🏀 NBA DFS Picks: Building Blocks for Friday, February 26th | Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

NBA DFS action on Friday, Feb. 26, locks at 7:30 p.m. EST with a nine-game main slate on Yahoo, DraftKings and FanDuel. SuperDraft is locking at 8:00 p.m. EST with seven games. Before you lock in your lineups on Yahoo, DraftKings, FanDuel and SuperDraft, make sure to check out Awesemo’s daily fantasy basketball picks, rankings and projections. Let’s dig into some daily fantasy basketball picks, including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, LeBron James, Domantas Sabonis and more.

Don’t forget to head over to the Awesemo NBA DFS HOME PAGE for more great written daily fantasy basketball content, including the FREE Deep Dive — the most in-depth article in the industry.

***Get a SNEAK PEEK with our free premium content of the day, the Awesemo Premium NBA Player Rankings.***

NBA DFS Picks: Building Blocks, Friday, February 26th

Yahoo Play of the Day – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Atlanta Hawks

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 47.06 | DraftKings: 48.01

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 43.6% | FanDuel 45.5% | DraftKings 22.2%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $36 | FanDuel $8,000 | DraftKings $8,800

This is the front end of a back-to-back for the Thunder, who play against Denver tomorrow. It has already been announced that Al Horford will be resting tonight, which moves Shai Gilgeous-Alexander into the upper echelon of projected Yahoo fantasy producers. Over their last 10 games, Atlanta has been playing at a league-average pace. However, their defense continues to be atrocious. In this stretch they are allowing 119.8 points per 100 possessions, which is the fourth most in the league.

When Horford is off the court, Gilgeous-Alexander essentially is the entire Thunder offense. Things are even thinner with Hamidou Diallo (groin) out of commission at least through the weekend. Utilizing NBA WOWY, we can see that while Gilgeous-Alexander’s fantasy rate does not dramatically increase without Horford, he sees an uptick in usage, assist rate and rebounding rate. This along with something approaching 20 field-goal attempts make Gilgeous-Alexander the Yahoo Play of the Day.

LeBron James: Los Angeles Lakers vs. Portland Trail Blazers

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 51.96 | DraftKings: 56.26

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 19.2% | FanDuel 27.9% | DraftKings 14.3%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $49 | FanDuel $10,500 | DraftKings $10,700

Even with 18 teams in action, it feels like we are a little light on superstars. Not to fear — there will of course be plenty of discount dandies to facilitate the ever-popular stars-and-scrubs roster construction, but we are likely to see some of the heaviest concentration on LeBron James. This is a favorable salary across the board for him and the matchup against Portland is definitely above average. Over their last 10 games, the Trail Blazers are allowing 117.3 points per 100 possessions, which is the sixth worst in the league.

With his remarkably consistent and efficient all-around game, LeBron’s fantasy production barely budges with or without Anthony Davis on the court. This season King James has played in ten games without Davis. Taking out the two outlier blowouts of a 36-point victory over Minnesota and Wednesday’s 25 point loss in Utah, we have a more realistic sample size of likely outcomes. This includes two overtime games and one other blowout loss where James lost 4 or 5 minutes from his typical rotation.

In these eight games, LeBron is averaging 35.8 minutes and 21.6 field-goal attempts. This culminates with 26.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, 9.3 assists and 1.3 combined blocks/steals. From a fantasy perspective, this is just over 50 fantasy points and works out to 1.45 fantasy points per minute. Dennis Schroder (health and safety protocol) is likely to return tonight, which will help provide another offensive threat.

Domantas Sabonis: Indiana Pacers vs. Boston Celtics

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 45.51 | DraftKings: 47.9

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 0.2% | FanDuel 9.2% | DraftKings 1.2%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $49 | FanDuel $9,900 | DraftKings $10,400

The masses have not been quick to catch on to the fact that Domantas Sabonis has become a phenomenal fantasy option. He has been in this article several times already this season, and I have no issues with making him a core building block again tonight. He is setting career highs with 21.5 points, 5.7 assists and 1.7 combined blocks/steals. While his 11.7 rebounds per game are a tick below last year, he ranks fifth in the league. Tristan Thompson, Daniel Theis, Robert Williams and even Jayson Tatum are not going to be slowing him down on Friday night. When constructing their stars-and-scrubs lineups, most gamers are going to pass on Sabonis in favor of flashier names like LeBron, Stephen Curry and Damian Lillard.

Good Value

Jerami Grant: Detroit Pistons vs. Sacramento Kings

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 41.15 | DraftKings: 41.88

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 28.2% | FanDuel 26.8% | DraftKings 22.4%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $30 | FanDuel $7,600 | DraftKings $7,300

On Wednesday Jerami Grant received a game off for the first time this season. That means it will have been around 72 hours since he last took the court, so he should be fresh. Sacramento is a team we like to target and that was on full display last night when they allowed the plodding Knickerbockers of all teams to post a 140-121 victory in Madison Square Garden. The Kings are a disaster of a team, and they have the third-worst defensive efficiency in the league over their last 10 games. In this timeframe, they are allowing 122.0 points per 100 possessions. During their current nine-game losing streak, they are allowing 126.3 points per game in regulation and are a bottom-five rebounding team.

Grant has been splendiferous this season as the Pistons top option. He is averaging 36.2 minutes per game and 17.7 field-goal attempts per game. Most impressive is his continued accuracy from beyond the arc, with a 37.2% success rate on 6.7 3-point attempts per game. Anything less 40 fantasy points will be a disappointment. This makes Grant a very solid point-per-dollar NBA DFS pick.

Kelly Oubre: Goldens State Warriors vs. Charlotte Hornets

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 33.14 | DraftKings: 33.28

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 1.6% | FanDuel 3.7% | DraftKings 7.3%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $29 | FanDuel $7,500 | DraftKings $6,800

After starting the season in a tremendous slump, Kelly Oubre is now showing signs of breaking out. Over his last six games, he is averaging 35.5 minutes, 20.7 points, 6.2 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 2.4 combined blocks/steals. Most importantly, he is shooting 49.5% from the field and 41.2% from 3-point range. This is a far cry from his first 20 games, when he was just 37.1% from the field and 23.8% from 3-point range. Oubre is a strong option on the late slate, and he is also the type of player who will be lost in the shuffle of the main slate.

Risky Value

Kenrich Williams: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Atlanta Hawks

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Point Projections: Yahoo and FanDuel: 21.43 | DraftKings: 20.92

• Awesemo’s Preliminary Rostered Projections: Yahoo 8.2% | FanDuel 4.4% | DraftKings 27.4%

• DFS Salary: Yahoo $10 | FanDuel $4,500 | DraftKings $3,500

Kenrich Williams is drawing a lot of attention on DraftKings. This makes sense, as his salary is just $500 more than the minimum. While this makes him an excellent option in our cash games where we are trying to build the best point-per-dollar roster, it makes him a leverage play in tournaments.

Looking at the Awesemo Boom/Bust tool, we can see that Williams has a 14.5% chance of appearing in the optimal lineup. He has a boom score of 27.5 DraftKings points with a likelihood of just 17.2% of exceeding that mark. On the other hand, there is a 31.2% chance he comes in below his bust score 17.5 DraftKings points. Keep in mind that, though the Thunder are without Al Horford and Hamidou Diallo, they are nowhere near as depleted as they were two weeks ago when Williams was regularly topping 20 fantasy points.

Yahoo Daily Fantasy Basketball Discount Dandies

1. Robert Williams: BOS vs. IND – $11

2. Mike Muscala, Theo Maledon, Kenrich Williams: OKC vs. ATL – $10

3. Chris Boucher: TOR vs. HOU – $18

SuperDraft Daily Fantasy Basketball Picks

1. Jerami Grant: DET vs. SAC – 1.40x multiplier

2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: OKC vs. ATL – 1.20x multiplier

3. LaMelo Ball: CHA at GSW – 1.25x multiplier

Final Thoughts on the Friday, Feb. 26 NBA DFS Slate

Seven of the nine games tonight will be tipping off within 30 minutes of each other. Then we have two hours until our final pair of tilts. Watch out for any unexpected late news that may help or hinder your lineups. Keep in mind that salaries and scoring formats differ across the various fantasy sites, and a slam-dunk play on Yahoo may be a below-average NBA DFS pick on DraftKings or FanDuel.

The post 🏀 NBA DFS Picks: Building Blocks for Friday, February 26th | Shai Gilgeous-Alexander appeared first on Awesemo.com.