NBA DFS Picks DraftKings + FanDuel Expert Lineup Building Strategy 5/26

Tuesday’s late-night window of games was full of some incredible basketball, as the Lakers rode an unbelievable Anthony Davis performance to even the series while Luka Doncic and Kawhi Leonard put on a duel at the Staples Center. Hope you found enough Joe Harris or Tim Hardaway Jr. to surely take down a tournament, but if not, let’s keep stringing together solid NBA DFS strategy and picks on DratKings and FanDuel until the pieces come together.

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NBA DFS Slate Starter: Picks & Strategy | May 26

Be sure to check out today’s NBA Strategy Show with Loughy and Josh, live at 10 a.m. ET!

Using If/Then Statements to Land on Value

With three games on tap, the goal is to find some strong stands against chalk when possible. Nothing jumps out today at first glance, but that’s the point; it’s very hard to get off the board on these smaller slates without making a strong prediction or two. Think the 76ers will obliterate the Wizards? Maybe some minimum-priced Chandler Hutchison can be your 1% play of the day. How about if you believe Rudy Gobert gets in early foul trouble containing Jonas Valanciunas? Get some Derrick Favors in your life.

And that’s today’s short-and-sweet short slate lesson of the day: if you’re struggling to find a way to get different from the thousands of lineups in these massive contests, ask yourself some if/then statements regarding popular plays. In other words, “if x happens to chalky player, then y benefits most,” and see if that doesn’t land you on some different value than the masses, so long as you aren’t spewing one-in-a-million takes. That’s what landed me on Cameron Payne yesterday, as asking “if Chris Paul is more hurt than the Suns are leading on, then Payne benefits most,” which was fortunately the difference-maker.

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So while aiming for the top on DraftKings and FanDuel again tonight, stay curious throughout the day. Pay careful attention to Awesemo ownership projections and the Boom/Bust tool throughout the afternoon, as there is no better way to find out which chalk plays might be garnering too much attention and could be worth shorting. And once you identify them, if there’s a clear beneficiary to the popular play getting in foul trouble or having a poor outing, that could be the perfect pivot to differentiate your lineups from the masses.

One Great Game, Two Not-So-Great Games

One of the nice things about writing the Slate Starter article in the postseason compared to the regular season is that betting lines are put up far earlier this time of year. That’s because there’s hardly any fluctuation from game-to-game, so it’s easy to just carry the line over to the next day and make minor changes as the money comes in. Head to OddsShopper and take a look at totals well ahead of tonight’s slate:

nba dfs daily fantasy basketball lineups strategy advice western conference eastern conference playoffs projections draftkings fanduel joel embiid russell westbrook

The Wizards are still inflating totals in the postseason. Not that this fact should shock us considering the Wizards played at the fastest pace in the league during the regular season by a wide margin, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the other two matchups on this slate. And considering how condensed the production is for the Wizards, it’s really easy to pair Russell Westbrook and Bradley Beal with the likes of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Tobias Harris and know they are underpriced plays in the best game environment of the evening.

In fact, the guess is that any lineup that doesn’t have at least two Sixers in it tomorrow will be contrarian. And depending where ownership comes in on Danny Green and Seth Curry — who look like two of the better sub-$5,000 values on both DraftKings and FanDuel — it could actually be three Sixers per lineup that ends up being the chalk build. But it’s hard to knock that strategy, as there is no doubt the Sixers are the best team in the best spot to perform tomorrow.

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Final Thoughts for Your NBA DFS Lineups

Sounds as though Donovan Mitchell might burn Salt Lake City to the ground if he gets held out of Game 2, so that’s fun. At $8,400 on DraftKings and $8,000 on FanDuel, he’s far from a priority unless you’re assuming 30-plus minutes right out of the gate. But considering he hasn’t appeared in a game since April 16th and was just late-scratched on Sunday, that seems like an unlikely outcome. Oh, and now the rest of the Jazz besides Rudy Gobert are borderline unplayable, even on just a three-game slate.
Julius Randle should still be crazy popular despite an abysmal Game 1 versus the Hawks. The lean is to avoid prioritizing him and Trae Young in that slugfest, but pairing the two together and hoping for a higher-than-expected total might be a solid tournament strategy.
Just play Embiid.

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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.