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Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/25/16
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!
What We Know
Kawhi Leonard is out, Kyle Anderson will start
Anderson hasn't been a particularly inspiring play with Leonard on the bench in the past, but losing a guy with a 26% usage means there are a lot of shots to go around. Aldridge gets a small boost from Leonard being off the court, but the biggest beneficiary seems to be Tony Parker, whose usage climbs from %23 to %28 with Leonard on the bench. Throw in a scheduled day off for Danny Green and Patty Mills, and this could be a very interesting night to grab Parker on the very cheap.
Jon Leuer should continue his reign of terror with Chandler sidelined
Tyson Chandler has already been ruled out, and Leuer played 41 minutes at nearly a fantasy point per minute in the Suns' game against the Lakers. Now not all fantasy match-ups are created equally, but the Kings have been plenty bad against opposing fours all season, and Leuer is a must own for double-ups tonight once again.
Marvin Williams is back
This sends Frank Kaminsky back to no man's land, and will temper of our projection system's love for Cody Zeller as well. I wouldn't play Williams, personally, as I just hate taking guys a game back from missing a contest for injury related reasons.
The Mavs are sitting Dirk, Deron, and Devin Harris
Huge news, obviously, for a number of reasons. First of all, guys like David Lee, JJ Barea, and Ray Felton will get more minutes. That's great and all, but this also throws the blowout risk through the damned roof, meaning this game becomes more unpredictable than anything. This throws the lineup optimizer through a roof, because it had liked guys on both sides of this game. Updates to come.
What We're Waiting to Know
What's up with Zach Randolph?
Z-Bo has been very solid since returning from his knee injury, but now he's got ankle woes. I wasn't going to play him against the Spurs anyway, but his missing any significant time would open up a round 2 of the JaMychal Green frenzy. Green is still fairly expensive based on his last run at daily fantasy basketball stardom, but would be worth a flier in big tournaments even in a tough match-up.
Update: Randolph is out, and the projection system isn't in love with JaMychal Green regardless. That is based on 30 minutes of playing time, though, so if you think he'd get more he becomes quite a competitive play.
Victor Oladipo's status
Oladipo is now being listed as questionable with a wrist injury. His absence would change a LOT in Orlando, as the Magic would have to redistribute high 30s minutes and his 24% usage. Mario Hezonja looks to be the main benefactor, but it would also mean more minutes and usage for Evan Fournier as well. Hezonja would definitely be a strong candidate in all formats if he were named the starter.
Will Darrell Arthur start for Kenneth Faried again?
Denver hasn't been totally forthcoming with news, here, as Faried keeps getting listed as questionable and then winds up missing the game entirely. Arthur has been a little up and down with Faried sidelined, but has turned in 2 great performance sandwiched around one dud. It's a great spot against the Lakers, and I'd be very inclined to guess we're looking at a solid fantasy performance in this one.
Will Luol Deng return?
He missed Wednesday's game, and the team is claiming that it was for precautionary reasons, but I'll believe that when lineups come out. In his absence, Josh McRoberts played 30 minutes, and Gerald Green got some extra run as well. Neither was particularly relevant, but McBob has big game capability when things break right.
The "Every Lineup" Guys
These are players that show up in each of the top 10 lineups as produced by our lineup optimizer. This doesn't necessarily mean that they're "safe," it just means that their projected weighted-mean point total is a solid building block for a great lineup foundation today.
Stephen Curry - FD 10600 DK 10500
Opponent - DAL
FD Proj. Pts - 50.67 DK Proj. Pts - 54.66
Lots of value today means lots of room to spend up. For us, that looks like Steph right now. And it makes sense - value at a ton of other positions (PF and C in particular) means we can delight ourselves to actually rooting for Curry instead of rooting against him. Happy days!
Update! With the Mavs sitting, well, everyone, Curry is a lot less attractive than he was a little while ago. Sending his minutes down means his production could wind up being way down, and I'm not sure I can call him safe anymore.
Jon Leuer - FD 4600 DK 4100
Opponent - SAC
FD Proj. Pts - 32.22 DK Proj. Pts - 33.04
Mine, and I imagine everyone's, favorite value guy of the day. Already gave you the analysis above, but it's no surprise that he's showing up everywhere here. Tons of upside, a nice high floor, and a delight to own tonight. And since I wrote all that, I'm sure he'll get injured in the 2nd quarter.
Salah Mejri - FD 4700 DK 3800
Opponent - GSW
FD Proj. Pts - 28.41 DK Proj. Pts - 28.92
Still Salah time, even at an increased price. The absurd rebounding rate just gives him a fantastic floor on these prices, and even in a tough match-up with the Warriors, he should be able to do his thing. The one risk, I suppose, is that he would be pretty hopeless against the small-ball "lineup of death."
Update! This selection now comes with a lot of risk as well, as Mejri should be as susceptible to reduced minutes as anyone in this one.
Brandon Knight - FD 7200 DK 7500
Opponent - SAC
FD Proj. Pts - 36.7 DK Proj. Pts - 39.05
With the news of Dallas sitting everyone, room has opened up at the point guard position, and we're now looking at lots and lots of Brandon Knight. It's a great match-up in a game where Knights should have a lot of opportunity to wreak havoc on the Kings' sloppy D.
Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below of our lineup optimizer, on us!
image sources
- Evan Turner, Kawhi Leonard: (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
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KCP back tonight. Oladipo QUESTIONABLE!!!!!
Oladipo May Be Sidelined Tonight
The Optimal Keeps Spitting Out Oladipo IDK About that one tonight
Zach Randolph Is Out Tonight
S.A. sitting Players Tonight Things Are Starting To Shake Up
Not really. In fact its a GREAT game to give him a rest. GS will beat them regardless so why burn your studs out tonight in vain and then have to play another track meet game VS Sac/? Rather rest starters today in a loss and have em fresh for a big push vs Sac. IMO
Nowitzki out tonight per Rotoworld. Strange game to give him a rest.
Not so sure. I think the MAVS would be happy splitting the next two games with GS and SAC so why not rest guys tonight? Would probably have to run starters big minutes and still lose. Waive the white flag tonight and keep em fresh for SAC game.
Mavs waiving white flag and resting team. Guessing that gave offers now DFS value now???
Devin Williams Dirk and Devin Harris will not play serious blowout risk now.
Fading curry bc he won’t be a part of the 4th quarter, rather spend on Cuz and the PHO backcourt, no?
Wesley Matthews will have to take a lot of usage upon himself now… as well as David Lee who had a monster outing against gsw last time should as well!! Interested to see the changes made in the optimal lineup with so many spurs sitting and so many Mavericks!
Mavericks also sitting Dirk, D Will and Harris. Beware the blowout for W’s, maybe Felton goes off?
Thoughts on booker? Seems like solid option next to Levine and wiggins
IDK but the optimizer hates booker? lol projected at only 26.49 fdp. against the kings? interesting…
I tweaked Booker a little bit, since it looked like the optimizer was slightly over-weighting early season performance. Essentially it looked like it was unfairly penalizing him for Knight’s return since Booker got a lot more active from the field while Knight was out. I overrode it manually and noted what was causing it (essentially on-court off-court stuff). Thanks!
To me a no brainier. Harden is in a very tough match up versus Toronto. Harden is NOT Russell Westbrook and he is NOT match up proof. The Freak is hands down a much better play IMO.
Smokin a lil too much weed there snoopdogg.
“Hands down” wow!
If either of the two is hands down, it’s The Beard playing at home in a must win vs ABC on the road against ATL, who has the #1 D since the all star break
DFSR family… would you rather spend up for… Harden? or Giannis the Greek Freak?
lol….
see above comment
Whoa, huge news came in while I was out. Updating everything now. Thanks for being on the ball, folks!
JD
Feature request 🙂 Would be nice on the optimizer if there was some sort of update clock.. Like optimizer is updated as of 2:05pm est.
Should be totally doable, Thomas, but possibly not until we’re done with the baseball product (early next week). This line is actually already in the data, we just need to pull it and display it on the page.
For a brute force answer, the system was last updated one moment ago at 3:20 PM EST 🙂
Excellent. Thanks!
Just saw that James Harden dropped a whopping 68fdp against Toronto last time they played!!! :-0
He’s hard to fade tonight. HOU seems resigned to run Harden 40m a night down the stretch. And to me TOR seems a lot like they did last year. Crazy good on defense defending the SG position for most of the season and then like last year they seem to hit a wall physically and haven’t been as good on defending lately.
IMO Fade Harden all day long. Why would you not fade him and in the same game roster DDR vs Houston’s abysmal D?? Harden you need 50fpts vs a top flight D just to hit value? DDR couple grand cheaper in a much much better match up!!
DeRozen seems like a good idea more so than Lowry (bc of Beverley’s defense) but Harden has been killin it. No Chandler to me seems like a Harden/Boogie combo with a Brandon Knight anchor and Tony Parker on top. Wes Matthews maybe. Should be a fun night.
This is exactly one of the lineups I’ve got runnin tonight.
Just signed up for the optimizer after all of the great things I read about it. Any tips would be helpful. I assume lower variance is geared towards double ups and the higher for tourney’s.
I’m really liking a Lowry, Harden, Howard stack tonight. I know Beverly is a good defender, but i just don’t think he’s in the same league as Lowry, both in terms of an athlete and basketball player. If this game stays close and DeRozan doesn’t carry the load offensively (feel like he will burn energy defending Harden), they will need Lowry’s scoring and should have his way with Beverley.
Personally i think you have too much value. Not enough upside but that’s just me. One change Id make for sure is fade Harden and instead use DDR in the same game vs the putrid Rockets D.
DDR is couple grand cheaper and offers upside. Harden needs 50fpts vs a solid D just to hit value. Very unlikely he exceeds that if at all.
DK GPP:
Knight
Matthews
Porter
Leuer
Howard
Parker
Aldridge
Harden
Thoughts?
DMC over harden
Well, I’ve got Knight, Matthews, Leuer, and Harden in there myself. Went all out at C w/Cousins, and went with a very hot Wall too. That didn’t leave me too much $ to play with, but I grabbed Lee with what I had left.
I still had to find a couple of cheap SF’s, so I figured Barnes was safe, and right now I have MIke Scott in there. I could change him to Hezonja if Oladipo sits.
I think Porter could have a bounce back game for you. Parker could have a big night, and Aldridge will be huge. Not sure about Howard, but I hardly ever use him anyway.
Good luck!
So What Is Tony Parker Usage Now With The Rest Of The Gang In S.A. Out Tonight
Good luck man. I am personally fading Harden vs a tough Toronto D and Boogie hasn’t been confirmed yet so if playing on FD with early lock you run huge risk. Plus Boogie is dealing with a knee. I think Sac has got to be very cautious with him down the stretch.
i have Knight Barea at pg… with a Harden Boogie stack..
Barea always plays well against the Warriors… and with literally everybody sitting… him and Matthews will get huge usage bumps… I believe even in a blow out… Barea i have projected at 6-8x easily. Definitely has 30 pt upside without Williams in the lineup.
Let’s kill it tonight!!! #Boom
Love Barea tonight. In every one of my lineups. He can fill it up with pts and assists when he runs the pick and roll all game, which they should be forced to do without any other shot creators in the lineup (Wes does not create his own shot, at least post the achilles surgery version). And should be blowout proof too.
It is Lowry’s Birthday as well. Narrative street!
Rest and blow outs will be the theme from here on out. Shitty teams running their scrubs out to see what they got, palying teams fighting for playoff position etc. NBA is an absolute crap shoot now.
What’s your fav, 50/50s tonight or big tourney? I’m leaning on more 50/50 due to the randomness occurring each minute with rest, and possible for blowout.
Chris, nice! Was not aware. Like i need more irrational reasons to bet on Lowry tonight… but i like it!
Roto Daily Lineups….they are usually pretty quick with the updates.
Been playing basketball all season and NEVER got a 0 until the past couple of weeks. Still green at this so where can I go to check out starting lineups. I had over 300 the other night when Beal sat. That cost me! Any replies would help…..
Download the rotowire fantasy news center from your app store, and also add bleacher report team stream and favorite every team. Also rotowire.com NBA daily lineups page is awesome
Payton off injury versus the top team defense vs PG in the NBA?? i’d avoid em both
I’ll take Payton over Parker easy
I like Thornton over Anderson more opportunities
Chef curry is hard to avoid since I have like 6 guys under 5k
love whiteside today great matchup he never screwed me yet
I agree playing mostly 50/50’s with 1-2 GPP. With the value plays out there tonight, opens the door for some punts…so you never know.
Except this is the Spurs and Popovich. BTW…Parker is now questionable!!
Spurs announced they are resting Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili TOMORROW night so the guys should get plenty of run tonight.
There are what like 9 games on the board tonight? Why would anyone want to play Spurs or anyone in the GS/Dal game? To much risk period! Popovich already has said Green and Duncan will sit next two so if they get up big or down big whats to stop him from making it 2 1/2 games?? Dallas game could end 129-81 very very easily. Only way Dallas stays within 20 is if GS allows them too. So why risk it? Minny vs Wash, Pho vs Sac and Den vs LAL offer enough players to build an absolute monster LU IMO.
Stephenson not a good play tonight with Randolph out thought he get a bigger bump than that
Doug/James,
Thank you guys for the system. Taking my family on vacation next week due to a last min system pick. I appreciate all you guys do.
Thanks!
how do u use the system is there a way to project the score of the line ups thanks
All u need outta Anderson is just 15fpts (anything more is gravy) He is starting and should easily hit 15 or value. Plus he is minimum salary
So if Duncan is in, Kyle Anderson is a horrible idea, correct? I’m removing him with so many Spurs “not” sitting
Down to my last $3500 on FD. Trying to decide between Mike Scott, Corey Brewer, or Hezonja. If Oladipo is active, then I would obviously not go w/Hezonja, but since it’s a GT call, I might have a chance to make the change.
Right now I have Scott in there, I figure he’s good for about 18-22 minutes, and around the same amount of points, if he’s on. But when he is cold he is damned cold.
Any thoughts?
Make that, “I might NOT have time to change the lineup”….it’s also an 8pm start, so I could be screwed if Oladipo is in.
I better pay it safe and start either Brewer or Scott. I would have considered Winslow, but Deng is expected back tonight.
Is josh ricardson a SG or SF on FD? Cant recall off top of my head. If he’s a small F use him all day long
On FD he is a SG.
Parker now GTD. Here goes Pop!
Curious why no Kemba Walker in the optimal lineup? Rondo still probable I thought?
Taking your advice on Curry, but not on Mejri. Got him going in two lineups. Thoughts are they’ll let the big msn play. He’s only got 25 games under his belt.
Am I overthinking it?
I am not even considering Boogie. He has a bad knee. He isn’t confirmed in yet and I think SAC will be super cautious with him. Way better and less expensive options tonite. Jokic at C at 5.9k on DK is a no brainer vs LAL
Parker or Boogie playing tonight?
JJ Barea or DJ Augustine are both better plays then Parker anyway
Who’s a good play for Parker, don’t want to take the risk
Parker, Duncan, Ginobl ruled out Saturday and Monday
gonna be honest i’m really not liking the top optimal lineup at the moment let’s see if it changes before lineup lock
Where do you guys get your info from, sheeesh. Parker is NOT questionable.
Says Parker is going to rest tomorrow, but don’t be surprised if they let him not work the whole game.
Dipo downgraded to Doubtful
Anybody else punting on J. Richardson tonight? Kid’s been shooting great and getting a bunch of minutes. If the Heat open this game up he might even get more floor time while they rest D. Wade.
dipo out! hezonja starting..
hezonja or anderson?? lol quick!
Dipo officially ou
I don’t often do this, but I’m splitting the top two lineups on FD tonight.
It’s gonna be a wild ride tonight
Almost came to blows with the optimizer 😉 Kept giving me Barnes and Deng and don’t like either. Another rough night working around all the news.
good luck guys. Leuer 39% owned so lots of folks banking on him. Late news with dipo and hezonga only at 2%. Hopefully good for me.
Ended up with this on FD. Best of luck to everyone tonight. Let’s win some $$$$$$$
Knight
Barea
Harden
DeRozan
Tucker
Wiggins
Leuer
Lee
Towns
And Brandon Night is out. There goes all my chances
Knight
Got to be kidding me. Brandon Knight out and he’s like the 5 billionth guy to sit with stomach flu this season. What a joke!
This sucks
Have played FanDuel 100%. Time to look into Draft Kings. Not being able to swap players is starting to be a real deal killer. Time to make a DK deposit.
Play both Thomas Miller. 🙂
I’m with you…I officially quit FD now. That’s ridiculous. Only way out of that is to only use guys in the 7pm games and sometimes that’s not fool proof
Wow knight take some pepto bismol – bull$hit
Yep draft kings is going to get some customers tonight. BS
Very brutal. It happens but is tough to deal with in the moment. I had him in every lineup so I’m right with everyone here. Just sucks.
Good to see I’m not alone. I might just stick with fanduel for football. Can’t do this basketball crap if I can’t swap out. Destroyed 3-5 of my lineups. Also Lauer went to locker room too.
Knight was a 50% or so start in cash games so he hurt a lot of people tonight.
and 30% owned late night even with the news breaking just before tip
How does an illness sneak up right before game time without anyone close to the situation knowing??
We call it the NBA flu
Someone knew this “illness” would sneak up, because top winners for 10:00 have Jenkins.
Did leur get injured ?
2 quick fouls = bench.
It could be worse. Take my situation for example- I set all of my main lineups with Knight (6). Get the great news that my wife says I’m not feeling well so I’ll hang out with our son and YOU SHOULD GO OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS! Needless to say I’m pumped, meet them for steaks before we go to a huge sports bar with a great band playing. Well the place we meet for dinner is right done the street from where I live and all of sudden I get texts thats she’s real sick and can’t get the kid to bed. Like a good man I break plans and come home. Well the late slate had just kicked off 30 secs into me trying to load lineups! LOL- salt in the wound! I’ve been playing FD for years- you guys are probably right I may need to withdrawal and switch to DK but I’m an Illinois resident so who knows when we become NY! Ok I’m getting a beer!
Where is Brandon Knight???? Is he not playing at all tonight?
Sorry, just scrolled up and saw the answer to my question
I should’ve noted my woman has the stomach flu- LOL you can’t make that shit up!
Doubling down on the stomach flu… Hopefully the wife is okay and the fridge is stocked with beer 🙂
18% of the dudes in the $1.5 Million World Fantasy Basketball Championship had Knight….. OUCH!
What are the opinions on draft kings? I’ve dabbled a few times and wasn’t overly thrilled with it for NBA. Love to hear thoughts.
Left fan duel months ago for said reasons. Although I find that app easier and quicker.(may just be a preference) left them a message why I left and they never replied good riddance. Tonight was my fault. Was watching the original national lampoons vacation with wife and kids. They just made it to Wally World while I was supposed to be checking for late scratches. Lol. Tomorrow is another day….
Done with FD except Freerolls and next Wednesday’s big event since I won the buy in the other day!
On the good side, I played $56 between both sites today, and came out with $158 on DK!!! Thank You Lineup Optimizer!!!
DK is better simply because you have until a game starts to replace a player if he is revealed to be out like Knight was tonight, the prices seem a bit more realistic to me as well!
Just made a deposit to DraftKings. Have a ticket to play on FanDuel and then that’s it for basketball on FanDuel until they change the late swap thing. If I played cash games probably would stick around FanDuel and just do what a lot of people do and fade the late games removing as much risk as possible. But I play GPP and you almost always have to have a guy or two from the late games if you are swinging for the fences. As I do better and spend more FanDuel for NBA is just too risky.
Brandon Knight made a $148K tonight to sit the bench with a tummy ache while thousands of FanDuel DFS players would have been better off just tossing $$$ out the window.
On to bigger and better things on DraftKings…