NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday March 21 – Centers of Attention!
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.
If you are still slogging along to the end of the NBA DFS season then you are likely noticing an interesting trend here the last few slates. With so many stars being ruled out each and every night, the amount of value that is coming at us from all angles is giving us the opportunity to go mega Stars and Scrubs and the results have been that cash lines are just off the charts in GPP’s. Last night winning GPP scores were well over 400 with the cash line in GPP’s pushing 360 – that score is a normal GPP winning score, not a min-cash kind of night. The winning team went about as Stars and Scrubs as you could, utilizing all the value the slate opened up – rostering Harden, Westbrook AND Embiid and pairing them with five Bucks – Bledsoe, Middleton, Wilson, Connaughton and Ersan. Nothing sneaky – but super effective.
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 – Thursday Slate Breakdown:
Merry Christmas to all! I know it is March but it is the first day of the NCAA tournament and for many this is like Christmas morning – waking up to one of the best days of the year. With March Madness, PGA, NHL, NBA and MLB just a week away this is the best time of the year for fantasy sports and sports fans in general so enjoy every minute of it!
We have a 6 game slate in the NBA tonight and at first glance what stands out to me – 9 of the 12 teams in action tonight see a projected pace decrease. You know what though – we had 14 of the 18 teams on yesterdays slate in a similar situation and we saw DFS scores at crazy high levels so maybe pace be damned?
You know what really stands out when you dig into the player pool – ALL THE CENTERS.
You will hear people talk about playing on FantasyDraft for NBA DFS and how their position eligibility will allow you to roster 5 centers if you want – I am not sure I ever have done it but if there was ever a night – THIS IS IT.
If you look at opposing Center match-ups in the NBA this season, you will notice a few teams that jump out as elite spots as Charlotte, Washington and Phoenix rank as 5 of the top match-ups for bigs in terms of Def-Eff ranking.
Take a stroll through tonight’s player pool you are going to notice the stars aligning:
- Karl-Anthony Towns ($17.9K) – versus Charlotte
- Nikola Jokic ($17.7K) – versus Washington
- Andre Drummond ($16K) – versus Phoenix
- Rudy Gobert ($15.1K) – versus Atlanta
I could argue that these are the top four plays on the entire slate and if you play on FanDuel or DraftKings you are going to have difficult choices to make. On FantasyDraft however, I think you roster every single one of these four – not only are the match-ups perfect on paper – the pricing is easy enough where you have $8.3K per player for the last four spots on your roster after locking in these four bigs.
NBA DFS – Building Around the Bigs:
As we have seen the last few days, it is critical we take advantage of the value in NBA DFS down the stretch as the salary savings give us a roster path that is allowing us to jam in multiple studs which has driven the cash line higher and higher each night.
So let’s start with the value and a name that will likely be popular today – Troy Brown Jr. ($6K).
If today is any indication, Troy Brown is likely picking up most of Trevor Ariza's minutes. Maybe all of 'em.
— Michael Gallagher (@MikeSGallagher) March 21, 2019
Trevor Ariza left last night’s game with a groin injury and was forced out in the first half which opened up Brown to draw the starting nod in the second half where he ultimately played 30 minutes, putting up 29 fantasy points on the back of 9 points and 10 rebounds. Assuming Ariza is out tonight (good assumption), Brown becomes one of those easy plug and play values – the path to “value” which would be 18-20 points seems safe and the upside is clearly there for more – as crazy as it sounds, Brown is likely a building block around the industry today.
We talked about how injuries open up value for us down the stretch and one of the more important injuries we have to watch tonight is the status of Darren Collison, who missed last game against the Clippers and is officially questionable for tonight’s game with the Warriors.
With Collison out last game it pushed Cory Joseph ($7.6K) into the starting lineup, but it was Tyreke Evans ($6.9K) who really stole the show – FINALLY showing the usage and FP/M upside we all know he has when given the opportunity.
Evans was a beast in that game, playing 29 minutes off the bench, sporting a team high 29% usage rate and putting up 1.3 FP/M on his way to 38 FPTS with a 19/8/7 line. Evans led the team with 19 FGA and they are going to need another massive night from him if they intend to keep pace with Golden State on the road in a game the Pacers need to stay ahead of the Celtics for the 4th seed in the East.
Speaking of the Warriors and teams that need to win – the Denver Nuggets sit .5 game behind the Warriors for the top spot in the West and with the Wizards on tap on the second night of a B2B for Washington, the Nuggets core looks primed for a big night.
The fact that Vegas only has this as a 6 point spread gives me confidence that Washington can keep this close which is really my only concern with loading up on Denver here. The pricing for Denver’s starting unit is incredibly fair for a 5 man unit that plays basically 30+ minutes a night at this point. Jamal Murray ($11.8K), Will Barton ($11.1K) and Gary Harris ($8.6K) are all in play at their price points tonight against a Washington team that plays at a fast pace with a bottom 5 defense in the month of March.
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 build.
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G: Jamal Murray
G: Gary Harris
G: Tyreke Evans
F/C: Karl-Anthony Towns
F/C: Nikola Jokic
F/C: Andre Drummond
UTIL: Rudy Gobert
UTIL: Troy Brown Jr.
Slate Overview: How many elite centers can we fit in tonight? Well on FantasyDraft, I think the answer is ALL OF THEM.
The four stud centers on this slate all have the perfect on paper match-up tonight and I would take advantage of the position flexibility on FantasyDraft and try to jam them all in where on other DFS sites you will have tough choices to make.
Use the lessons from the last few nights and take the free square value when it arises – which tonight looks like Troy Brown Jr. and potentially Tyreke Evans assuming that Darren Collison is out again.
Enjoy one of the best sports days of the year – kick back, watch some March Madness, get some PGA DFS tilt and lock and load some NBA tonight – what could be better?
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