FanDuel daily picks: Fantasy basketball lineup – April 17

The NBA playoffs continue with two games in Monday’s DFS fantasy basketball competitions. Get your team in the game with FanSided’s FanDuel daily picks.

The NBA had back-to-back big days over the weekend to kick off the playoffs, with close games, upsets and buzzer beaters all in play. They hope the momentum continues on Monday, with two games scheduled. The Pacers tip in Cleveland at 7:00 p.m. ET, then the Grizzlies are at the Spurs for Game 2 at 9:30 p.m. ET. With such a short slate of games, there will be a lot of player overlap across teams. However, there is still value to be had and ways to separate your team from the competition.

The most competitive positions on Monday are point guard and small forward. The strong argument can be made that the three best players on Monday all play small forward, and since your team can only play two of them, this is one of the first main decision points. The point guard position isn’t so top-heavy, but there are four main options instead of three, and the talent is distributed more across the price spectrum. Thus, these two positions will shape the backbone of most teams. Both power forward and center have one option that is priced as being clearly better than his contemporaries…but is the high-priced player really the best option? Finally, shooting guard has no elite options, but one mercurial prodigal son seems to be reestablishing himself as a potential impact player in the postseason. Let’s go through this in more detail in the slides that follow.

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.