Daily Fantasy Basketball Injury News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 3/1/16

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.

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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

Alex Len is starting.
Earl Watson has come out publicly and said the Suns are going to "try something new" with a twin-towers approach of Len and Chandler. Knowing this, Len is a must play until he's something like $6,000 on DraftKings and FanDuel. Love him tonight.

Kobe is out, and we're bumping D'Angelo Russell, Anthony Brown, and Julius Randle
Russell looks to be the biggest beneficiary, boasting a gaudy 27.8% usage with Bryant off the floor this season. Anthony Brown played 32 minutes in his first game back (with Kobe out), and Julius Randle sees a 10% usage bump as well with Kobe off the floor. Basically, this makes every Laker who you can project for reasonable playing time a nice play, since they'll spread around 30 minutes and 30% of the usage during those minutes.

What We're Waiting to Know

Stephen Curry - Will his ankle hold him out?
Easily the biggest shoe to drop tonight, for obvious reasons. Redistributing 32% usage and 34 minutes is huge, and the primary Warriors benefactors will be Klay Thompson (whose usage rises to 30 with Curry off the court), and Shaun Livingston, who would likely play a starter's minutes. It has the domino effect of making the game a lot less likely to be a blowout, which is a boon to the projections of everyone involved. For now, I'm operating under the assumption that he's playing, but I'll be cautious until we know for sure (if we ever do).

Andre Iguodala's status
Normally I'd list two guys on the same team in the same write-up, but Steph just impacts too much to lump him in with others. Iggy is a little different. The most dramatic benefactor his absence would be Harrison Barnes, whom the system already likes. If Curry and Iggy are BOTH out, Barnes becomes a phenomenal play.

Evan Fournier - in or out?
Fournier is highly doubtful for now, and both Oladipo and Hezonja were terrific values in his absence. I'd be happy to roll it back with both for tonight's slate in any format.

Will Derrick Rose return?
Reports are that he will likely be back. If so, this should depress the value of all of the guys on the Bulls, who are enjoying his absence quite a bit. I wouldn't touch him personally, as one never knows what will happen when a guy returns from injury. Tony Snell takes the biggest hit here, which is nice, since he was a non-entity anyway.

Wayne Ellington - How will his concussion symptoms effect Tuesday?
He was looking like a terrific play until he left last night's game with concussion-like symptoms. I'm assuming he'll miss this one, which will open it up for Bojan Bogdanovic and Markel Brown. I like Bojan much better, if you're choosing between them.

Arron Afflalo's status
Still being listed as questionable, and I'd love to grab Galloway if he's going to play starter's minutes again. Afflalo went through shootaround, though, so I'm assuming he'll be out there.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Alex Len - FD 5200 DK 5200
Opponent - CHA
FD Proj. Pts - 28.83 DK Proj. Pts - 29.34
No surprise here. Price and opportunity mismatch. Easy play against a less than tough defensive front-court in Charlotte.

Victor Oladipo - FD 7000 DK 7200
Opponent - DAL
FD Proj. Pts - 35.04 DK Proj. Pts - 36.53
Another no-brainer if Fournier is out. Oladipo played more minutes and had more opportunity with those minutes in Fournier's absence last game, and since that looks to be the case again tonight, Oladipo would be a play almost regardless of match-up once again.

Carmelo Anthony - FD 8900 DK 8500
Opponent - POR
FD Proj. Pts - 41.01 DK Proj. Pts - 43.07
Lots of minutes and shots for him, a weak position tonight, and not a lot of places to spend up tonight. This surprises me a little bit since I personally like a few other bigger money guys better, but that's the power of optimization! Let's us know where to spend up, and where to go cheap.

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