Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/17/16 Playoffs Now’s your chance to get DFSR Pro with MLB Optimal Lineups, Projections and Player Cards. Or try a free trial of our base package with projections for every player. While the seasons overlap, you'll get access to our tools for the NBA and NHL as well! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. We've also launched a Stats and Research Page, which includes a lot of the individual statistics that we use to make our projections. It's free! Enjoy. This is the same information that James wrote up yesterday as it still applies since Game 1 is tonight Toronto Raptors at the Cleveland Cavaliers Analysis Could these two teams be coming into this game with more different post-season experiences thus far? The Raptors have played fully 6 more games than the Cavaliers over the same stretch of time, and are missing their starting center. They've been in back to back rock fights, reserving really any good play until game 7 of the Heat series, when their guards finally went off. So am I crazy for saying I don't hate Toronto's chances to at least keep it close in these games? The Cavs are relatively weak when it comes to back-court defense, and the Raptors went out and got Demarre Carroll specifically for match-ups like LeBron. The Raptors shouldn't need to rely on Valanciunas' low post scoring here, and Biyombo is actually a welcome defensive presence down low for them here. Top Plays LeBron James - FD 9800 DK 10800 Opponent - TOR FD Proj. Pts - 53.41 DK Proj. Pts - 55.54 LeBron nearly averaged a triple double in the last two games of the Hawks series, and while the Raptors play quite a bit more slowly than the Hawks, the Hawks make up for some of their fast play by having the 2nd highest defensive efficiency in the league. When healthy, Carroll is a tougher defender than anyone who guarded LeBron on the Hawks, but he isn't. I don't know that LeBron has huge upside here, but he seems awfully safe. Kyrie Irving - FD 7100 DK 8200 Opponent - TOR FD Proj. Pts - 38.54 DK Proj. Pts - 40.66 Kevin Love - FD 7500 DK 8400 Opponent - TOR FD Proj. Pts - 36.35 DK Proj. Pts - 38.79 The other two Cleveland stars are simply underpriced, here. The Raptors were the toughest match-up in the league for opposing point guards this season, but...

Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/10/16 Playoffs Now’s your chance to get DFSR Pro with NBA Optimal Lineups, Projections, Player Cards and Google Chrome extension that auto-populates your lineups into FanDuel. Or try a free trial of our base package with projections for every player. While the seasons overlap, you'll get access to our tools for the NBA and NHL (and MLB when the time comes)! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. We've also launched a Stats and Research Page, which includes a lot of the individual statistics that we use to make our projections. It's free! Enjoy.   Oklahoma City Thunder at San Antonio Spurs Analysis Ok, the Thunder can't actually win this series, right? Or can they? I like many thought it more of a formality than a prediction that the Spurs would win this series, but that was before Oklahoma City seemed to find the recipe for hanging with San Antonio. Now I don't think you can bank on KD outscoring the entire Spurs team in the 4th, or Westbrook notching more assists than the entire Spurs team combined (something I'm sure Popovich was just giddy about), but the momentum in this series has definitely shifted in the Thunder's favor. I do expect San Antonio to play better tonight at home, but this game could really go either way. Top Plays Russell Westbrook - FD 11100 DK 11100 Opponent - SAS FD Proj. Pts - 54.71 DK Proj. Pts - 56.59 Kevin Durant - FD 10100 DK 9500 Opponent - SAS FD Proj. Pts - 43.92 DK Proj. Pts - 46.54 Steven Adams - FD 5200 DK 6100 Opponent - SAS FD Proj. Pts - 26.68 DK Proj. Pts - 27.16 For the Thunder we have the usual suspects, plus the surprise appearance of one Steven Adams, who has really been a nice surprise for fantasy owners willing to roster him in this series. Adams has seen 36+ minutes in each of his last 3 games, and it seems that he has pushed far ahead of Kanter and Ibaka in Billy Donovan's rotation. Not to mention the fact that Tim Duncan decided to retire early and not tell anyone, Adams is now frequently covered by either West or Diaw, both of whom he has a sizable height advantage over. I won't spend much time on Russ and KD because unless you're completely new to this whole NBA thing you know what these guys are capable of. Although he's more...

Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/6/16 March madness is here! Ish. Doesn't it seem like March Madness starts later every year? Isn't March supposed to be a static month - starting around the same time as compared to the first day of the year each year? Are we going to be stuck in sports Hell for much longer, painstakingly going through the motions of basketball as a stand-alone (sorry, Durrell and the NHL crowd) until March Madness and baseball get here? Ah well. At least we can make a bunch of money playing daily fantasy sports. Might as well get to it. If you want to grab a free trial of the winning projections that inform each and every one of these picks, check out our NBA Optimal Lineups, Projections, Player Cards and Google Chrome extension that auto-populates your lineups into FanDuel. While the seasons overlap, you'll get access to our tools for the NBA and NHL (and MLB when the time comes)! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. We've also launched a Stats and Research Page, which includes a lot of the individual statistics that we use to make our projections. It's free! Enjoy, POINT GUARD Holy heck, is this a mess of a day. There's so much uncertainty at basically every position today thanks to a host of factors that we'll get to piece by piece. We'll start with a point guard quagmire. Fun! Russell Westbrook - FD 10700 DK 10800 Opponent - MIL FD Proj. Pts - 48.91 DK Proj. Pts - 50.58 If you want safety for big bucks today, I'm thinking that looks like Sr. Westbrook. I won't play Curry in cash games, Harden is probably overpriced for bad match-ups (though I wouldn't be surprised to see him in some optimal lineups because of weird pricing things today), and on a short-ish slate, we're running out of options fast. Westbrook, meanwhile, is a beacon of consistency. He hasn't scored fewer than 40 fantasy points since January 22nd, and has plenty of big upside games sprinkled in along the way thanks to his permanent triple-double threatening. Milwaukee is about a league average match-up normally, but extended run against Jerryd Bayless makes this a sweeter proposition than usual. I think Westbrook is great in any format. Deron Williams - FD 5600 DK 5600 Opponent - DEN FD Proj. Pts - 27.61 DK Proj. Pts - 29.63 Emmanuel Mudiay - FD 5800 DK 5700 Opponent - DAL FD Proj. Pts...

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. SEE OUR NEW TOOLS NOW! 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...

Daily Fantasy NBA Basketball Picks for FanDuel and DraftKings - 2/28/16 Sunday, Sunday, Someday! A little double-slate today, but I'm going to focus mostly on the late slate since that's what the super-majority of you will be playing. After a truly wild Saturday slate, this one is quite a bit more subdued. I mean, Damian Lillard is the most expensive guy on a 5 game slate. That's... kinda boring. But! Boring can be where our bread gets buttered. So, let's get buttering. Or something. If you want to grab a free trial of the winning projections that inform each and every one of these picks, check out our NBA Optimal Lineups, Projections, Player Cards and Google Chrome extension that auto-populates your lineups into FanDuel. While the seasons overlap, you'll get access to our tools for the NBA and NHL (and MLB when the time comes)! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA? Be sure to read our free NBA Ebook on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. A quick heads up - we post an updates article every day in the early afternoon, EST, to catch everyone up on how things are changing as a result of whatever news has come through. We also have great talks in the comments of that article. Hope to see you there! We've also launched a Stats and Research Page, which includes a lot of the individual statistics that we use to make our projections. It's free! Enjoy, POINT GUARD Ricky Rubio - FD 6900 DK 6400 Opponent - DAL FD Proj. Pts - 34.85 DK Proj. Pts - 35.87 The top guy at the position from a points per dollar basis, and it's not even close. On DraftKings in particular. What's going on with Rubio? Well, he's got to be one of the only guys who can average 5 shots per game over a 3 game stretch but also top 35+ fantasy points in each of those games. So what's up? Well, the Wolves are finally trusting Rubio to simply run the offense on every possession. To great effect! He's averaged better than 12.5 assists per game during that stretch. Dallas is a league average match-up under normal circumstances, but they've been playing a ton of overtime games in a short stretch, so I like Rubio to carve up their fatigued defense. Goran Dragic - FD 6300 DK 6400 Opponent - NYK FD Proj. Pts - 28.47 DK Proj. Pts - 29.93 Dragic has frankly been great recently, thanks to all of the injury troubles plaguing the Heat. While some of that is unsustainable (Dwyane Wade...