Best NBA DFS Picks for Thursday Night (3/26)

Late news messed up yesterday’s NBA DFS Core a bit. If you were around to react to it, though, it was honestly for the better. Once we found out Oscar Tshiebwe wouldn’t start Julian Reese looked like the better play and he went off. Our other core plays were both solid, so if you played them you were on your went to cashing. You just needed one of Luka or Wemby to get the job done.

I also handed out some fantastic GPP plays, as I like Duren, Giddey, and Jalen at low ownership. They all topped 50 fantasy points. Tonight’s NBA DFS slate is tiny (3 games) since its MLB Opening Day, but there’s still money to be mad. Let’s build!

🏀 Slate Overview

Top injury news to monitor: Trey Murphy, Dejounte Murray, Jalen Suggs, Precious Achiuwa, and Killian Hayes.

Best value plays: Devin Carter & Coby White, depending on news.

Top game to attack: Pelicans vs. Pistons. 226.5 total, 4.5 pt spread.

Top stud: Jalen Duren & Paolo Banchero. Top 2 projections and under-priced for matchups.

Blowout risks: Kings vs. Magic (16 pt spread).

NBA DFS Top Picks for Wednesday

Daniss Jenkins ($6.2k)
Jalen Duren ($8.4k)
Paolo Banchero ($9.1k)

Update: I’m playing 2-3 Pistons. Removed Ausar due to a projection drop. Still a good play and playing big minutes. Total smash play if Tobias (Q) is out. And in most lineups I’d also play Banchero. In SE or cash games, I would start with this core most of the time. They’re the best plays of the slate. In big GPPs or if you want to get different, consider pivoting from Duren or Banchero to KAT, LaMelo, or Brunson – in that order. We can entertain Pels comebacks from Pistons and I also really like Kon. For value, Devin Carter, Coby White, and Tristan da Silva are all fine. Queen/Fears/Herbert also look viable. But each of them has risk so I’d try to spread them out across many lineups.

🏀 New to DFS? Core plays are the guys you put in most or all of your lineups. They have strong matchups, clear paths to big minutes, and prices that make it easy to fit premium players elsewhere.

We will want a lot of Magic and Pelicans on this slate. Detroit did play last night, but they’re at home and have a terrific matchup in front of them. Assuming they don’t rest a bunch of guys, Jenkins and Duren should play a ton, have good usage, and smash in a fast-paced setting against a poor Pels defense.

I don’t see much reason to fade those guys and we can consider 1-2 more Pistons if we want to push it, depending on ownership.

Banchero is a difficult fade. The logic to fading him is ownership and blowout risk, but he’s not even that expensive and he has the best projection of the slate. I’ll probably just play him.

There are other borderline core plays, depending on news. Ie, if the Kings are down to 8-9 bodies we may cram one of their values in. If the top 2 Pelicans are out it’d be tough to fade Zion, etc. Stay tuned.

Strategy

I don’t like the idea of fading Jenkins/Duren. It’s a small slate so at some point we do just need to play some of the top plays. Banchero is someone we could get away from with some level of confidence and strategy, though, whether it be targeting Magic players or going and getting a Knicks stud or LaMelo etc.

Ownership isn’t out yet, so that will do a lot of the talking. But the basic strategy for this slate is to load up on Magic/Pels and then target a couple of low-owned plays. It remains to be seen just how much the Knicks and Hornets will factor into that approach.

🟢 SAFE – Duren and Banchero. There’s blowout risk for Banchero, but he and Duren look great.

🟡 BOOM/BUST – Jenkins. He can be volatile and he’s not a punt anymore. Clear role and upside, though.

Best NBA DFS Game Environments for 3/26

🏀 New to DFS? We look for games with high point totals because more points scored = more fantasy points available. The “total” is the sportsbook’s projected combined score for both teams. Higher is generally better for DFS.

Pelicans vs. Pistons (226.5 total)

A dumb game like the Knicks vs. Hornets definitely has what it takes to mess everything up and be the game of the slate. Due to that, especially if it goes overlooked, I will definitely go out of my way to be slightly over the field on it.

That said, the best game is easily New Orleans vs. Detroit. The Pistons let the Hawks drop 130 on them last night and they’ll be a bit tired, so that could leave the door open for another shootout.

We definitely want Pistons options, so running it back with some Pels comes pretty natural tonight.

Thursday’s NBA DFS GPP Pivots

🏀 New to DFS? GPP stands for Guaranteed Prize Pool — the big tournaments. To win tournaments, your lineup has to be different from everyone else’s. A “GPP pivot” is a player who will be lower-owned than his upside deserves, giving you a tournament edge if he performs well.

Brunson/KAT
Knueppel

Update: Knicks guys are unowned, apparently. Brunson is in play but I prefer KAT. Probably need to fade Banchero to play one of them. Knueppel has a great matchup against a Knicks team that gives up a ton of threes. He’s cheap exposure to this game across from KAT and he doesn’t project to be very popular.

No ownership yet, but if I had to guess, the Knicks stars and most of the Hornets will not be very popular despite this being a small slate.

Orlando and Detroit (rightfully so) should garner a lot of the ownership. That said, it could be hard to find truly great GPP options at a high level since the slate is tiny and nobody is even that expensive.

Brunson and KAT are over-priced regardless of slate size. The matchup, game total, their production, and their projections all combine to make them a bit too expensive for my liking. But that also should make at least one of them low-owned, and that’s something we can exploit in big tournaments.

🏀 Not Sure Where to Start?

If you’re newer to DFS and feeling overwhelmed, here’s how to approach it:

Know what contest you’re entering before you pick a single player. Cash games (50/50s, head-to-head) pay out the top half of the field. Your goal is a safe, reliable lineup. GPP tournaments pay out the top 15-20%, with most of the prize pool at the very top. Your goal there is ceiling. These two goals require completely different lineups.
Shorthanded teams are your best friend. When a team is missing rotation players, the guys who are left get more minutes, more shots, and more fantasy opportunities than their salary reflects. That’s the formula. Check every team’s injury report before building — not as an afterthought, but as step one.
Avoid blowout games unless you’re on the right side. High game totals tell you where the points are — the total is the sportsbook’s projected combined score. Higher total = more points on the floor = more fantasy points available.
Minutes are the currency of DFS. Always ask: how many minutes is this guy going to play? A player can’t score if he’s on the bench. Before you add anyone to your lineup, ask yourself: is his role clearly defined tonight? Does he have a path to 28+ minutes? Then that guy is probably viable.
Understand floor vs. ceiling before you decide who to play. Floor is the minimum you can reasonably expect from a player. Ceiling is the maximum upside if everything goes right. In cash games, you want floor — guys who almost certainly hit their value. In tournaments, you want ceiling — guys who can go nuclear.
Ownership can be your edge — use it. In GPPs, the field chases names or super owned options. We can leverage that by playing comparable plays that are garnering lower ownership.
Don’t pay for a big name if the context is bad. Salary doesn’t equal value. A star in a tough spot is often worse than a role player in a great one.