Gary Gustafson 
Welcome back NBA DFS fans! After months of being on pause, the league is back and so is DraftKings with big prizes pools to take down so let’s get started with our top NBA DFS picks for today’s slate!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this NBA DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Slate Breakdown
Welcome to Wednesday – oh wait, this is now Saturday’s slate – which was originally Wednesday’s slate but then it wasn’t. So ok, hold on.
After a historic day in sports in Wednesday that began with the Milwaukee Bucks refusing to take the court in protest of ongoing social justice issue in America, there was the potential that the NBA season would have been over as quickly as it re-started. Thankfully for us DFS players, the season is back on and Saturday we re-start with the same three games we initially had on Wednesday.
The Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers have a chance to close out their first-round series against the short-handed Magic and Blazers respectively while the biggest change is that Russell Westbrook will be back for Houston in their 2-2 series against OKC.
The big news heading into this slate is that Damian Lillard will miss whatever remains of Portland’s season which puts the Blazers in a difficult spot as they try and defeat LeBron and AD.
What you notice today is we have two of the three games sporting two touchdown spreads as both the Bucks and Lakers are expected to win and win big and we have seen it all playoffs on these small slates – blowouts can derail your DFS night in a hurry.
So I think the approach for these games is simple – you either stack or stay away.
If you think Portland can keep it close, you take the core of CJ McCollum, Jusuf Nurkic and company and you run it back with a superstar on the other side like LeBron James in the hopes you get full run and ceiling games from both sides.
The same goes in Milwaukee – if you want Giannis Antetokounmpo then you can pair him with Nikola Vucevic and hope that the Magic can continue to compete as they have been, keeping Giannis on the court for his full minutes. The Magic have been able to keep these games competitive despite being short-handed so I think yo can continue to roll out value pieces like Gary Clark, DJ Augustin and Terrence Ross as cheap fliers that all have shown 6x upside at their current price in this series.
For what it is worth – on Wednesday, when this first game locked on DK – there was heavy ownership on Giannis and the value plays in this game, so I wonder if that trend continues today.
The other way to approach this – take the pieces from these games that are game-script proof only. The best example of that is Anfernee Simons who will likely draw the start for Portland with Dame sidelined and as we saw in Game 4, he got all the blowout run as well, checking in for Dame mid-way through the third quarter and playing the entire fourth quarter. Simons has started four games this season with Dame out, going for 6x in 2 of those 4 games at his price of $4K tonight on DK and makes for one of the safer value plays on the slate.
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Game Stack?
We know what to expect largely in Orlando/Milwaukee and with it being the first game, I can absolutely see the ownership being heavy on that game while the Lakers/Portland will be a popular spot for value.
However, my approach it to game stack the Houston-OKC game – the one with the highest total (226.5) and the closest spread (5) and hope the other games simply blowout/underwhelm.
The return of Westbrook to the court will likely push ownership away from James Harden ($11.4K) which is intriguing considering that his ownership was sub 20% on three-game slates WITHOUT Westbrook alongside him. So what happens today? If Harden was 15% owned in GPP play the last slate at $11.7K without Westbrook – the fact his price remains high and Westbrook is back on the court – could we actually see it drop to single digits?
The regular season match-ups against OKC with Westbrook on the court give you more argument for the fade as he was only able to get to 52 and 58 fantasy points which would not pay off this price tag today.
So the likely path by the masses today in my opinion will be to have lower ownership on Harden and I think that extends as well to Russell Westbrook ($9.9K) who is priced up and there are rumors of a minute limit.
That to me is where this gets interesting because if you are not playing Harden or Westbrook, there is not really anything else on Houston you are going to prioritize – meaning this team could be largely under-owned.
So on a three game slate, why not zig when everyone zags and stack up Harden/Westbrook together?
In the two previous games against OKC – this duo combined for an average of 116 fantasy points per game which would put them right around 5.5x value with today’s pricing. Just for comparison sake – the likely more popular pairing will be Giannis/Vuc at a similar price point on DK – and those two have averaged 107 fantasy points per game in this series so far.
So the point is – if Harden/Westbrook are going to be pivots rather than core plays (which I think is very likely) – can you not see a path where they outscore the other high dollar pairings?
Now if you are going this route in GPP’s you are going to likely want a game stack so you get full run and the highest ceiling possible from the stars you are banking on.
On the OKC side – I think that starts with Shai Gilgeous Alexander and Dennis Schroder. SGA at $7.4K feels like a mis-price considering he has gone for 44 DK points or more in each of the last three games which puts his average performance right at 6x value at tonight’s price.
The secondary pieces here are going to be where I think you get different from where you may have been in previous games of this series as the addition of Westbrook completely removes guys like Eric Gordon from my player pool. Instead, I would look to get correlation exposure on Houston and the only two players that have positive correlation with Harden/Westbrook are Robert Covington and PJ Tucker.
Guys like Tucker on Houston and Lou Dort on OKC are great ways to get cheap exposure to this game as both players are locked into 30+ minutes and at just $4K a piece, offer you easy secondary stacking spots around the higher priced priority plays.
NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: The Wrap-Up
As long as we do not get any official word from the Rockets on a hard minutes cap for Westbrook (the latest is that he would be “good to go”) – then I love the idea of using him right out of the gate and stacking this game with a core of Harden/Westbrook/SGA and Schroder.
Now that core means you have just $3.7K left for the rest of your build and even with cheapies like Tucker/Dort – you are going to be scraping the barrell.
It is risky – but in my mind – you are taking a stand that the other two games under perform and potentially blow out and you are left with the only game that gives you full run.
Let’s jump into Discord and talk some hoops my friends. Time to make money!
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