NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday March 15 – Stack City!

Welcome to the Friday 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.

Last night’s slate was a fun little sweat as I sat in the top 5 of the FantasyDraft $25 Pick and Roll all night due to huge nights from Kyrie Irving and Russell Westbrook and ultimately fell to 6th (less than 2 points away from 2nd) with the Luka/Joker late night hammers some had but hey – any night the results match the process, is a great NBA DFS night. I stayed true mostly to my initial thoughts – locking in Kyrie, Westbrook and Vucevic while using some under-priced value like Sexton and Marcus Morris. The only real pivots I made during the day were to get Kawhi Leonard and Jeremy Lin into my builds once we got the Kyle Lowry news and ultimately it worked out nicely for me – hope it did for you as well!

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 – Friday Night Slate Breakdown:

We made it to Friday – one more week of NBA DFS in the books and one week closer to the start of MLB DFS while we creep closer to the first few days of March Madness – this my friends, is the best time of the year for sports fans. For me personally, I am heading to my dynasty league Fantasy Baseball draft today for a weekend of Jon Lester regression jokes, beer and unhealthy eating – one of my favorite weekends of the year and a surefire why to ensure I take Saturday/Sunday off from Picks and Pivots before I sober up come Monday!

With one more slate to go before that happens – let’s see if we can keep Thursday’s success rolling into Friday!

Looking at this 8 game NBA DFS slate tonight it seems pretty balanced with half the teams seeing projected pace boosts, while only five teams have point totals lower than their season average so finding good spots to target should not be overly difficult.

On the injury front, there is not a ton of high-profile news, but there are still a few key spots we need to watch with the biggest being Ben Simmons who missed practice with an upper respiratory infection but sounds probable to play against the Kings.

The Sixers are in an interesting spot as we head down the stretch here, locked in a battle with the Pacers for the 3rd spot in the Eastern Conference, sitting .5 game behind them heading into tonight but also only 1.5 games up on the Celtics for the 5th seed. With playoff positioning being incredibly important right now, they continue to play their starting five major minutes which puts all their starters as elite plays tonight against the Kings regardless of Simmons status.

The Sixers get the second largest pace boost of any team on this slate and their 121 team total, second highest on the slate, is over 6 points more than their season average.

Joel Embiid ($18.3K) has now played two games since returning from injury – playing 27 and 34 minutes and racking up 53 and 57 fantasy points. At $18.3K, The Process would need 54-55 fantasy points just to hit value and in his only other match-up with the Kings this season he dropped 63 fantasy points on the back of 29/17 and 4 blocks.

With James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo priced over $1K higher than Embiid – I think it makes sense to take the savings with Embiid if forced to pay up. Embiid is priced at the same spot as LeBron James ($18.3K) and although there is no injury – this is a LOAD MANAGEMENT spot to watch for:

"James said after the game he doesn’t know whether he will play Friday.“It’s challenging for me mentally because I’m so accustomed to being out on the floor, especially when I’m healthy,” James said. “You know, but it’s a conversation between myself and my trainer and the coaching staff and the front office, and this is the direction that they wanted to go the remainder of the season given the lack of success we’ve had with our ballclub. So I trust the people in charge, and that’s what it is.” via LA Times"

So with Harden playing the Suns, a game with a 13 point spread, Giannis coasting each night and rarely hitting his ceiling and LeBron potentially out – taking the raw point upside of Embiid in a game they must win seems like the safest bet for a star to build around tonight.

NBA DFS – Time to Stack it Up:

When I first opened this slate, the game that immediately jumped off the page to me was the Wizards and Hornets  – a game with one of the highest totals on the slate at 232 and the closest spread of any game we have we have data for at only 3.5.

Over the last 15 games, the Hornets and Wizards are two of the worst teams in the NBA in terms of defense, tanking in the bottom 7 in the league in Def-Rtg during that time with the Wizards also playing at the third fastest pace of play.

The beauty of this game is we have two clear alpha dogs to build around and some value opening up due to injuries on both sides.

Let’s start with the obvious here – if you are stacking this game, you start with Bradley Beal ($17.4K) and Kemba Walker ($15K) and simply move on. If this game is going to live up to the Vegas data, these are the two stars that will get you there and with the value we have, you can fit them in easily alongside Embiid for a high ceiling three-man core.

In three meetings this season, Kemba has gone for 37, 52 and 64 fantasy points against Washington while Beal has put up 42, 42 and 68 fantasy points. My takeaway here – putting these two alongside Embiid, gives you a three-man core that can all give you 60-70 point ceiling games here tonight which would put you in an elite position in all formats. Lock it in kids.

The big news here to watch is the status of Trevor Ariza who is questionable to play for Washington which would make things VERY interesting. Ariza was limited to only 22 minutes against the Magic which opened things up for Jabari Parker ($11.4K) who alongside Bobby Portis ($11.7K) makes for a mid-range duo that screams GPP upside in this match-up. Portis in two previous meetings with the Hornets as a member of the Wizards has put up 37 and 42 fantasy points which puts him above 3x value and right at his target 3.5X GPP value (41 FPTS).

Tomas Satoransky ($11.5K) feels priced about right here for a guy who on most nights puts up around 35 fantasy points so he feels more like a nice last man in for a game stack but not a high ceiling play that I am forcing in. Thomas Bryant ($7.6K) saw a ton of run against Orlando and ut up a 40 fantasy point double-double in 26 minutes but I think that was more match-up specific and with the Hornets lacking a true big, I could see this game being one where Bryant sticks to the bench.

NBA DFS – Run it back with Hornets:

Outside of Kemba Walker, the Hornets are not a team I would typically target but with the Hornets being short-handed and only 2 games out of the playoffs, this is the kind of match-up where the pace boost against a bad defense could elevate multiple Charlotte plays to ceiling type games.

Cody Zeller is listed as doubtful tonight while Nicolas Batum is due back after an eye injury forced him to miss last game and all that could lead to another start for Wily Hernangomez ($6.2K) who put up 19 fantasy points in 24 minutes last start despite scoring only 2 actual points. Wily is a fantasy point per minute monster who at $6.2K in a starting role has very little risk and a whole lot of upside.

The duo of Jeremy Lamb ($11.3K) and Nicolas Batum ($11K) becomes the obvious secondary play alongside Kemba, as the clear 2nd and 3rd options offensively who have both had success in this match-up recently. Lamb dropped a 50 spot last time he faced with the Wizards while Batum has gone for 32 and 40 fantasy points in two previous meetings. I want one of these two in my stacks and I think depending on how my roster build goes – you simply take that one that fits within your pricing scheme.

Marvin Williams ($9K) and Frank Kaminsky ($8.5K) are very much the same kind of mix and match plays that Batum and Lamb are as you can easily make the argument play them both. Williams is a lock and load play for 30 minutes every night and just dropped 48 fantasy points in this exact same match-up while Frank the Tank who let everyone down as chalk value last game could end up being a great low owned GPP bounce back candidate with Zeller out.

Last but not least – Miles Bridges ($6.9K) continues to play 25-30 minutes a night and with 23 FPPG over the last two outings, he becomes another value pivot in your builds if you want to move off Hernangomez as an option.

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. 

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G: Bradley Beal

G: Kemba Walker

G: Nicolas Batum

F/C: Joel Embiid

F/C: Guillermo Hernangomez

F/C: Bobby Portis

UTIL: Jabari Parker

UTIL: Marvin Williams

Slate Overview: This slate sets up perfectly when you dig into the pricing for a Hornets/Wizards game stack with enough room to pay up for one other “star.”

With the Hornets/Wizards players outside of Beal and Kemba being relatively cheap and all in the same mid-range it also sets up nicely for mixing and matching if you want to multi enter with the same core. The big news here is Trevor Ariza who if he is out – makes the Portis/Parker combo a core part of my builds tonight.

Well, I am off to my fantasy baseball draft weekend – good luck tonight – have a great weekend and we will see you back here on Monday!

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