NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday March 18
Welcome to the Monday 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.
Welcome back Picks and Pivots readers! After taking the weekend off from NBA DFS to attend my dynasty league Fantasy Baseball keeper draft, I am back and ready for this last push of the NBA season. With the MLB season kicking off in Tokyo on Wednesday/Thursday of this week with the Mariners and A’s before the more traditional Opening Day kicks off on Thursday, March 28th – we are at the point in the NBA DFS season where it makes sense to scale back your bankroll and set some aside for the beginning of the baseball season. With only 10 NBA DFS “stand alone” slates before we have MLB on our plate as well, let’s make this final push a profitable one.
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 – Monday Slate Breakdown:
Overall the NBA has 9 games for us on this Monday Night but on FantasyDraft they have opted to ignore the only two 7PM EST games (Pistons/Cavaliers and Jazz/Wizards) and instead turned this into a 7 game slate at 730PM EST.
Personally, I always like these staggered slates on FantasyDraft for a few reasons – one, they offer those of you who play on FanDuel or DraftKings a chance to lock those sites in and then get some exposure to FantasyDraft 30 minutes after they lock. Secondly, I think the strategy tends to be very different because those who may play primarily on FanDuel and DraftKings are operating with a totally different player pool.
For example – the Utah Jazz have the highest total on the slate in a game against Washington that has a 228 total. That game may end up being a building block on other sites where you cannot simply lift and shift the same logic to FantasyDraft so it forces you to think a bit differently.
No matter what site you play on tonight, the biggest news is that Russell Westbrook will be out tonight as the result of a suspension for his 16th technical foul. The Thunder remain in a tight playoff race – 2 games out from jumping to the #3 seed while 2 games away from dropping to the #8 seed.
The fact that the Thunder are in a critical win-now mode plus the absence of Westbrook makes this a do not get cute spot – I think you simply start your builds with Paul George ($17.7K) and Dennis Schroder ($10.3K).
This becomes a situation over match-up spot for me as the Thunder see a massive pace down game environment against the Heat but we have seen already this season the massive usage and fantasy boost this Thunder duo gets with Westbrook off the court. When Westbrook has been off the court this year, Schroder sees a 7% usage boost while PG13 sees a 4% boost with both players putting up a 32% plus usage mark.
For what it is worth, Paul George in his only other match-up against the Heat this season dropped 67 fantasy points in a game that Westbrook played. With the price points where they are for both Thunder players, the ownership will likely be off the charts but this becomes a fade at your own risk kind of scenario.
NBA DFS – Building Our Core:
Without Russell Westbrook on this slate what stands out to me is that we have a ton of “next level” stars all priced reasonably that make this a slate where I think grabbing 3-4 players in this range becomes the ideal build.
As much as PG13 and Schroder become auto-plays with Westbrook out, we can argue that Damian Lillard ($16.5K) gets much of the same treatment with CJ McCollum off the floor. With McCollum out for the next week, the Blazers find themselves in a similar spot to the Thunder sitting in the #4 seed right now in the West where the 3-8 seeds are all within a 5 game cluster of each other.
With McCollum off the court this season it is no surprise that both Dame and Jusuf Nurkic ($13.2K) see the biggest boosts but I have to be honest, even I was shocked at how much it really was. This season, with McCollum off the court Nurkic has an 11% usage boost with Dame over 10% – putting them 35% and 39% respectively while averaging 1.5 FP/M.
Much like OKC, this match-up with Indiana is not one we would normally try to exploit but this becomes a case of a team in must-win mode that is going to rely on their two remaining stars to carry the load.
Sticking with this theme of injuries – we need to keep an eye on the status of Kyle Lowry who has missed the last two games before taking on the Knicks tonight. We also now have news that Kawhi Leonard is OUT which means – CHALK RAPTORS VALUE NIGHT!
In all seriousness – Pascal Siakam and Marc Gasol become elite plays while Danny Green is a viable secondary play.
Although Jeremy Lin drew the start on Sunday in place of Lowry it was the return of Fred Van Vleet ($7.6K) that really stood out as he played 31 minutes compared to only 17 minutes for Lin and he said after the game he could have played more if asked. Now with this being a back to back, it may be dangerous to just assume he gets the same run tonight but it will be interesting to see how the Raptors line up if Lowry is ruled out again.
NBA DFS – Pivot Plays:
With so many injuries and clear paths of – “If this guy is out, play this guy” – I could see this slate becoming quite chalky which is never ideal in late season NBA DFS so finding some pivots will be critical to separating ourselves from the herd.
On any other night I think the Suns-Bulls game would be one of the more popular plays due to the high total (228), close spread (3) and the fact that these two teams see the largest point boosts of any teams in action. However with so many big injuries, I could see this game getting less ownership than it likely deserves – and on FantasyDraft, without having Utah/Washington in the player pool, I think you can argue this is the best game stack to attack.
Devin Booker ($15.5K) is another one of those plays in this “second tier” of pricing that has 50-60 point upside as he has shown recently with 67 fantasy points in two of his last four games. On the Bulls side of this game, Zach LaVine ($14.8K) continues to log major minutes – 38 in two of his last three games, putting up 18-26 FGA per game in his last 6 outings. Booker and LaVine are the kind of volume shooters that together could win you a GPP if this game stays close as neither side is going to be interested in playing much defense.
One thing to watch for down the stretch is how teams send off their stars – specifically Dwayne Wade and Dirk Nowitzki. The Mavericks only have 6 home games left and Dirk, who is stone minimum on FantasyDraft, is coming off a game against the Cavaliers where he played 29 minutes and put up 31 fantasy points.
The Mavericks get the largest pace boost on the slate against New Orleans and with only a few more home games for Dallas to cheer on their franchise cornerstone – I think he becomes an elite GPP value on every slate down the stretch. Dallas has no incentive to push anything other than giving Dirk the farewell tour he deserves so I think the minutes ceiling and the forced usage will be something worth watching down the stretch.
With DeMarcus Cousins looking unlikely to play tonight against the Spurs, I think there could be some potential punt value in the Golden State front court and no, I am not ready to run out Andrew Bogut. Kevon Looney will likely draw the start as he did the last two times Boogie missed games against Miami and Portland but in both cases he was outplayed by Jordan Bell ($6K) who played 19 and 16 minutes and put up 25 and 20 fantasy points which would put him at 3.7x value at this minimum price point.
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: Dennis Schroder
G: Devin Booker
F/C: Paul George
F/C: Jusuf Nurkic
F/C: Dirk Nowitzki
UTIL: Zach LaVine
UTIL: Jordan Bell
Slate Overview: With so much “injury/suspension” news that is dominating this slate, I think there are some obvious chalk plays that become tough to avoid when you factor in their pricing. I think PG13/Schroder and Dame/Nurkic are cornerstone plays on this slate that you build around and try to be different elsewhere.
As much as I like the Raptors potential assuming Lowry is out, this is also a deep and talented Raptors team at home playing against a not so deep and not so talented Knicks squad so even if Lowry sits, the blowout risk remains.
Booker/LaVine become a great GPP duo to build around as they have the kind of upside that when combined with the “Core 4”, could put you well on your way past the cash line. In order to make this work it means rolling out two punts – Dirk actually feels like the “safe” option but Bell has proven when Boogie is out, he can get you the 20 fantasy points you need to surpass value.
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