Gary Gustafson 
Happy Saturday my NBA DFS friends – we have another strong NBA slate here on DraftKings and FanDuel to kick-off the weekend in what should be an amazing sports weekend with prime UFC bouts and Sunday’s Championship NFL games!
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NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Slate Breakdown
We have an 8 PM EST start time tonight for the NBA as this is part of the new scheduling to allow more time for COVID testing, so make sure you factor that extra hour into your DFS process this evening on what I expect is going to be a heavy news-driven slate. With multiple teams on back to backs, I expect we see a ton of “rest” spots tonight and with some injury news already popping up, the value does not appear to be a problem on this 7 game slate.
So let’s work backwards with that value because finding a few punts to begin the day means we can spend more time prioritizing our stars.
Devin Booker is doubtful to play after last night’s OT game as a result of a hamstring injury and Chris Paul was also seen limping after the game. Someone like Jevon Carter ($3K) could enter the starting lineup and get heavy minutes running the back-court depending on the injury status of the suns back court.
The Pistons are on a back-to-back – which means Blake Griffin is a prime candidate to sit and that could mean that Saddiq Bey ($3.1K) gets the spot start for Detroit and expanded run for Josh Jackson ($3.7K) who put up 25 DK points last night in 31 minutes of court time and saw his price come down $400 tonight.
The Bulls will likely be without Wendell Carter Jr. which means another start for Daniel Gafford ($3.2K) tonight who played 19 minutes against the Hornets last night and put up 19 DK points, hitting 6x salary at his near minimum price point.
In Houston, Christian Wood is unlikely to play which means another start for a too cheap DeMarcus Cousins ($5.1K) and the big news will be the status of Victor Oladipo who has not played a B2B this season and Coach Silas said they would re-evaluate that today for the new Rockets guard. Could we see Mason Jones ($3.5K) run point tonight if Dipo sits?
Are you getting the gist here? We could end up with multiple $3K paths here tonight that have demonstrated 6X+ value history – Gafford and Jackson just did it last night and Bey has done it on spot starts for Griffin already this season. I think going into today with the assumption you can put 2-3 $3K punts into your builds gives you an idea of how to start your builds.
Building Our Core:
Much like it was on Friday Night – my core will continue to be built around the Brooklyn Nets and their opponents until A) The value is not there to afford the Nets studs and B) Brooklyn figures out how to play defense.
Tonight we have the value and the Nets are fresh off making the Cavaliers offense look like the Harlem Globetrotters on back to back affairs.
It is expected that Kevin Durant will return tonight and assuming neither Kyrie or Harden sit, the Nets big three will be back together for only the second time. Now, if one of Kyrie or Harden sit – I think it will change how people perceive this spot from a DFS perspective but even last night in a similar spot it was not like people flocked to the Nets stars as Kyrie/Harden were only 20-30% owned.
If the trio is all on the court together, the ownership is going to plummet – and if that is the case – then I think we need to load up in a big way.
Kevin Durant ($10.4K) is my favorite spend up for Brooklyn tonight, with the freshest legs and the clear and consistent path to volume and usage even with the other stars around him. The Nets are wildly under-sized right now, so I think we see a lot of staggered looks from Brooklyn tonight with KD at the 5 to try and give them length when DeAndre Jordan is off the floor.
Kyrie Irving ($8.9K) needs to be price enforced right now on DraftKings, as this is a player the last two games with a team-leading 35% usage rate, spiking to 39% last night without KD on the floor. He has gone for 50 DK points in back to back games and DK dropped his price for us – cool, I will happily take the unwarranted discount.
Part of why the Nets stars are a priority is because as long as their defense is THIS bad – they are going to need to win with offense – making a mini-stack here an ideal core strategy and that all starts with Bam Adebayo ($8.5K).
The Nets were absolutely destroyed last night on the glass and the interior by a larger Cavaliers team and while Bam is always a great play any time Jimmy Butler is out, now you get this incredible match-up boost and hes still under $9K. Lock it in.
Now – you can expand this stack rather easily and include Goran Dragic and Kendrick Nunn but I think fading those two tonight is where you can take a stand at elevated ownership.
Listen, I get the game logs for Nunn but are we really going to chase a scoring depending player who has shot 58% the last 3 games? If it burns me so be it – but the price has jumped from $3.7K to $5.6K as a result of this red-hot shooting and at some point you have to jump off before the wheels fall off – if Nunn is super chalky tonight – could we bank on the hot shooting ending?
The one chalk I will not fade though – is Boogie Cousins ($5.1K). Cousins led the Rockets with a 27% usage rate on Friday night with Wood sidelined and racked up 36 DK points at near universal ownership which returned over 8X his price last night.
Imagine if he did not shoot 2-16 from the floor?
Seriously, he hit TWO shots and still went 8x.
Now with any sort of efficiency boost and if Oladipo were to sit – oh doctor, this is a walking 50 burger and 10x value on lay away.
A core of Kyrie-Durant-Bam and Boogie will leave you $4.3K per player for the rest of your build and with the value we have staring at us – it should not be tough to make that work with ease.
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
Adam said this in his cash game breakdown and he could not be more correct – this slate is going to be LOADED with news and if you are busy on Saturday, this is a slate you need to take off, because I think we will have a ton of news to react to that could drastically change how we approach it.
Right now – with so much value potential, I am going to anchor to Stars and Scrubs type builds – especially when we have guys like Luka, Joker, LeBron, AD etc all on this slate – its just simply unlikely we don’t see ceiling from at least one star and you need that to win GPP’s.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this NBA DFS season with some big wins!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
