NBA DFS Picks DraftKings + FanDuel Expert Lineup Building Strategy 4/5

It was Sunday funday if you found yourself onto the Pelicans and Magic players in bulk yesterday. With news dropping right before lock that Lonzo Ball would be a go and the Magic would be down to eight players, there was yet again a substantial edge to be had by late swapping. It’s what is preached the most here at the Slate Starter article and podcast, so hopefully you were able to take advantage. But on to Monday we go, so let’s find some NBA DFS picks to take your lineups to the top on DraftKings and FanDuel.

Be sure to check out the Slate Starter podcast, featuring yours truly and Rynpak, to get the first look at the slate and make NBA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel!

NBA DFS Slate Starter: Picks & Strategy | April 5

Best Values Meet the Best Game Environments

Monday’s seven-game slate is different from anything this entire season. Due to the Men’s NCAA National Championship game tipping off at 6:20 p.m. ET, six of Monday’s seven games lock at 7 p.m. ET, with the Suns – Rockets the lone 8 p.m. ET tip-off. That means late swap — the bread and butter of all top NBA DFS players — will be borderline irrelevant tonight.

Sure, there will most likely be an influx of news to react to in the waning minutes leading up to lock. But taking advantage of the opposition by better reacting to news will more than likely not be a feature of this slate. So with late swap off the table for the most part, target the top values and game environments and be done with it.

The funny thing about that is the best values seem to already be in the best game environments of the night. The Raptors already ruled out Kyle Lowry, and Fred VanVleet could join him with the hip injury he sustained in their 5o-plus point thrashing of the Warriors. They get the Wizards pace-up treatment, which pushed this total to 229, which is the highest-available number currently on the board by more than 10 points.

The only total that could exceed it is the only remaining game without one yet: Kings – Timberwolves. The entire Timberwolves backcourt, with the exception of Jordan McLaughlin and Anthony Edwards, is listed as doubtful, opening up a crazy amount of minutes for those two against the NBA’s worst-rated defense in the Kings. It also opens up an eternal amount of usage for center Karl-Anthony Towns, who has started stringing together ceiling games of late. He is certainly not free at $10,600 on DraftKings and $11,000 on FanDuel, but he will be worth it in a world where there should be an extreme amount of value at other positions.

[DUSTIN]

Back to Toronto: Malachi Flynn is a major talking point here. He saw a whopping 31 minutes of court time on Friday, which was aided by VanVleet’s early third quarter exit and some extra blowout run. Flynn played fantastically, though, going 7-for-12 from the field en route to 33.25 DraftKings points. Assuming he starts, he could garner a crazy amount of attention at only $3,500 on both sites. And it’s warranted, so have a plan in place in place should the VanVleet news be a true game-time decision.

The other usual suspects of a short-handed Raptors team are obvious by now. Jamming in Pascal Siakam and Gary Trent Jr. would feel like a fool-proof plan without Lowry and VanVleet on the floor. There should be a few other ancillary pieces from which to take shots, but ownership should really be condensed around Siakam, Trent and Flynn if the news breaks that way. Combine them up with a few of the aforementioned Timberwolves, and you should be in great shape on Monday’s slate.

If You Have Seven Point Guards, You Don’t Have Any

The Pistons have been a mess of epic proportions this season. Dead last in the Eastern Conference, they have made some questionable decisions in their pursuit to find a suitable point guard. 2020 lottery pick Killian Hayes was hurt early in the year, leading Delon Wright to some inconsistent minutes before the Pistons decided to ship him off to Sacramento for Cory Joseph. Derrick Rose wasn’t a suitable player to help them tank, so they sent him back into the arms of Tom Thibodeau in exchange to audition Dennis Smith Jr. That hasn’t gone all to swimmingly either, as another rookie in Saben Lee has been every bit as productive when given adequate time.

As if that wasn’t brutal enough, the Pistons have three other point guards they have tried to transition into faux shooting guards. Josh Jackson of busted lottery pick fame has inexplicably been a featured point guard on multiple occasions this season. Frank Jackson has laughably started at the two a number of times despite only ever playing point guard in his time with the Pelicans. And last but not least, they acquired ball-dominant guard Hamidou Diallo via trade with Oklahoma City, who is certainly a shooting guard but has assumed more point-like duties when playing alongside Jackson.

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That makes seven “point guards” in some capacity that are all being subjected to some weird form of torture where you’re a player in the NBA but, for all but maybe Hayes, not allowed to showcase any of the things that got you there. Plus, perhaps the two best current guards they’ve had this season, Rose and Wright, were sent away for seemingly nothing. That means from an NBA DFS perspective, this entire Pistons backcourt cluster is a stay-away until 1) there is clarity on who they’re trying to develop, or 2) some much, much cheaper price tags. So stick with targeting the frontcourt due to Mason Plumlee‘s scheduled rest day, and quickly move along.

Final Thoughts for Your NBA DFS Lineups

The Nets will most likely rest LaMarcus Aldridge and Blake Griffin on the second-half of this back-to-back. That would open up a bunch more minutes for Jeff Green and Nicolas Claxton, who could make for decent values in that scenario.
The Jazz are on another one of their ridiculous winning streaks (up to nine now). They blow everyone out of the water, but the likes of Luka Doncic and Kristaps Porzingis are only 5.5-point dogs at home. That makes pairing either Donovan Mitchell or Rudy Gobert with one of those two Mavericks one of the best tournament strategies, as a close game would likely result in a ceiling game from at least one from each side.
Just play Isaiah Stewart.

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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.