Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to a Thursday NBA DFS edition of Picks and Pivots where we get a short three-game slate that packs a whole lot of star power across FanDuel and DraftKings!
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NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Slate Breakdown
On three game NBA DFS slates like we have tonight, you know I am a big believer in taking a stand and building around games versus specific players. As a GPP player, these are the kind of nights where you plant your flag – go all in on the game you like and in parallel, root hard against the games you faded!
When you look at this slate at a macro level, the two games that stand out are the Raptors/Bucks and Nets/Lakers and my guess is Miami/Sacramento becomes the boring one-off value game to fill out rosters.
Rather than simply list out plays, what I want to do today is a walk through a game stack focused GPP build on these types of games and how you can think through attacking it.
As Adam mentioned in his Core 4 today – ownership will be interesting to watch today and frankly, could be a key determining factor on where you plant your flag. The Nets/Lakers game has the star power that could draw ownership but I do think if Kyle Lowry ends up ruled out, it pushes more ownership towards a Raptors/Bucks stack that now becomes more balanced and easier to stack.
Nets and Lakers Game Stack
Let’s not pretend like Picks and Pivots was going to start anywhere else. In fact, during our slate preview discussions with Adam and Ghost, they joked – well we know what 2Lock is going to write so let’s try and write up something different. They know me – they get me.
UPDATE – Normally I do not come back and update these articles because news is so fluid in NBA but as of 3PM EST – I noticed something I thought was worth pointing out.
The Nets/Lakers total has dropped 7 POINTS today which is a massive in day movement without any public news.
Guys – be super careful with this game. If we do not have news before lock, understand your only pivots will be to the Kings and Heat and hence, everyone will pivot the same place at the same time (assuming we even get it before those games start). Just keep this in mind.
There is no secret here – we know the Nets play at a breakneck pace and they do so with defense being a total afterthought. There is a reason this game has the highest total on the slate and with the injury news the way it has fallen – stacking this became a matter of when versus how.
No Anthony Davis and no Kevin Durant make the path super simple – LeBron James ($10.2K) ran back with James Harden ($10.6K) and Kyrie Irving ($8.9K).
That is it – that’s the lineup. You want this game stack, you just locked in about 50% of the shot attempts in this game from this trio and if this game goes off, well you just found the guys who are going to be the reason.
The pricing is soft enough, primarily Kyrie’s price, that you can stack all 3 and you still have $4K per player for the rest of your build. So the question then becomes where else do you go?
On the Nets side of this game, as weird as it sounds, the status of Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot is huge because it will really open up those fringe minutes for Brooklyn, which is where most of the value is. Bruce Brown ($4.1K) is likely going to draw the LeBron assignment and I think for that reason, he has the clear path to minutes at a cheap price point for Brooklyn.
The other Brooklyn player I think has some sneaky ceiling here is Jeff Green ($5.2K) – another player I can see getting significant run in a game that plays small at times and will be key in defending his old pal LeBron.
When Green was on the Celtics, he was routinely tasked with the LeBron Miami Heat assignments and while that is pushing a decade ago – we even saw 2 years ago in Washington where Green got the same assignment against an AD-less Lakers team.
The Lakers are a solid defensive team but they do struggle recently defending the three, ranking in the bottom 10 in 3P% and with so much focus on Kyrie/Harden – guys like Brown/Green can spot up and know down uncontested three balls.
Much of the decision here comes down to price – I like both plays in a game stack but that $1K savings on Brown over Green may be a deciding factor when all is said and done on a slate where every dollar counts!
The Lakers side of this game is where I think you really anchor to the value with AD sidelined. The starting unit here has a ton of value – specifically with Marc Gasol ($4K) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ($3.3K).
The Lakers played a really condensed rotation last game with AD out, running Gasol and KCP 30+ minutes. As simple as it sounds – if you play 30 minutes against the Nets matador defense, you best believe you are in the player pool.
For Gasol, if you are a Center, playing 30 minutes against Brooklyn? Well, you are about to find your ceiling game and a DFS price increase. Did you guys NOT see what Hassan Whiteside just did to this Nets interior? Gasol at 4K and 30 minutes is just silly value and an ideal stacking piece or even a one-off value if you need it.
If you are KCP – this is the kind of game he thrives in as Brooklyn is one of the most turnover-prone teams in the NBA, giving up over 8 steals per game to opponents over the last 10 games. KCP played 30 minutes last game without AD, put up double-digit shot attempts, and remains $300 over the minimum on DK – and oh yeah, it is his birthday today. So, hello narrative season!
The one “spend-up” I want alongside LeBron today is Dennis Schroder ($5.2K). Schroder is going to be the primary secondary scorer now and if you look at the game flow against OKC what you notice is his staggered run with LeBron.
LeBron would come out, leaving Schroder to run the offense and then sub back in for Schroder and then sub back in mid first and second half to serve as the “point guard” when Schroder got his breather. I love this staggered approach from a correlation perspective as both players have a path then to ceiling with you always having at least one on the court to attack this Nets back court.
So what does this look like?
Step 1 is to lock in the 3 stars in LeBron, Kyrie and Harden. The stars and their raw points are what is going to dictate your cash position on a slate this size. If they have ceiling games, you are likely in a strong cash position – if they do not, well you move on to Friday – so is the life of a GPP game stack.
Step 2 is to lock in the obvious value and I think for me that starts with Marc Gasol and KCP. To get two players with 30+ minutes at $4K or lower in this kind of game environment is just too good to pass on and they complement well with a star like LeBron due to their ability to rack up peripheral/non-scoring stats.
Step 3 (A) is really where you make a decision on the “pay up” – whether you go for someone like Schroder or you push for a third Nets piece.
Step 3 (B): You take your one off value from the other game.
I lumped these two together because I think the punt you choose from the other games is going to decide which “mid-range” plays you can afford. If you can find a true punt in these other games that you like, it gives you FAR more ability to pay up for a Schroder or Jeff Green type, but if you cannot get comfortable, then living down in Bruce Brown land is where you likely end up.
Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
The small slates are always about taking a stand with your NBA DFS builds and this slate is no different. We have massive star power with Giannis in the early game and the Lakers/Nets late-night hammer – the issue with fading them is that you cannot fade the PLAYERS themselves, you need to fade the games.
If the Raptors/Bucks game stays close – Giannis has a 70+ DK point path as he showed in the previous meeting against them. So rather than just “fade him” – I think you fade that game and hope it is one-sided. To me there is no reason to play a Siakam/FVV if you aren’t running it back with Giannis.
This means thinking through game scripts and trying to predict game flows versus specific players.
On this short slate, no game has the mix of star power and value that the Nets and Lakers has, and the fact the pricing is soft enough where we can stack LeBron, Kyrie and Harden together and still feel good about our build – I say, we take the clearest path and simply enjoy the show.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this NBA DFS season with some big wins!
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