick two game slate on Thursday Night – our friends at FantasyDraft have been kind enough to roll out a $50 Picks and Pivots Free Roll for tonight’s action. Seriously – what other DFS site is giving you free rolls on two game slates? Hopefully you guys were able to get in on the PGA DFS Free Roll for the Arnold Palmer Invitational as well as these give you a great opportunity to build your bankroll before MLB season and try out what I believe is the best DFS product in the industry. Get in on these people!
For a two game slate, the contest selection and sizes over on FantasyDraft are actually really strong and the two games on the schedule – Bucks/Pacers and Thunder/Portland are actually pretty great games, so as far as two game slates go – this one is actually worth your time to research and play.
My biggest piece of advice on these two game slates, is to pay attention to the details – the difference in that “last man in” has all the potential in the world to be the difference in your cash position on small slates like this.
The player pool for most is going to be so highly concentrated that Brook Lopez outscoring Jerami Grant (who are priced $100 apart tonight) could be the difference between you winning or losing so make sure you really dig in when building these lineups. The reality is you cannot afford to miss on a single play if you have any intention of cashing.
The Thunder/Blazers game is going to be the primary spot for most with a game total of 233 that is over 10 points higher than the Bucks/Pacers and with only a 3 point spread and the significantly higher pace game environment – this will be where everyone focuses on first for good reason. For those of you interested in playing some Showdown Slate action – my boy Shaun Evans broke down the Thunder/Blazers showdown slate in some tremendous detail so give that a read here today as well!
So where do we start our build?
NBA DFS – Build The Core:
Let’s start at the top – Russell Westbrook + Paul George + Damian Lillard – likely the most popular three-man stack here tonight and the fact you still have over $9.6K per player for the last 5 spots on your roster makes this a starting point on FantasyDraft that really requires little effort.
These two teams have faced off three times this season and the trio of stars has come to play each and every time:
- Westbrook – 54, 63 and 67 fantasy points
- George – 53, 64 and 88 fantasy points
- Lillard – 38, 54 and 60 fantasy points.
Outside of Dame’s struggles in the first game (where he shot 1-8 from three-point range), this trio has essentially been a lock for 50 fantasy points per player with the upside for 60 or more.
This trio will cost you just over $52K on FantasyDraft to build around – meaning they need roughly 156 points to hit 3x value (52 FPTS/player) and 182 points to hit 3.5x value (61 fantasy points per game). The pricing seems more than fair for what this trio offers and has already done in this same game environment – I see no reason to get cute here – lock them in!
Now, playing arguably the three highest owned players on the slate does nothing but help you keep pace with the field – the rest of your roster is where you make your money tonight so let’s lock in our trio of stars and figure out where to spend the rest of our near $48K in salary.
Jusuf Nurkic ($12.5K) has had success in this match-up already this season with 40 and 47 fantasy points in two of the previous three outings and despite the context that Steven Adams is typically a tough match-up, OKC has been shredded by opposing bigs lately giving up 60+ fantasy points to Nikola Jokic and Karl-Anthony Towns in the last week alone. Nurk is one of those next men in kind of plays that could be a complete difference maker on this slate.
Maurice Harkless ($8.2K), likely one of the more popular value plays on this slate, who has been on an absolute tear recently, could be considered another core play on this slate. Harkless has put up 30+ fantasy points in four of his last seven games which would crush GPP value at this price point (over 3.6x) and with Evan Turner ruled out tonight, there is a tremendous amount of minute security making him a safe floor play with a demonstrated GPP ceiling.
Al-Farouq Aminu ($7.4K) is a guy who is typically locked into 30+ minutes a night and thrives in pace up game spots and the fact that Portland is the only team to see a projected pace boost puts this in the realm of games he should excel in. In three prior games, Aminu has gone for 26, 29 and 40 fantasy points which would exceed 3.5x value in every single one of those games at this price point tonight.
Steven Adams and CJ McCollum are not core plays for me but I view that as the type of secondary guys that if I can get them right, they could be those cash line difference makers. Both plays have solid 40+ fantasy point upside but have struggled to show it consistently in this match-up.
McCollum ($11.9K) has been held under 30 fantasy points in two of the three games with OKC before hitting for 43 last time out while Adams put up 31 and 34 fantasy points before being held to only 15 in the last meeting. Within the context of this slate, I find myself leaning more towards Adams just because he correlates better with Westbrook/PG13 while McCollum likely will take a back seat if you are prioritizing Dame and Nurkic.
When you consider that these two need around 35 fantasy points just to reach value tonight, this become the kind of risky plays where if you burn your salary on a floor game from them, you could be left out of the cash position but both are priced reasonably enough where they could absolutely outperform their price point.
NBA DFS – Attacking the Pacers and Bucks:
With the OKC/Portland game getting most of the attention here tonight, I think you can attack the Pacers/Bucks game a few different ways. With a double-digit spread, you could take the approach this game does not stay close, go all-in on the Thunder and Blazers and hope those who went heavy on the Bucks/Pacers sees their high-priced plays get less than a full game worth of run.
You could go the complete other route – fade OKC/Portland for ownership and game stack the lower owned spot and rock the game theory angle.
Or you can take a prioritize the OKC/Portland core and use this game for fill in plays and go a bit more balanced.
Giannis Antetokounmpo ($20.1K) will no doubt be the lowest owned of the stars here tonight and becomes the obvious pivot off Westbrook or PG13 if you want to go that route. Now Giannis will be lower owned but let’s not pretend you are getting him at single-digit ownership – he will just be lower owned in comparison to Westbrook. Giannis has had some crazy ranges of outcomes in three meetings with the Pacers, going for 35, 57 and 88 fantasy points against them this season.
The 88 fantasy points in his last game may draw some attention but I really think this game was an outlier. Eric Bledsoe ($12.4K) played only 21 minutes in that game with only 7 coming in the second half as his ineffectiveness led him to be benched which pushed more of the usage and production towards Giannis.
Bledsoe had gone for 39 and 42 fantasy points in the previous two meetings so there is profit to be had on this price and folks may be hesitant to go back if they only look at the most recent game log. The fact that Bledsoe burned a lot of folks with “only” 30 fantasy points in his REVENGE spot against Phoenix last time could also drive ownership lower but remember this is a player that dropped 53 and 65 fantasy points the previous two games even with Giannis on the floor.
If there is one player from this game that I think we need to prioritize it is Bojan Bogdanovic ($12.1K) who has been on an absolute tear the last 2 weeks, leading the Pacers with a 32% usage rate while putting up a team high 1/2 FP/M. In the last four games with Domantas Sabonis out (who is also out tonight), Bogdanovic is leading the team with 17 FGA per game and gets the best pure match-up of any Pacers play as the Bucks rank 23rd in Def-Eff defending the SF position for a team that overall ranks 6th in Def-Eff as a team.
The value plays in this game become nothing more than dart throws assuming everyone is healthy. Pat Connaughton ($6.7K) had gone for 21+ fantasy points in four straight games before a goose egg against the Suns but with the Bucks bench without Sterling Brown and George Hill, the path to minute and production remains viable for Patty C.
Cory Joseph ($7.3K) has a similar mid 20’s minutes role off the bench for the Pacers has shown 40 fantasy point upside in recent games with a floor or 12 fantasy points so the range outcomes here is significant.
Wes Matthews ($8.4K) is probably the safest “value” as we know he will get 30-35 minutes of court time with 20-25 fantasy points but he feels priced just a tick too high considering the lack of ceiling. If you land on Wes as a last man in, I could see the argument but I would not go seeking him out.
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: Russell Westbrook
G: Damian Lillard
G: CJ McCollum
F/C: Paul George
F/C: Jusuf Nurkic
F/C: Moe Harkless
UTIL: Wes Matthews
UTIL: Pat Connaughton
Slate Overview: For a two game slate, there are actually a ton of ways you can attack your roster builds tonight and the pricing is such where you are not really pushed into playing guys you simply “have to.”
I think you can take a few approaches here tonight – planting your flag and either game stacking the top spot in OKC/Portland or playing the game theory and stacking the lower-owned Bucks/Pacers or you can take a more mix and match view as I showed here.
For me, I think locking in the core of Westbrook & PG13 and running it back with Dame, Nurkic and Harkless feels like the ideal starting position and then building around it. Again, this group is not going to be low-owned so if you opt to go this route, spending your time today to make sure you have the exact right 3 pieces around it is going to be where you make your money tonight. As crazy as it sounds – the cash line tonight could come down to who out scores who – Pat Connaughton or Cory Joseph – so is life on a two game slate!
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