NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, March 12 – Running of the Bulls!
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 NBA DFS slate was unusually low-scoring as winning GPP lineups barely cracked 325 fantasy points while the cash line sat in the 280 range. Only one player, Kemba Walker, was able to eclipse the 60 fantasy point mark while a trio of star guards – Bradley Beal, James Harden and Russell Westbrook put up 50+. Personally, I fell just short of the cash line in GPP’s as a result of the poor shooting night from an expensive Buddy Hield in my Kings-Wizards stacks as Hield went 6-21 from the field and only 1-9 from beyond the arc. As frustrating as the results can be – if you told me Hield would shoot the ball 20+ times in that game environment and play 33 minutes, I would go right back to playing him again. I always recommend looking back at your rosters and trying to see where things went wrong – in this case, I believe the process was right – the results just didn’t fall my way for one of my more expensive investments.
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 – Tuesday’s Slate Breakdown:
There are seven NBA games on the slate tonight and when you open up for DFS site this morning you are going to notice a whole lot of injury tags next to the slates biggest names – this is March NBA my friends.
I have to be honest, the games on this slate at first glance were not overly appealing – especially the first two – Knicks/Pacers and Sixers/Cavaliers – two games with near two touchdown spreads, the lowest totals we have so far and two of the three lowest projected pace games on the slate.
Well, thank you FantasyDraft is all I have to say. If you play over there tonight (and you should be by the way), the 7 game slate – is actually a 5 game slate kicking off at 8PM EST so you get to avoid those two landmines and focus on the games we may actually want to play guys from here tonight!
Let’s do a quick rundown of the big injury tags we have on this slate:
- Jrue Holiday – OUT
- Doubtful – Zach LaVine
- Questionable – Karl Anthony-Towns, Andrew Wiggins and Luka Doncic
The big question will be what do people do at the top with LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo? This duo represents the only two plays over $20K on this slate and with all the uncertainty surrounding their playing time – I am interested to see how folks handle them here tonight.
On Saturday against the Celtics, LeBron was less than 5% owned in GPP play – then proceeded to drop a 60 fantasy points triple double in only 28 minutes of court time. Giannis meanwhile continues to pump out 50 fantasy points nights routinely, playing 30-ish minutes a night but with the Bucks focused on their playoff run are we really going to see a ceiling game environment here for Greek?
As LeBron proved last time out, the 60+ fantasy points are going to be there for players of this elite caliber even in limited minutes but let’s be honest – FantasyDraft is asking us to pay early season prices on two guys whose roles are far from what they were earlier in the year.
A month or two months ago – LeBron versus the Bulls and Giannis versus the Pelicans would have been a Stars and Scrubs night for sure – fit them both in, jam in the value and watch the stars dominate – but tonight, it feels weird to say but they are not guys I think we prioritize and only become GPP darts for me. March NBA is bizarre.
NBA DFS – Building our Core:
As we head down the stretch in the NBA season, I would highly recommend being smart with your bankroll and start to scale back to account for the heightened risk that comes with late season NBA. You probably laugh a bit when you read that because anyone who plays NBA DFS knows that risk is there all year with late scratches and “Heads to the Locker Room” notifications but it gets SO much worse as we head towards the playoffs so please be aware of that every single day. Yeah – if you played Nicolas Batum last night you are likely nodding your head as you read this with his late scratch due to an eye injury that apparently occurred during pre-game introductions (not really but maybe).
One strategy that many will start to employ with regularity heading down the stretch is to simply look for games that matter – which games have postseason implications and where can we find some security in a sport where load management “injuries” is a thing.
With that being said – there is really only one game tonight where the playoff push is real for both teams involved and that is in the Portland-Clippers late night hammer. This game has a solid 231.5 total, a 2.5 point spread and is the third fastest projected pace game on the slate while the Blazers and Clippers have the 2nd and 3rd highest team totals on the slate.
These teams have played three times this season but all of them are when Tobias Harris was still a Clipper so the comparisons if you are simply game log hunting become a bit less meaningful. The core build here within this game stack is relatively easy to isolate and price wise, it becomes an easy plug and play build on FantasyDraft without having to make too many sacrifices.
The Blazers side for me starts and ends with Damian Lillard ($16.8K) and Jusuf Nurkic ($13.2K) as the two key cogs in this Portland machine and although you can make the argument for C.J. McCollum (12.3K), I would only use him as a pivot off Lillard, not someone I would look to play alongside him.
The Clippers are similarly easy to zero in on in my opinion – Lou Williams ($13.5K), Montrezl Harrell ($12.7K) and Danilo Gallinari ($12.4K) are the only Clippers players putting up double-digit shot attempts per game over the last 10 games. I would likely rank them LouWill, Gallo and then Trez if forced to choose my favorites as Williams upside plus Gallo’s match-up (wings against Portland) make them my priority plays here.
The rest of the plays in this game become more “last man in” kind of plays where someone like a Patrick Beverley ($10.2K) is not someone I think you need to seek out but he is showing any time he gets the minutes he has produced – putting up over 36 FP/G in his last five games where he has played 30+ minutes.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays and Value:
Zeroing in on the safety of stars with something to play for becomes a great late season strategy but there is the polar opposite viewpoint – focus in on games between two teams with nothing to play for where the value lies – in other words, welcome to Lakers and Bulls.
With Zach LaVine doubtful here tonight, there is some incredible value sitting on the Bulls side from a point per dollar perspective that we can build around here tonight.
Starting at the bottom – Ryan Arcidiacono ($6K) drew the start for LaVine last game at you are looking at a minimum priced player in line for major minutes against a terrible Lakers defense. It is rare on FantasyDraft to find a minimum priced player with a path to 30+ minutes so locking him in allows you essentially any roster build you want here tonight.
The main targets though in my opinion are the trio of Otto Porter Jr. ($12.4K), Lauri Markkannen ($14.9K) and Kris Dunn ($9.9K). Porter and Lauri are both sporting near 30% usage rates with LaVine off the court the last month and are the only two Bulls in that time putting up more than a fantasy point per minute of production. Of the three, Dunn sees the largest usage boost with a near 5% usage boost with LaVine off the court the last month.
The Lakers side of this game – is just a total mess.
It sounds like Kyle Kuzma could return for this game after practicing yesterday which would potentially kill the punt value of Moritz Wagner ($6.3K) who started against the Celtics on Saturday and dropped 35 fantasy points in 34 minutes.
My general take here – this is the game where you can grab 1-2 punts depending on the news but prioritize 2-3 of the Bulls trio that gets the biggest boost with LaVine out. With this game kicking off at 8PM EST, we should have the news we need before lock on FantasyDraft.
NBA DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative and should not be used as a plug and play build.
More from FanSided
- Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
- 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
- Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
- Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet
G: Lou Williams
F/C: Jusuf Nurkic
F/C: Otto Porter Jr.
F/C: Lauri Markanen
UTIL: Danilo Gallinari
UTIL: Ryan Arcidiacono
Slate Overview: The five game slate on FantasyDraft which kicks off at 8PM EST is a much easier one in my opinion to digest and frankly my player pool is going to be very condensed.
The Blazers/Clippers game is where my focus is – less because of the upside and more because of the minutes stability and high level of production we can get from the starters in this game. Obviously guys like Dame/Lou-Will can drop 60+ on any given night but in this more balanced build I think you are looking at a roster that can get you there with a bunch of 40-50 point fantasy nights.
Think about it this way – last night’s GPP winning score of 325 means you need 40 FP/player if you are trying to replicate that concept. If we assume Arcidiacono gets you around 25 – that means the remaining 7 players here need 42-43 points per player to get you to that “target.”
I think at first glance the path to that kind of outcome seems reasonable for both cash games and GPP’s as we focus our builds on stable high floors with sprinkles of upside – opting for a bit more safety in our rosters as we approach end of the NBA season.
dark. Next. The Players Championship - PGA DFS Value Plays
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NBA DFS news across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings each and every day!