Daily Fantasy NBA News and Injury Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/1/17

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

Jusuf Nurkic is out for at least two weeks.
Nurkic quickly became an asset to the Trail Blazers after coming over from Denver, and has suffered a fracture in his right leg and looks to miss the remainder of the regular season. Myers Leonard would most likely benefit from Nurkics absence as he should move into the starting center role.

Austin Rivers is out for at least the remainder of the regular season.
Doc Rivers said Austins hamstring injury is "a pretty good one" and it looks like he will miss the remainder of the regular season. Raymond Felton and Jamal Crawford stand to benefit the most from Rivers absence.

Arron Afflalo is available to play tonight.
Afflalo has missed 4 straight games but will be available for the Kings today against the Timber Wolves. Tyreke Evans, Kosta Koufos and Garrett Temple will all sit out for rest tonight. The Kings will have 10 players available tonight. Since the all star break, Darren Collison has averaged 1.22 fantasy points per minute with those three off the court, and Buddy Hield sees a +5% usage differential.
Brandon Ingram has been cleared to play.
Ingram has missed three straight with tendinitis in his right knee but participated in practice on Friday. He will be available on a minutes restriction for the Lakers game thie afternoon with the Clippers.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Blake Griffin
If you read last nights picks article, you know we love the Hawks and Bulls for the early slate, but the one player from the L.A. showdown that appears in all of the top lineups our system us putting out this afternoon is Blake Griffin. Bake is coming off of back to back thrashings of the fourth and fifth worst teams when it comes to defending against the four, the Wizards and the Suns. This afternoon, he draws the absolute worst defense at the position, the Lakers. Neither of those games got completely out of hand, though the Clips defeated the Wiz by 9 points, but as I said last night, we can't be scared off by the blowout here. Two games means we have to field someone from this contest, and if the game does get out of hand, it will be due at least in part to Blake putting on a third straight double double performance amidst a shooting clinic.
Damian Lillard
The Blazers are riding a 5 game winning streak and as they look to hold a tight grasp on that 8th seed in the west don't expect them to slow down any time soon. Damian Lillard has been blazing the trail for Portland down the stretch with some supreme shooting performances. Aside from a recent three game skid where he averaged only 20.3 points per, Lillard has put up at least 30 in 4 of his last 7 games, all the while picking up rebounds and when he wasn't scoring, he was tossing off assists to C.J. McCollum. With Jusuf Nurkic out for at least the remainder of the regular season, look for Lillard to light it up tonight against Tyler Ulis and a weak Phoenix back court defense.
Terrence Ross
For DFS purposes, I love this game tonight, and just as the system loves Terrence Ross, so do I. Ross has been consistently paying value at a bargain, coming in at 5X or higher in six straight. Tonight gets the chance to really crush some value against the Nets, in a high scoring, game with little risk of blow out. Ross has scored at least 17 points in his last 5 games and Brooklyn is allowing 10% more scoring than average to opposing small forwards. Ross will be in all of my lineups tonight.

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