NBA DFS Picks: Can the Nuggets Hold Serve in Denver? (April 29)

Saturday’s NBA action brings forth a new series with Game 1 of the Phoenix Suns at Denver Nuggets. The fun tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET on DraftKings and FanDuel. There are several options in the player pool worth analyzing to find the top NBA DFS building blocks and NBA DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel lineups, including LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry and more.

NBA DFS Picks Today: Saturday, April 29

Core Play of the Day — Nikola Jokic: Denver Nuggets-Phoenix Suns

Stokastic’s Preliminary Point Projections: DraftKings: 60.59 | FanDuel: 57.35
Stokastic’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: DraftKings 67.4% | FanDuel: 59.4%
DFS Salary: DraftKings: $12,400 | FanDuel: $17,000

In a far-from-surprising twist, Nikola Jokic is actually the best fantasy point-per-dollar option on both DraftKings and FanDuel. The edge is slight in that ratio, but he does have a 10 fantasy point advantage against the rest of the player pool when comparing median expectations.

Jokic also has the highest projected popularity for the top multiplier slot on the main NBA DFS sites. Of course, this brings some game theory into play, and we can actually “leverage” against the field just by moving Jokic from Captain/MVP to the flex/utility slot on some rosters.

It is hard to infer postseason production from regular-season results since the games tend to slow down, defenses tighten and the key members of the rotations see higher minutes. However, it is somewhat comforting to know that in the two games he played against Phoenix this season, the former MVP averaged 36.2 minutes and 20 field goal attempts with nearly 70 fantasy points.

The Suns play defense differently after the Kevin Durant-Mikal Bridges deal, and they allowed a shorthanded Clippers team to score 115.6 points per game. Denver is finally fully healthy for once in the playoffs, and with this being a home game, expect them to come out firing on all cylinders.

Kevin Durant: Phoenix Suns-Denver Nuggets

Stokastic’s Preliminary Point Projections: DraftKings: 48.61 | FanDuel: 47.65
Stokastic’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: DraftKings 53.4% | FanDuel: 48.3%
DFS Salary: DraftKings: $10,600 | FanDuel: $15,500

Speaking of Durant, he checks in with the second-highest fantasy projection, just edging out teammate Devin Booker. This is a coinflip situation between these two. While they both have 60 fantasy point upside, Durant has the safer baseline foundation. Booker has the slightly higher salary on both sites, and with the slightly lower median projection, he is just not getting picked up as quickly by optimizers.

If building one lineup, the prevailing wisdom would be to put Jokic in the highest multiplier slot and then add in Durant. For tournaments, however, moving to Booker in the multiplier and Jokic in the next slot allows us to create a unique roster build that doesn’t lose out too much on the overall median projection.

Jamal Murray: Denver Nuggets-Phoenix Suns

Stokastic’s Preliminary Point Projections: DraftKings: 41.09 | FanDuel: 39.25
Stokastic’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: DraftKings 52.1% | FanDuel: 43.8%
DFS Salary: DraftKings: $9,400 | FanDuel: $14,500

The wrinkle this postseason is that both Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. are healthy and able to keep teams from collapsing on Jokic while also contributing on offense. Though that does make Jokic a little less appealing from sheer volume, it does help his efficiency.

Murray is the secondary facilitator and scorer, who also is likely to get a couple of minutes per game running the entire show when Jokic takes a rare break. That makes Murray a viable candidate as the featured fantasy option around lineup number 12 to 15 for those building out multiple rosters. Porter Jr. starts to pop up in the top multiplier slot around lineups number 20 to 25.

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Additional NBA DFS Building Blocks Pick — Sports Betting Opportunities

Chris Paul is a fine DFS option, but keep in mind that with Booker emerging and Durant on the team, the soon-to-be 37-year-old, future Hall of Famer does not have to carry this team.

Tonight he has an assist prop of 9.5, and in the first round, he topped that mark only. Of course, the fewest assists he had was seven, and he did that twice. So while he is going to get crooked numbers, double-digits may not be in the cards.

NBA Bet Pro has Paul projected for 39.7 minutes and 7.77 assists. This equates to a 62% chance of falling short of the 10 assists needed to surpass this milestone and at -145 at BetMGM, this wager has a steady 3.1% expected ROI.

Did you know that you can get two free months of Stokastic+ Platinum for signing up and making your first bet at BetMGM? Claim here today!

Extreme Discount Dandies

Torrey Craig: Should start and play minutes in the mid-20s. He plays within his skillset and knows he is on the court for defense and to do the little things. Though he does not look for his shot, he is more than willing to take 3-point attempts when open and could get a couple of transition looks.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope: He is a better option against teams that push the pace, but his defense and ability to be a tertiary scorer keep him on the floor in the half-court sets as well. Hardly an exciting option and it would be a shock to see him with more than 25 fantasy points, but he should push 20 in most games.

Bismack Biyombo: Likely to fill in for Ayton, he should see around a dozen minutes with a nice salary on DraftKings and a little upside on FanDuel where blocks and steals are each worth three points.

DeAndre Jordan: Played in only three round-one games for 13 total minutes. Could see time against Deandre Ayton when Jokic is off the court if Ayton stays on. Jordan is a DraftKings-only play where he is at the $1,000 minimum salary.

Final Thoughts on NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today

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Author

Eric MacPherson

Eric "EMac" MacPherson won the 2007 Fantasy Baseball grand prize (trip for two to the MLB All-Star game) in the Roto format on ESPN. He won again in 2008, this time in the H2H format. As one of the early adopters of daily fantasy sports, EMac has been providing content for baseball and basketball as well as both professional and college football since 2012 for a variety of websites including DraftKings Playbook, FanVice, RotoWorld, Daily Fantasy Bootcamp, and RotoGrinders. He is well into his third decade of fantasy sports and has a wealth of knowledge and experience. Follow him on Twitter @EMacDFS or contact EMac by emailing [email protected].