Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/26/16

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

Wow, there's a ton to get to today. So much for a sleepy little Saturday in NBA DFS.

Spurs resting everyone
This news is great to have early. San Antonio has chose to rest basically their entire starting lineup for this game. It's means that the Spurs will have something in the way of ten active players on their roster tonight: Patty Mills, Andre Miller, Boris Diaw, Kevin Martin, Kyle Anderson, Danny Green, David West, Boban Marjanovic, Matt Bonner and Jonathon Simmons. Projecting minutes for these guys is difficult though I think you'll see very heavy run for Mills, Anderson, Diaw, Green and West at the minimum. It creates a situation where I think you can basically stack 3-4 min-priced Spurs and then just shoot raw points with the big salary guys on the slate. This is a crazy situation for sure. It could mean the Spurs get rolled by the Thunder, though I'm not worried about the blowout risk for minutes on the San Antonio side. It's a little dicier for OKC but I'm still fine playing Westbrook and Durant simply because you can.

Update: Boban and Diaw starting. I think they are both must plays.

Kyrie Irving is out
He'll rest tonight (along with the rest of the NBA) and Matthew Dellavedova will get the start. The biggest beneficiary of this move is Lebron who sees about a 15% usage bump when Kyrie is off the court. The rest of the team has negligible upticks though I'd consider Love for some extra shots as well. Lebron enters must territory with this news and I suspect he's a near 100% start in cash games tonight because of all the savings you're getting.

What We're Waiting to Know

Will Jrue Holiday play?
He was a near last minute scratch the other night against the Pacers and the Pelicans played ridiculously short handed. Their injury issues this year have been just about as bad of luck as one team can get. They've basically lost their entire starting lineup plus some over the course of the year. With Holiday out last game you saw a ton of minutes go Tim Frazier, Alonzo Gee and Toney Douglas' way (though the latter not as many as I expected). Holiday is interesting tonight if he's back in the lineup simply because he's a place to spend up some with all of the low end value coming from the Spurs.

Will Tyson Chandler play?
Jon Leuer burned many a DFS-er last night by getting into foul trouble early and playing only 16 minutes against the Kings. But I have a short memory when it comes to things like this. I think if Chandler were to sit again we'd see Leuer in the starting lineup and in line for big minutes again against the Celtics. Like I said in the picks last night, he represents a good opportunity because many folks will avoid him based on getting buzzed last night.

Update: Chandler is out and Leuer is doubtful. This could mean major minutes for Len and Teletovic

Will Victor Oladipo play?
He sat out last night and that led to bigger minutes for Evan Fournier and Mario Hezonja. Both are in play again tonight if Dipo sits and I think Hezonja is a guy I could get behind at his prices even with a middling performance last night.

Update: Oladipo is out.
 

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Russell Westbrook - FD 10600 DK 10200
Opponent - SAS
FD Proj. Pts - 54.18 DK Proj. Pts - 55.88
Kevin Durant - FD 10400 DK 9800
Opponent - SAS
FD Proj. Pts - 48.13 DK Proj. Pts - 50.55
LeBron James - FD 9900 DK 9400
Opponent - NYK
FD Proj. Pts - 46.27 DK Proj. Pts - 48.12
It's rare that you'll see a situation like this, but you can easily fit all three of the highest floor guys going into this slate and honestly can probably even grab a middle tier guy along with them. It's rare to have so many punts with high minutes expectations going on one slate, but the Spurs gonna Spur and that's what we have. Figuring out the low cost guys will be the real trick, but getting all three of these big boys into cash lineups is basically the way to go. And yes, that even factors in some blowout risk on the part of the Thunder guys.

Punt Plays Galore:

This early I'm not exactly sure how the punt plays will work out. As of this writing guys like Patty Mills, Danny Green, Boris Diaw, Kyle Anderson, Kevin Martin, David West, Alexis Ajinca and Mario Hezonja all project out crazy points/ $ wise. That's an insane list this early in the day. We'll see how things shake out, but getting these guys correct will be the key to the slate.

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!