NBA DFS Picks and Pivots: Christmas Day 2020

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Merry Christmas NBA DFS fans – I hope you are all able to spend some time with family and friends and get some time watching a great NBA slate on Christmas Day! If you are anything like me, Christmas morning will be spent surrounded by my kids in total chaos so let’s get an early start on our NBA DFS Picks so we get to set our lineups early!

As one of the lead NBA DFS analysts here at Win Daily Sports, I am incredibly excited for this upcoming year with our expanded suite of tools, projections, cheat sheets, daily content, and expert advice all for a fair price point to give you an edge! Hopefully, you followed our projections model on Wednesday Night because – WOOOO DOGGIE – it was HOT!

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NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – First Look

If you are new to Picks and Pivots, the focus of this daily NBA DFS article will not simply be to “give you the best picks” – what our goal here each day will be is to break down the slate strategy and help you think through the process in building your lineups with a tournament focus.

The Christmas Day slate is LOADED with five great games and some really strong prize pools so this is the kind of day where I think we can be a bit more aggressive in our bankroll. Personally, slates that are 5-6 games are the perfect size where you have a large enough player pool but it does not become totally overwhelming and its not as sparse as the opening night two gamer where you had to dig deep into fringe bench options for value!

From a Vegas perspective most of these games have a similar opening feel with lines in the 225-230 and the only real “blowout” risk seems to be with the Bucks/Warriors.

I will say – of the five games on the slate, it is hard not to see that game as one with real blowout concerns considering what we just watched on Opening Night. If the Warriors struggled to keep pace with Brooklyn, can we really expect much different against Giannis and the Bucks?

Now, I do think that logic will end up being popular so if this game becomes low-owned/ignored – then game stacking it could be a massive difference maker but with four other games that frankly set up as more competitive – I think we can look elsewhere for our core player pool.

Game Stacking and Slate Strategy:

One of the reasons I love slates of this size is that I think you can unleash a game stacking strategy in tournaments where you plant your flag and try to nail high scoring game environments.

Now what becomes hard about this strategy is finding the games where you can work a stack in within the constructs of the pricing. Sure, we would all love to stack up the hammer with Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Anthony Davis but you will have under $4K for the other 5 spots on your roster and sorry, this slate just does not have that kind of value.

This leads me to the Brooklyn-Boston game which has the high octane star power on both sides, but the pricing is JUST soft enough to make the stack work.

I keep bringing up that “star power” and I think it is an overarching goal of our builds today to get 2-3 “studs” in our build. If you really step back and look at this slate – you have 10-15 top-tier players with ceiling potential and the likelihood they all bust is so low that I think you need to assume that you will need at least two to go off to help you set that foundation in your rosters.

Any game stack here starts with Kyrie Irving ($8.9K), Kevin Durant ($9.4K) and Jayson Tatum ($9.3K) – an expensive trio but one that leaves you around $4.5K per player for the rest of your build which is a massive difference over the Lakers/Mavericks trio stack mentioned above.

I will say this – Tatum is my favorite player on the slate. In this massive pace up spot, as the clear alpha dog in this Boston line-up – he is a must have for me in all formats. With Kemba Walker sidelined and Gordon Hayward gone, this Celtics rotation is far less crowded and if Tatum’s 39% usage rate opening night is any indication – dude is going to break this slate with Brooklyn running a track meet.

We saw it in the opener, Brooklyn is going to play at a breakneck pace and in fact, that game was played at the fastest pace of any game through the first two nights. That kind of game script is where I want to plant my flag and getting the ceiling potential from Kyrie/KD/Tatum is an easy building block.

The nice part about this game is the rest of it is really fairly priced and makes for some clear stacking paths. On Brooklyn – Spencer Dinwiddie and Joe Harris are priced in the mid $5K range on DK and I love both plays here as secondary stacking options for the Nets. We saw it in the opener, this fast-paced offensive attack not only left them open for shots but the duo combined for 12 rebounds as a result of the spread approach (and some poor Warriors shooting).

Caris LeVert was the big winner on opening night, driven primarily by the blowout run but if his role on the second unit stays, he is going to be a monster. If you look at the game flow, the Nets did essentially no staggering of the first unit with LeVert checking in and getting his first-half run without any of the “Big 4” for Brooklyn out there with him. My only issue is the price – paying over $7K for a bench guy on a slate without value (and after he went off last game) – feels like a spot I let others prioritize.

On Boston, I think we could see a starting lineup adjustment for this game as Boston opted to go with two bigs on Opening Night with Daniel Theis and Tristan Thompson to combat the Bucks frontcourt size. If Boston goes with a more traditional lineup alignment, Jeff Teague ($4.2K) could draw that start. Even off the bench, Teague’s role was clear and he actually played far more of the closing minutes than TT did if you look at the game flow via Popcorn Machine.

NBA DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

Going into this slate, I want my lineups to tell a story – this is something we preach all the time at Win Daily Sports and this slate size is a great opportunity to hammer that point home.

The reality is, we have a TON of great plays but the pricing and the lack of value make you really have to think about your investment. If you pick wrong on this slate with your high dollar stars and that game blows out/underwhelms – well you are going to be dead in the water because there are too many stars that will perform that will make it impossible to catch up.

So while I like Giannis, Steph, Luka and the Lakers duo – their pricing relative to their risk is pushing me to pay JUST slightly down to the Brooklyn and Boston star power that you can easily stack with the mid-range value in the same game.

Merry Christmas Picks and Pivots Family! Make sure you set those lineups early and then put the phone down – go enjoy the day, and when all the presents are opened, the kids are asleep and you are on the couch with a nice cold one – fire up the TV and watch Tim Hardaway Jr. break the slate on the Lakers!

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 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!