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The EuroLeague playoffs have begun! This is a best-of-five format with games 1 and 2 of each series happening throughout this week. We have the more exciting split on Tuesday and Thursday with the 4-5 and 3-6 matchups on those days. Both Istanbul teams landed themselves in the playoffs. Milan finds itself in the playoffs for the first time since 2014.
Barcelona is the overwhelming favorite and saw Pao Gasol play his first EuroLeague game in 20 years in the final round of the regular season. Gasol is after the only major basketball trophy that still eludes him. His quest starts here against a St. Petersburg team that is 1-3 lifetime against Barcelona in EuroLeague play. Before you think the 2-7 matchup is a dud, look again. CSKA and Fenerbahce has seen four of the last ten games between them go to overtime. Only one of those ten games was decided by more than six points. This is going to be a fun series!
In this article, I will be providing you with my daily fantasy EuroLeague lineup picks for DraftKings on 4/21/21. I’ll be providing multiple player suggestions for players at guard, forward, and center, aiming to highlight one option apiece at the high, middle, and lower end of the salary scale. Good luck, RotoBallers.
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DraftKings EuroLeague DFS Guards
Nando de Colo, Fenerbahce ($10,500)
Nando has not been under 20 DraftKings points since round 18 against Belgrade and has only been under 30 three times since then. He racked up 78.5 DraftKings points in the two games against CSKA this year. Both of those occurred when Mike James was still on the team. James will not play again this season after another verbal altercation during a domestic league game with coach Dimitris Itoudis. This is a hole that CSKA may be able to fill with a few different options, but it's also a hole that Nando can exploit. I feel good about paying up for him here.
Iffe Lundberg, CSKA ($8,000)
Lundberg has been the primary fill-in when James has missed games this year with moderate success. However, Daniel Hackett has been ailing during this last outage of James and Lundberg looks like he can handle the team. He has 66.75 DraftKings points over the last two rounds. With Hackett only available in limited capacity in this game if at all, Lundberg becomes a priority and Janis Strelnieks becomes an outstanding value. If CSKA is able to hang around in the series, it will start with Lundberg and Strelnieks and how well they fill in.
Janis Strelnieks, CSKA ($4,300)
I mentioned that Hackett would play sparingly if at all. His minutes would likely be carved out of Darrun Hilliard's load. Hilliard is more of a shooter than Strelneiks is, but he isn't always accurate. He went two full games without making a shot in the month of March. Granted, Hilliard's minutes have been on the decline since Lundberg proved that he was the better backup to James, but Hilliard seems to have fallen behind the veteran Strelnieks as well. Strelnieks has 29.5 DraftKings points in 38 minutes over the last two rounds with James out. There was a major adjustment period for CSKA when they knew James wouldn't play again this year. The last three rounds of the regular season were spent shoring up a rotation that they felt good with. They must have figured it out since the last team to beat them was Efes on March 4.
Also consider: Kevin Pangos, St. Petersburg ($9,000); Nick Calathes, Barcelona ($7,600); Lorenzo Brown, Fenerbahce ($6,300); Leo Westermann, Barcelona ($4,500)
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DraftKings EuroLeague DFS Forwards
Nikola Mirotic, Barcelona ($11,500)
You may notice a lower number of players from this game in my picks and it is on purpose. Barcelona allowed the fewest points in the entire league this season. St. Petersburg allowed the second-fewest. Faced with information like that, it's hard to want to go too heavily on this game. That is especially true for St. Petersburg. They get production from a lot of different places. Barcelona's offense goes through Mirotic. He's worth a look for that reason and that reason only. Most of my other exposure to this game will be through cheaper options on either side.
Michael Eric, CSKA ($7,900)
CSKA is used to operating without Nikola Milutinov by now. Will Clyburn has come on strong recently, and seems to have a higher floor than Tornike Shengelia or Johannes Voigtmann. However, it has been Eric that has done the most with the minutes given to him. Eric has at least 20 DraftKings points in four straight games despite only topping 20 minutes once. The inexperience at guard has CSKA leaning on the veterans up front, so none of the three are bad plays. In fact, the Fenerbahce frontcourt is statistically the best place to attack on this entire slate. I will likely roll with two CSKA forwards and alternate them between lineups.
Kyle O'Quinn, Fenerbahce ($6,700)
Jan Vesely is out for Fenerbahce for Game 1 and is likely to miss Game 2 as well. O'Quinn and Dyshawn Pierre will pick up the slack. O'Quinn, after not finding work in the states, migrated over to Istanbul in February and has been a huge pickup for Fenerbahce. The team is now running him about 25 minutes a game, and O'Quinn is proving to be a capable stat sheet stuffer on this side of the pond. I like both him and Pierre, but O'Quinn does more with his minutes. If they both play about the same amount of minutes, O'Quinn is easily the better play.
Also consider: Tornike Shengelia, CSKA ($9,800); Will Thomas, St. Petersburg ($7,200); Arturas Gudaitis, St. Petersburg ($6,100); Pau Gasol, Barcelona ($5,800)
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