Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/4/16

Welcome to the daily updates and injury news article. We'll try and update it right up to line-up locks with as much information as comes across our desks. Let's get to it!

Last night's picks can be found here, so you can wrap your mind around what you need to be looking at before lineups lock tonight.

By the way - we keep our projection system updated with all of the changes as they occur throughout the day right up until lineup lock. Every day. If you want access to that system so you can cut out a lot of the research element, click the button below!

Special Note: Our new optimizer is available! Click the button below to check it out and see if it's right for you.

Now let’s look at some news that’s come in throughout the day to see if anything’s changed in our minds or in the NBA landscape. It's a shorter slate and a light news day, but we'll be updating as stuff rolls in. Also throw out some ideas in the comments and we can take it from there.

What We Know

Kevin Love out - big boosts to Kyrie Irving, LeBron, and Tristan Thompson
Kyrie gets the lead picture here because he's the primary beneficiary of Love's absence. With Love off the court, his usage jumps from 30% to 36%, a 20% relative increase, as opposed to just a 12.5% increase for LeBron. Thompson played 32 minutes the last time Love sat, but did not score a point (though he did snare 15 rebounds). It'll also be interesting to see how Love's minutes get distributed across the rest of the team. Anderson Varejao played 27 minutes when Love sat on 2/6, and he's not on the team anymore. I'm guessing most of those will go to Channing Frye, who won't make much of a difference.

What We're Waiting to Know

Will Evan Fournier definitely play?
He's listed as probable after missing the last three games. This would kill Mario Hezonja's value, and ding Oladipo as well. As for Fournier, I won't play him until I see him log his full run of minutes, though a wrist injury isn't usually the type of thing to cause much change in minutes. The big thing we'll look out for here is how it affects his shooting. We've seen guys fall off a cliff while recovering from injuries like this in the past (think Nic Batum last year).

Jahlil Okafor - will his shin bruise keep him out again?
It seems like an odd amount of time to miss for a bruise, but hey, what do I know? If he's out, Jerami Grant is still under-priced for what he can do in starter's minutes, and people will be off him after a poor outing against the Hornets. I wouldn't touch Okafor if he were back, though, as minutes might be restricted.

Michael Carter-Williams is questionable again.
Bayless' return coincided directly with Carter-Williams' absence, and he's been great on these prices with MCW sidelined. I'd need to know MCW was out again before deploying him, though, because we're very light on Bucks news at the moment.

Kobe Bryant may sit again
As I've written before, the biggest beneficiary here is D'Angelo Russell, who not only secures his minutes, but sees a dramatic usage increase as well. After Bryant logged just 11 minutes in his last game, it wouldn't shock me at all to see him pass here as well. This might also keep Anthony Brown (somewhat) relevant for another game.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

These are guys that seem to show up in all of the top lineups in our lineup optimizer. Enjoy!

Kyrie IrvingLeBron James
No Love, phenomenal match-up with the fast-paced Wiz, and reduced blowout risk with one of their best players missing. Yep, playing these two everywhere in 50/50s in particular.

Alex Len - FD 5300 DK 5700
Opponent - ORL
FD Proj. Pts - 29.8 DK Proj. Pts - 30.33
The sites' refusal to raise Len's prices has become both an insult and a delight. Just the easiest cash game play ever as he continues to put up 5x+ points per dollar with 8x+ points per dollar upside.

Also considered: Oladipo - phenomenal match-up with the Suns, but I'm not ready to call him a must play until I hear the Fournier news. Like him either way though.

Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below - on us! You can also get started with DFSR pro - our brand new lineup optimizer!