The NBA has 14 games in tonight’s regular season finale. Get your DFS fantasy basketball team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.
The NBA has 14 games going on Wednesday night, the last night of the regular season. That is, practically speaking, essentially every team in the NBA playing (two exceptions). Line-ups will lock at 8:00 PM ET with a whopping 10 games at once: the Nuggets at the Thunder, the Pistons at the Magic, the Hawks at the Pacers, the Mavericks at the Grizzlies, the Nets at the Bulls, the Bucks at the Celtics, the Timberwolves at the Rockets, the 76ers at the Knicks, the Wizards at the Heat and the Raptors at the Cavaliers. An hour later, the Spurs tip at the Jazz. Finally, at 10:30 PM ET, the last three games of the regular season witll be the Pelicans at the Trail Blazers, the Kings at the Clippers and the Lakers at the Warriors.
On the last day of the season, the teams with the most motivation to win include the Pacers, Bulls and Heat (all fighting for the last two playoff spots in the East) and the Clippers and Jazz (fighting for home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs). There may be other teams that can jostle their seeding slightly, but it is unclear whether those types of position battles are enough motivation to cause teams to play their best players. For example, the Cavaliers could still conceivably catch the Celtics for the top seed in the East, but they’ve already announced that LeBron James will sit out to rest…indicating that the seed is less important to them than the rest.
Thus, if I’m looking for star veterans that should produce like stars, I’m looking for players from those first five teams. Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Hassan Whiteside, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, Rudy Gobert…these types of names are the most likely to be trustworthy in what is otherwise a wide-open, take-your-pick last night of the season in the NBA. No one is completely safe, not even young players on lottery teams, as some teams limp or crawl to the finish line. This is an EXTREMELY high variance night in DFS…but the good thing is, the high variance nights are where the biggest opportunities lie. So, let’s get to it.
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.