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Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 2/22/16
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!
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
Jeff Teague is a go
This news is mostly important not so much for Teague for discouraging anyone from playing Dennis Schroder. Last game Teague played limited minutes because of a wrist injury. That opened the door form Schroder time who played 40 minutes (game went to double OT) and put up a 25/10/8 line. Don't be fooled by that performance. The minutes won't be there tonight with news that Teague is going to play his typical run.
Zach Lavine Will Start
Sam Mitchell may not know what he's doing as a coach, but at least every other game we can somewhat count on Lavine's presence in the starting lineup. The plan to switch on and off between Lavine and Prince in the starting lineup is a totally ridiculous one of course. Good teams (or really any teams) just don't use this as a practice, but Mitchell is a bad coach so you have that. If you think Lavine is anywhere near 33 minutes in this one then he's nearly an automatic play at a weaker shooting guard position.
What We’re Waiting to Know
Will Dwyane Wade play?
This one has major implications and these are the situations that can sometimes wreak havoc on projection systems. Right now we are somewhat forced to project as if Wade is both playing and not playing at the same time. I'm cautiously optimistic we will know before lineup lock whether Wade will play as the game starts at 7:30. Though there's always the dreaded "he's going to go through warmups and see how it feels" scenario which could throw things off. If Wade were out then Dragic and Deng become near must plays in cash games. On the flip side, if Wade was given a clean bill of health for this game then I think he's actually a nice value play with Bosh out. See what I mean about it being tough. The number one thing to hope for is solid news well ahead of lock.
Will Andrew Bogut Play?
This one is less about the big man and more about Draymond Green. The latter ran 38 minutes last game when Bogut sat and would probably be in line for a similar amount tonight if the Warriors shifted him to the five and went small again. Green would make a very attractive play in the highest projected total game on the slate. He's in play either way but if Bogut sat I'd really like him. It's an 8PM start so we might not know before lineup lock.
The "every lineup" guys
Note - this doesn't mean I'll actually play each of these guys in every lineup, it just means they are the foundational pieces spit out by our optimizer in all of the top 5-10 lineups. Obviously, you'll want to go against the chalk plays in big tournaments.
I'm tempted to wait on this until a bit later in the day as the optimal lineups are all over the place right now. There is too much news still to come in and we have a cluster of value giving the lineups a lot of diversity from one iteration to the next. I'll update this later in the day, but like I said before, if Wade sits then Dragic and Deng are all over this thing.
Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below - on us!
image sources
- LeBron James, Isaiah Thomas: (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
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Hey guys! If George Hill were to sit, does that make Monta and interesting play at all? Also, would you give any consideration to Joe Young as a possible punt play?
I think Monta is a really good play, not only with Hill as a Q but also because Miles & Stuckey are both basically out. Ball will be in his hands A LOT. I have him in some lineups.
How much do you truck Kyle Kor in cash game line ups?
I’m not rostering Kyle Korver so he should do great today Vito.. LOL
I’m building my lineups with the assumption that D-Wade is back tonight. That team is so much different when he is on the court since he has the ball so much–I’m fading Dragic and Deng completely. It’s a shame because those two have been out of control awesome since the ASB. We’ll see if it comes back to haunt me.
I agree with this. Dragic and Deng get big usage bumps down with Wade on the court.
Waiting on so much news hard to get cracking on lineups. Does Chandler play? Irving? Bogut? Wade? Lot of guys who swing things in a complete different direction if they play vs sit.
If D wade plays, don’t that make Dragic a must play too or no? Also with CP3 playing tonight, should I fade Stephen Curry or he’s still the better play?
No, I don’t think Dragic is nearly as good a play with Wade on the court. Dragic is a ball dominant guard when he’s fully running the offense. This isn’t the case with Wade on the court and it’s why they really aren’t a good match. I’m worried about CP3 because of the blowout risk.
Chandler out!
I’m sorry, Chandler DOUBTFUL.
Derek.. I’m sure everyone has an opinion on the Heat but to me if Wade plays it changes everything. They’ve been playing at such a fantastic PACE with him on the bench average 114.5 points. When he plays with his usage rate it takes away from other guys and he also changes the style of play so instead of uptempo they slog into a half court offense meaning few touches. They are basically a 90+ point team when Wade plays and Wade will get a bunch of shots. Deng would still be in play ( barely because his price has crept up) but I’m not playing Dragic if Wade plays
Waiting for information big time today. Pistons – Cavs -> Tolliver was injured so Tobias should get the start. Stanley got his minutes pinched. I normally don’t play big guys against the Cavs. I am considering Tobias. On the Cavs side, Mo williams is out and kyrie is ? channing frye has the physical thing going on, iman shumpert is ill so this backcourt is VERY thin if kyrie is out. If no kyrie, I like Lebron and Love. I also like Tristan if detroit plays tobias @ the 4. Im with Casey on the Heat – Pacer game. We need to know whats up with wade. I am heavily considering Ian Mahinmi though. Toronto – NY kyle lowry and demar derozan – I think there are better plays personally – wont be targeting the players against the NY front court. I do like Melo but if no Kyrie i like Lebron better. The Boston and Twolves line is super high however its tricky because Boston really spreads out their minutes and they are on a back to back. Im looking at Isiah Thomas and maybe Jae. On minnesota side I like KAT, zach and wiggins *** The Warriors and Hawks has a super high total. I like Curry and Klay, maybe Dray. If Bogut is out I may play Milllsap. One of my favorite games of the night is the Bucks and Lakers because the lakers are the lakers and the bucks have such a nicely defined 8 man rotation with the players getting big minutes. Jabari, Middleton, and Giannis. !!! On the Laker side, since D’Angelo was named a starter, I like him and maybe even Clarkson. The clips and suns has such a huge spread that I’m on the fence. Alex Len and or Mirza but oh lord the line makes this a very hard decision. I wrote a book sorry, just my process today.
Pretty spot on summary, Will. I am using Tobias tonight out of sheer volume of minutes and SVG loves him. On the IND/MIA game, I’m on Monta Ellis (same things as Tobias, volume of minutes and he’ll have the ball in his hands a bunch). I’m pretty much fading TOR/NY completely aside from Zingis. Pretty much the same guys you mention for BOS/MIN, except I’m using Turner over Crowder and I may take the flyer on Gorgui–other than his last game he’s been a stud lately. LAL/MIN–don’t sleep on MCW either. LAC/PHO–might throw a flier out there for Booker and I’m using Len; Crawford will be a staple but I don’t have any other space built in lineups for Clippers. The Vegas line frightens me too.
Love talking this stuff with y’all and sharing insights…let’s make DFSR readers the cream of the Daily Fantasy Basketball crop. Someone take home a GPP tonight!
I meant LAL/MIL when talking about MCW, obviously. My bust.
Will.. I’m with you on the fence with the Suns. So many nice punt plays on that team yet they yo-yo starters minutes around for some reason. They gave Phil “10 Day Contract” Pressey almost 30 minutes last night and Len was pretty much unstoppable and barely ticked over 20 minutes. Boggles the mind what their goal is with that roster. Their is zero upside to them winning another game so why on earth not run the younger guys 30+ a night to see what you have? Franchise is a mess.
Yeah that is true when wade is playing. But my last question is what about Whiteside? Bench or starting, that 25 points and 23 boards he grabbed the other night have me like he’s out to prove something and with Hartford being inconsent from time to time, I’m kinda hesitate to play him too with Vegas predicting this will be the highest scoring game. It’s tough for a monday.
I like Whiteside tonight; he doesn’t have much of a bench behind him (unless you count Amare and McBob as a competent bench), and IND plays tall with Mahinmi and Hill. And IND isn’t that great against bigs, I think.
Will, question for you. How many lineups do you run? I’ve always been a (1) lineup guy but looking over a bunch of GPPs from this basketball season seems like the guys who win almost never do so running (1) lineup. Thinking about experimenting. Not going to do the 100 lineup thing but curious what you and other guys on here do?
Thomas–I’m not Will, but what I do is find anywhere from 4-8 guys I like at each position (various price points) and build somewhere between 6-10 lineups, using each player multiple times in lineups. I put most money towards leagues, but each lineup is entered into GPPs. I’ve found that with research on who provides value (i.e., reading this blog), this strategy mitigates risk and has kept me playing on the same money for quite a while now. Hopefully one day I stumble upon that GPP winning lineup. A few weeks ago I had 7 of the 9 players that would have won the main $2 GPP on a Wednesday in FD, and the other 2 guys who would have made it a winner I had in other lineups.
Can we trust Kobe on the 2nd night of a back to back? Looks great in the lineup builder for the projected pts/$. Tempting but I also like Crawford given the spread and his 5x+ over the last 5 games
FD Lineup
Isaiah
Teague
Mayo
Lavine
Anthony
PG
Millsap
Dieng
Len
Any opinions?
Good lineup, but I’m not too high on PG tonight. Too risky for my blood and MIA is slow and solid on D. Almost the same can be said about Melo, but he’s a much better play than PG, IMO. Otherwise, think it’s a great lineup.
Thanks Casey. That’s where I am headed. I get why you wouldn’t do it in Cash games but for GPP if the goal is to win the thing seems like you would be better off running 5 lineups at a $1 in a $1 GPP versus 1 at $5 in a $5GPP. No room for error with one lineup and it seems like night after night one guy burns me like Dieng the other night. Thanks for the input.
The downsides of my system are 1) you have to start with a little bit of money in order to improve your odds to break even (gotta bet to win and all that) and 2) it’s becoming way too time-consuming for me. No wonder all those jerks use bots and automate things.
Channing Frye cleared to play and will suit up tonight. Will be interesting to see where his minutes come from. If he subs in for Love or Thompson or both.
I normally run 1 Cash LU in anywhere from 10-15 contests. At times I hedge the cash with some variation. Regarding GPP, It depends on the night and how I like the slate. Sometimes I play as many as 20 diff LU’s but that is normally rare for me. I like to build a core of 4 or 5 players I really like and play variations on them. This year the tournaments seem to be tougher than ever to take down. Please baby jesus let us all avoid any land mines tonight! I forgot to mention that I do like crawford and Julius randle too. Regarding Dieng My regency bias is strong. I’m still jabbing imaginary voodoo pins in the dud from the other day. He will probably go off. In fact, I just talked myself into playing em some LOL
Thanks Will. Yeah, that’s what I have been seeing. Notice in the slams that you have a number of people rolling multiple lineups all based around 3-4 guys they seem to really love and then plug and play the punt/riskier guy plays around the core.
Casey. I get the time consuming thing. Think I will try (5) lineups tonight and give it a spin. As far as I can tell the script thing only helps you so much because you can’t edit lineups with it? You can load with it to make it easy but you have to load early to get in the GPPS and then news will almost always have you wanting to alter things…
Thanks again guys!
Question for you all: how do you define a “cash game” play vs. a GPP play, especially when talking about a cheap player? The explanations of this have confused me to date…if a $4K guy provides 25 points and pays >6x his salary, isn’t he a good play in both formats? I don’t make a distinction between the two types of lineups (enter the same lineups into cash games and GPPs)…I may be behind the curve on this.
For me it’s about risk. Very rarely take $4k guys in cash games. Tend to think of cash plays as safe with high floors and GPP more risk with potential high ceiling guys.
Thanks, Thomas. Let’s use Korver as an example–he’s paying off 5x regularly of late. So would you use him in a cash game, especially if it allows you to stack up with safe plays at other positions? And since his ceiling is well defined, he’s not a good GPP guy, right?
Anthony Tolliver out 2-4 weeks. Tobias should get LOTS of run in Detroit.
Wiggins or Crawford?
Cash Plays for me are all about safety, matchup, opportunity (which really means secure minutes and a high usage), and a high floor. When we say cash, we are talking about 50/50, double ups, and head to heads (don’t go there unless you are skilled). To be profitable long term, you need to approach these a little differently than the tournaments. your goal is to be consistent but not necessarily going for the moon like you need to do to take down large tournaments. Some people playing small stakes do play some of the 50’50’s like tournaments. My observation is it is very different for some people who play 2 – 5 dollars or maybe even 10.00 a day. If you take a risk and lose, no big deal. Contrast that with entering $250 – $500 and for some players WAY MORE every slate. you can’t be cute with your entries doing this. You have to be as safe as you can while scoring high enough to win. GPP’s are about nailing standard deviations on payers with high ceilings.
Thanks, Will and Thomas. The definition of “cash game” as double up, 50/50, and H2H makes more sense now. I generally avoid those in NBA. Mostly 20 team leagues and GPP for me. I generally have a safety mindset too, aiming for 300…but I’ve found that if you aim for 300, 360 is a distinct possibility any given night with some breaks. I definitely fall in the middle in the two types of players you describe.
Casey… I agree with Will. About safety for me and that safety can vary night to night player to player. My mindset with cash games is which 9 guys get me close to 300 with the least amount risk. For GPP it’s which 9 guys can get me to 360+ with risk involved.
Wade is in. Can we please get some clarity on Kyrie
Good–I don’t have to change anything. I’m approaching CLE tonight as if Kyrie can’t play. Playmaking, ball-dominant Bron all the way.
Ok after all my gut feelings and options, this is my final lineup
R Jackson
J Teague
J Crawford
M Ellis
LeBron
Deng
Dieng
J Parker
Whiteside
NM – i see he’s playing bit is still ill. hmmm.
According to Rotoworld Kyrie will play tonight, Shumpert is OUT and Tyson is Doubtful
I like Len tonight. The only good DvP matchup vs LAC and his production on nights he plays more than 20 minutes are pretty high
Wade playing
I like Len too. for me Im going back n forth between him and KAT
I actually ended up with both Len and KAT because the raw point projection with the latter is too good to pass up at that price. Here is my DK lineup:
Lowry
Crawford
Barnes
Parker
KAT
Clarkson
Dieng
Len
Good luck everyone!
Kyle Korver crushing dreams. Starting to believe the theory he got real good for a week hoping to be traded and then back to garbage-o when he wasn’t moved.
and looks like we are heading for 400 again… smh.. out of hand. 300 is no longer safe 🙁
328 with Mirza and Crawford to play best lineup I’ve ever made if they do well
Total props to the system for the Al Horford. I made a lineup with 2,000 still unspent but I like it. Sitting at 344.70 with Jamal Crawford left to play. It will likely go close to 375 but dang its getting hard to make a buck on FD. last year I swear consistent 350 – 375 would earn a pretty nice living. I don’t know if its way more mass entry folks or what. You have to essentially be perfect every time 🙁 maybe I’m gonna just focus my efforts on cash only instead of chasing the high dollar carrots.
I was in 1st in the FD $250K shot up until about 15 minutes ago. Then D-Wade fouled Ellis and sent that effing game into overtime, and Boston hanging around and giving Rubio free throw after free throw knocked me down further. Zach LaVine’s missed free throw cost me 2 G’s. But still in 6th place right now and in 5th in the $100K tourney. I have been crapping my pants for like an hour with all the anxiety. Up 3 G’s…thanks Giannis and Horford!
Looking down the board, I am going to fall a bit if Teletovic and Humphries hit around 15-20 pts, and some Crawford owners will inevitably catch me. Exhilarating ride though.
Congrats !!! Giannis made me lots of dough too. And the stupid overtime games are getting old
Thanks. I’ve never sniffed this glorious rarefied air before…391 points is crazy to me. Never thought I would b that close. And if I would have made maybe one better choice in hindsight (Redick over LaVine) the grand prize would still be in reach.