Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/28/16

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

Not a whole heck of a lot. Most of the relevant news is packed into the next section. I'll update this throughout the day as updates come through. It's early yet. A whole lot more now than when I published this about an hour ago.

Oh boy. We've had some news.
Cousins, Gay and Rondo are all out
Holy moly. This is huge news and basically takes the top three offensive weapons out of the picture for the Kings. Darren Collison enters close to must play territory as does Koufos and possibly Cauley-Stein. Will be digging more into how this is likely to shake out, but for now know the Kings are a different team.

Update: See below, Kawhi is out

Update: Tyson Chandler and Jon Leuer will play

What We're Waiting to Know

Demarcus Cousins is doubtful
This news comes very early which makes me think he doesn't play tonight. This would have major effects on the Kings' starting lineup and overall playing time. In the past Rudy Gay's been a major contributor when Boogie's sat. But that hasn't been the case of late and he hasn't seen a minutes increase when the big man is shelved. The usage bump is real over the course of the season. But I can understand being hesitant about playing Gay. Collison and Rondo also see usage bumps (something in the range of 10-15% depending on the source). I do think Gay represents a value play in the sense that folks are scared off of his production, but I understand not wanting to go there. Update: Cousins is now expected to play

Will Tyson Chandler and/ or Jon Leuer play?
This news has a pretty major impact on potential lineups tonight. If neither were to go Mirza Teletovic becomes darn close to a must start on this slate. He played 32 minutes last game and went 17/8 at a low tier salary. He'd be in all of my lineups if I new for sure the other two bigs were sitting. It's an 8PM EST start so I think there's some chance we know ahead of the main slate lineup lock. This though is another example of why playing multiple slates for NBA is a great natural hedge. Our optimizer allows you to run lineups for different game times. If the news comes late, run some turbo lineups with Mirza in there. Update: Tyson Chandler and Jon Leuer will play

Will Kawhi play?
He's sat out the last couple of games and is questionable tonight. Kyle Anderson would stand to see minutes in the high 20's in the start, though I don't think he's a fantastic DFS play because he doesn't figure much in the offense with the other Spurs back. Tony Parker sees a definite usage jump with Kawhi off the court, something in the 20% range and would make an especially nice DraftKings option. Update: Kawhi, Tony Parker and Tim Duncan are out. Kyle Anderson will see the minutes at the three, but the biggest beneficiary is probably Aldridge who sees a big bump in usage with all three of those guys off the court. He dominates the possession. 

Will Deron Williams play?
He was ruled out well in advance of yesterday's game and I think that would make him lean more towards doubtful for this game. With him off the court the biggest minutes' beneficiary has been Raymond Felton who's seen 38 and 35 minutes in that last two games. J.J. Barea's been the more popular play but I think you'd see that shift tonight if D-Will sat again. Felton's been the primary ballhandler with J.J. and Harris rotating between the two.

Will Jrue Holiday play?
Man the Pelicans are such a mess though it's mostly bad luck as they've been just decimated by injuries this season. If Holiday didn't play tonight you'd see increased minutes from Frazier and Douglas, but Alonzo Gee's also been playing a ton of minutes from the shooting guard while the former two guys have rotated the point guard duties. Gee is an excellent DraftKings play at the minimums if Jrue sat.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Russell Westbrook - FD 10600 DK 10400
Opponent - TOR
FD Proj. Pts - 54.16 DK Proj. Pts - 55.88
Kevin Durant - FD 10300 DK 10000
Opponent - TOR
FD Proj. Pts - 48.79 DK Proj. Pts - 51.61
I'm trying to remember the last time he played that I didn't want to lock him into my cash game lineups. It's been awhile and won't change tonight. With cheaper options on the board to offset costs and this game projected to stay close with a 210 total I don't see a reason to move away from Russ' floor.

Similarly, Durant falls much into the same category as Westbrook. I don't think his floor is quite as high, but stacking these two in the game for 50/50 purposes gives you such an implied baseline that I really can't see getting away from it. If they are showing up in all lineups this early there's almost nothing that can happen with news that will change it.

Kristaps Porzingis - FD 6700 DK 6100
Opponent - NOP
FD Proj. Pts - 34.86 DK Proj. Pts - 35.96
He's really looking like an "everywhere" guy. The minutes are headed in the right direction and that's been the only question mark for him this year. He's still priced like a guy playing 25-28 a night, but now he's running 31+ and that projects him to crush his prices against a Pelican team that can't stop anyone. He's an especially great play in DraftKings.

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.

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!