NBA DFS Picks DraftKings + FanDuel Expert Lineup Building Strategy 2/26

I’m going to save my normal recap of Thursday’s slate for my first section today. I feel like it makes for an important talking point, and I’m legitimately curious as to whether or not I made the right decision. I hope you can tell by now that I will never pretend to know all the answers; staying open-minded to other’s opinions is not only a huge part of this game, but a borderline necessity. That’s why I encourage all of you to join the Premium Slack over at Awesemo with your Express or Premium memberships. And if you haven’t already, jump on over to awesemo.com/joinNBA to join our community that talks DFS religiously throughout the day. Now, let’s get to Friday’s Slate Starter, where hopefully we can identify a few NBA DFS picks and strategies to utilize on DraftKings and FanDuel for this massive nine-game slate.

Be sure to check out the Slate Starter podcast, featuring yours truly and Rynpak, to get the first look at NBA DFS lineups for today’s slate!

NBA DFS Slate Starter: Picks & Strategy | Feb. 26

Mistake? Or Bad Break?

Thursday’s slate could not have been more frustrating on this end. Nearly everything went right for my NBA DFS lineups except one major thing: Being way underweight on Immanuel Quickley. Simply put, I didn’t trust Tom Thibodeau to give him the minutes despite how sensational the rookie has proven to be in limited time this season. With Elfrid Payton on the shelf, I expected Derrick Rose and Alec Burks to eat up the lion’s share of the minutes at the guard spots. After all, Thibodeau has simply done this too many times to rookies in the past, and I felt like the field was just shoeing Quickley in for 25-plus minutes like it was a given. And sure enough, I was right.

Only one small problem: Quickley went absolutely ballistic in his mere 16 minutes of run, with the blowout at the end (where he admittedly did very little) getting him up to 20. If you had told me Quickley would only play 20 minutes on Thursday, I would have shorted him again in this spot — and at his ownership — 100 times out of 100. Granted, I was acutely aware he was still the second-best DraftKings per-minute player on the Knicks (1.08), and his $4,100 over there could certainly be 6x’d or better in limited minutes.

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But Quickley has been playing almost exclusively as Payton’s backup. In fact, he and Payton have shared the court for only 22 minutes this entire season. Therefore, if he wasn’t in the starting lineup, it would be tough to imagine him cutting into Rose’s minutes. So if you were to peg Rose for 32 minutes like I was, no chance I would approximate Quickley’s court-time to make him in the realm of playable at nearly 40% ownership.

I know I’m bitter. And certainly no awards are handed out for “Best Contrarian Player on the Slate” at the end of the night. But as the afternoon progressed and I kept hearing the irrational love for Quickley based on de facto minutes over and over, I dug my heels in and capped him at 5% on both sites. And I got excited as we hit lock and I saw his outrageous ownership on both sites, as I was convinced I had the better end of it. I got absolutely obliterated as a result, but I’m still convinced I had the better end of it.

The lesson here (I hope) is that I made the best decision based on my own research. I’m sure a bunch of you willingly played him because nearly everyone across the industry said to do it. And hey, I’m not ridiculous enough to not see where they were coming from: the matchup was sublime, he was certainly going to see the floor in one way or the other, and he is no doubt very good at the game of basketball. But him leading the Knicks in raw points despite only 20 minutes? That feels like an outlier. Anyway, I hope the public enjoys my money tonight because I’m coming back for it with a vengeance.

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Reacting to Your Lineups

Now that I got that off my chest, let’s look forward to Friday’s slate. There is a later 7:30 p.m. EST lock, with a staggering seven games locking by 8 p.m. EST. There’s then a two-hour break before the duo of 10 p.m. EST games, meaning we should have plenty of time to pivot as necessary.

I talk frequently about the necessity to react to how your lineups are doing as the earlier games are going on, so let’s dig into that a little further. Let’s say you eat the Pistons chalk that’s certainly going to exist tomorrow (it’s the only value spot that sticks out as of now). If they all end up smashing, it really doesn’t matter how chalky you are heading into the final two games. You have already locked in fantasy production; you might as well fire up the best plays. But if your NBA DFS lineups look like mine did on Thursday without Quickley, start making moving on to lower-owned plays like they’re the last chopper out of Vietnam.

In other words, do whatever you need to get in order to get off the chalk in a bad lineup. If you have an awful, zeroed-out DraftKings lineup with only Stephen Curry remaining, why not leave $1,000 on the table and pivot to a drastically lower-owned LaMelo Ball at $8,700 to try and salvage? Admittedly, Ball averages 1.2 DraftKings points per minute with Devonte’ Graham off the floor this season, compared to Curry’s 1.45. But at the ownership I’m sure we can expect for Curry as opposed to Ball, it could be worth it to make the move.

A relevant example for FanDuel revolves around power forwards Kyle Kuzma and P.J. Washington. Kuzma sits at $5,700, while Washington is just below him at $5,600, both of which lock at 10 p.m. EST. If I need a heroic performance to cash, I’m going to want the lower-owned of the two. So utilizing Awesemo’s ownership projections, I’m most likely pivot to the lower-owned option.

But if I’m fortunate enough to be leading a tournament, I’ll most likely just jam in the higher-projected player and live with the result. Cody Zeller is currently questionable, so despite the cheaper price tag, I might be pegging Washington in for slightly more raw points. That’s especially true with Dennis Schroder slated to return for the Lakers, which could cut even further into Kuzma’s offensive outlook for Friday. Every situation is different, but be in the habit of overreacting to news rather than under-reacting to it. I promise it will pay off over the long term.

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Final Thoughts for Your NBA DFS Lineups

Center is scarce on this slate unless Bam Adebayo sits to boost Kelly Olynyk‘s outlook or the Zeller news opens up Bismack Biyombo. I currently have Rudy Gobert ($7,400) as the best point-per-dollar NBA DFS pick on DraftKings, while Enes Kanter ($6,300) has that honor on FanDuel, but neither are priorities for me on this slate. It should be a fun slate to get contrarian at the position for once.
It’s just after midnight on the West Coast, and I see zero obvious value whatsoever. Random injury news should change that, but if not, we could be looking at tight builds on both sites.
Jaylen Brown is $8,600 on DraftKings and $8,400 on FanDuel with Kemba Walker back. If you see him in any of my lineups, assume I’ve been kidnapped and send help.
Just play Trae Young.

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Author

Eric Lindquist

Eric Lindquist hails from Sioux Falls, South Dakota (yes, that’s the one with Mount Rushmore). A steady diet of three SportsCenters a day at an early age led to his obsession with sports, one that 30 years later is paying dividends for him as a successful DFS player and sports bettor. Despite over half a million dollars in net career earnings, he’s most passionate about helping others achieve their financial goals, an energy you can witness on the daily in his current role as a host and analyst at Stokastic. He’s a former Division I golfer at Iowa State, wishes he was a former Minnesota sports fan, and is a proud father to a 100-pound Bernese Mountain dog named Duke that wishes he could just eat people food instead of the crap he and his wife feed him on the daily.