Saturday has a concise three-game featured slate locking at 7 p.m. ET featured slate 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. Let’s dig into the NBA DFS picks and core plays like Nikola Jokic, Dejounte Murray and Brooklyn value, plus other recommended options.
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NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today: Saturday, April 6
NBA DFS Picks: Building Blocks
Nikola Jokic: Nuggets vs. Hawks
Stokastic’s Fantasy Point Projections
DraftKings: 61.73 | FanDuel: 59.4
Stokastic’s Rostership Projections
DraftKings: 29.7% | FanDuel: 22.4%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $12,100 | FanDuel: $12,500
This is an easy recommendation as we know both teams in this matchup would like to win. Denver and Minnesota are atop the Western Conference standings, with the Timberwolves holding the tiebreaker. The Oklahoma City Thunder are lurking one game back, so this is a key tilt for the Nuggets.
Raw fantasy points are key on short slates, and only Joel Embiid is within 15 median fantasy points of Nikola Jokic — plus there’s a chance the reigning NBA MVP doesn’t play tonight in Memphis since the 76ers will have to play again tomorrow in San Antonio. There is a decent chance that Jamal Murray misses his eighth consecutive game with an ankle injury, and even if he returns, he will be rusty. Jokic is within a half a fantasy point of his 2021-22 average, which was the year he won his second MVP. Expect a 50 fantasy point floor with upside in the mid-60s.
Dejounte Murray has the third-highest median fantasy point projection, and the former University of Washington stalwart has carried the Hawks into the play-in tournament. Trae Young will be out through the weekend, and in the 21 games without him, Murray is averaging 37.2 minutes and 21.3 field goal attempts. This has resulted in 25.1 points. 5.6 rebounds, 8.9 assists and 2.1 combined blocks and steals. In this stretch, he has 10 games with at least 50 fantasy points and four with 60 or more.
If Murray remains out for Denver, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Christian Braun are viable discount dandies. For the Hawks, Jalen Johnson, Clint Capela and Bogdan Bogdanovic are borderline core plays.
Cam Thomas: Nets vs. Pistons
Stokastic’s Fantasy Point Projections
DraftKings: 41.6 | FanDuel: 39.9
Stokastic’s Rostership Projections
DraftKings: 46.7% | FanDuel: 58.9%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $7,800 | FanDuel: $8,000
It’s the most wonderful time of the year for Cam Thomas. His team has been eliminated from the playoffs, and several players have been shut down due to injuries. This allows him to hoist as many field goal attempts as he would like, and it still isn’t enough to satisfy him. Expect to see him on at least half of all tournament rosters with the shallow six-team player pool, but by no means should we avoid him in a matchup against the equally apathetic Detroit Pistons.
Dennis Schroder, Dorian Finney-Smith, Nicolas Claxton and Mikal Bridges all profile well tonight. Trendon Watford is a wild card who can provide tournament differentiation. The Nets are far from short-handed, but with Cameron Johnson, Ben Simmons, Dennis Smith Jr. and Keita Bates-Diop all out with various maladies, they are not exactly teeming with NBA caliber options. Brooklyn last played on Wednesday, so they should be refreshed and ready to go against the Pistons who are on a back-to-back and playing for the third time in four days.
Detroit will be without Cade Cunningham (knee) once again, and it would be a surprise for him to play in any other game this season, except next Thursday in the final home game for the Pistons. Last night only Jaden Ivey played more than 25 minutes and even Buddy Boeheim received seven minutes of run in the lopsided lost to the Grizzlies in Memphis.
Troy Brown Jr. and Tosan Evbuomwan wouldn’t even crack a rotation on 80% of the teams in the league, yet they are starting for the Pistons. Detroit should at least do better than the 90 points posted last night, but it is hard to vouch vociferously for any of these guys.
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Today’s Top Sports Betting Pick
Nikola Jokic is the DFS King, but we can still target against him for the under on his 28.5 points prop.
Currently, this wager is available at -105 on DraftKings, which is a great value when comparing it against the -125 to -135 on most other books. There are even books like Unibet that have lowered the prop line to 27.5 points but are still giving a worse price (-115) for the under.
By using OddsShopper to do the heavy lifting when researching favorable bets, we can quickly spot inefficient lines like this one, and having accounts at multiple sportsbooks allows us to pivot to the best number quickly.
Per the true odds of -114 (how OddsShopper measures the potential expected ROI of a given wager), this opportunity has a steady 4.2% positive expected ROI as a function of the inefficient line.
NBA Bet Pro currently has Jokic projected for 35.0 minutes and 27.38 points. This projection is just below tonight’s targeted threshold but still does not account for variable outcomes. The 53% win rate gives us a good indication that, on a long time horizon, this is exactly the type of wager we are looking for — but only at -114 odds or better.
For the season, Jokic is averaging 26.5 points per game, which is the second most of his career. In his last six games, all without Jamal Murray, he is averaging 31.2 points. Atlanta has been seeing almost four possessions less per game without Trae Young, and we know that Denver will be happy to slow things down. Clearly Jokic could crush this over, but 29 points is still a lofty height.
Final Thoughts on NBA DFS Picks & Building Blocks Today
Get all the latest news and updates tonight, including who will be playing for Philadelphia and Memphis, with the Stokastic NBA Live Before Lock Show starting at 6 p.m. ET on YouTube, breaking down all of the key elements for today’s slate. Brought to you by Sleeper – new users, use this link to receive a $500 first deposit match! Full details here.
