FanDuel daily picks: Fantasy basketball lineup – April 8

The NBA has eight games on Saturday, but three are early, leaving five games for tonight’s main DFS fantasy basketball contests. Get your team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.

The NBA has a split schedule on Saturday, with three games tipping before the main schedule: the Bulls at the Nets at 5:00 p.m. ET, and both the Celtics at the Hornets and the Pacers at the Magic at 6:00 p.m. ET. While FanDuel does have some “early only” game options featuring these three games, the “main” slate begins in the evening and thus will be the main focus of this article.

The “Main” action tips at 7:00 p.m. ET with the Heat at the Wizards and the Bucks at the 76ers. Ninety minutes later, the Clippers are at the Spurs. Finally, the late games are the Jazz at the Trail Blazers at 10:00 p.m. ET, and the Pelicans at the Warriors at 10:30 p.m. ET.

For storylines, we’ve got “teams with something to play for” and “teams with nothing to lose.” For the first category, play the same impact players the way that you always would. For the latter, deploying their main players is a very risky proposition.

Sometimes the teams help you…like the Pelicans already announcing that DeMarcus Cousins and Anthony Davis aren’t playing. Sometimes, though, there’s more mystery. The Spurs are locked into place and sat all of their rotation players on Friday…what is to be expected from them on Saturday? When at all possible, I’m avoiding situations like that.

The Heat, Wizards, Bucks, Clippers, Jazz and Trail Blazers are all still competing for playoff positioning and thus should be good sources of somewhat predictable value. For teams like the Pelicans, who have nothing to lose and a lot of guys sitting, it’ll be more a game of trying to predict which of their minimum-priced guys that never play will step up and get the numbers on Saturday.

My favorite plays of the day can be found on the following slides in FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks. Each day in order to offer a variety of price points at each position, you can find two slides for each position — one for high-salary options and one for high-value options. Each pick is ranked on a scale of 1-5 stars to indicate the confidence in the pick. The final slide of this post has more detail on what each level means, but in short, more stars means more confidence in the selection on a points-per-dollar basis.

Important note: Every day the goal of this post is not to give you a copy-and-paste lineup. Instead, each selection is given while highlighting the factors you need to consider when building a customized lineup for yourself. If you want to see an example lineup, you can find it on the final slide of the post, but I suggest you adjust your lineup to fit your personal taste.

To keep up with all of FanSided’s DFS NBA coverage, head over to the fantasy basketball hub where each day you can find a post like this tailored for FanDuel, as well as one specifically designed for usage on DraftKings.

In this post, all salary and “fantasy points” references are to FanDuel scoring system and salaries. If you have any additional questions or thoughts or are looking for updates as we approach tipoff, follow @FanSidedFantasy on Twitter or you can follow my account @ProfessorDrz or find me on my home turf of The Hoops Lab.

Let’s take a look at your best options for both studs and value players at each position.