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Welcome to your daily NBA DFS digest at FakeTeams, gents. Every day I’m here with a handful of pro-tips to roster a winning team just a few hours from now.
You might be new to fantasy hoops, so let me tell you this: the world doesn’t end in LeBron James. Each night gives us a pretty good batch of surprising performances and leaves us in the dust with more than a few upsetting outings by those we played. First world problems, carry on. That’s the beauty of this game. There are so many matches going on every single day and such a big roster available that you can’t fixate yourself in the very same player on and on but instead you need to keep things fluid.
So read on, take note, play cool, and win the day. (Player salaries pulled from DraftKings.)
Love: (PG) Lou Williams, LAC ($7000, vs NO)
This dawg is on rabies. Sweet Lou ain’t ever sour. Did you catch his game against Houston? Oh lord. And the ones against New Orleans, Milwaukee,...? Is this a reborn Lou Williams? Will Lou Williams decline? Can Lou Williams decline? Lou-Will was almost robbed at gun-point a while ago, he told Matt Barnes in a podcast. He learned from it and now he’s the one snatching souls on the court. Talk all you want about Kawhi and PG-13, but Williams is the man. He’s playing 32.6 MPG off the bench and scoring 22.7 PPG while dishing 5.9 dimes per. He’s contributing 3.6 boards, too, just in case. Of course, his usage is sky-high at 28.7%. But honestly, who would not want Lou taking every chance? Matchup against a lowly and young Pelicans team tonight. Big-time feast ahead.
Hate: (PG) Spencer Dinwiddie, BKN ($7700, at NYK)
Flat-Earth Kyrie is out, and Dinwi has taken over the starting role in the past four games. He has solidified himself as a 35-DKFP player in that span, but not much more. Sure, he has had a couple of 41- and 50-fantasy points outings, but I’m trusting little Spencer one single bit and the value he’s giving in return for his salary just isn’t there. This guy had usage rates of 37% and 32% in two of his past three games. He was able to reach those 50.75 DKFP in the first, but flopped massively in the second (a couple of days ago against the Kings...) by finishing with just 36.75 DKFP thanks to 23 points, seven dimes, and... nothing else. He’s hitting every free throw but other than points and assists he’s not doing a lot, so look for better values out there.
Love: (SG) Bradley Beal, WAS ($10200, vs SAC)
If you feel great today, go and put Beal in your lineup. You won’t get the greatest ROI because you’ll be paying big bucks here, but hey, you’ll be no wrong. B.B. King is soloing better than he ever has. I’m not making this up: Beal has made a deal. With the devil, that is. He’s finished 2nd, 2nd, 5th, 20th, and 2nd in the DKFP nightly leaderboards in his last five games. That translates to 63, 68, 56, 43, and 57 fantasy points. That itself translates to five consecutive games dropping 30-plus pops with two 44-point performances against Boston and Minny. In three of those five games, Bradley has also dished out eight or more dimes, or grabbed at least five boards. You can’t catch the Beal hotter and better cooked than it’s right now, so go and take advantage of it.
Hate: (SG) JJ Redick, NO ($6100, at LAC)
Good luck tonight going against the Clippers, my man, because you’ll need that and then some. We’re talking about facing Lou, Pat Beverly, and potentially Kawhi/George. Double-J will be on the court because Hart is banged up and the Pelicans need to play someone at the end of the day. Redick production this season has been mediocre, though. In 28 minutes he’s just scoring 15.3 and staying obscure in every other cat. He’s saved by his shooting splits (45/48/84) but his 0.87 DKFP per minute are as ugly as they can get. And he’d still cost you more than $6K. Must be prank-time.
Love: (SF) Kelly Oubre Jr., PHO ($6600, at DEN)
Hear me out. Ricky Rubio sat yesterday after being considered a game-time decision and has missed three in a row. I’m not putting my money on Phoenix rushing him back, but he should be closer than ever. Now, does Kelly need him to excel? No sir. Oubre just had his first dub-dub of the season yesterday against Minny. No joke. He hung 25 pops on the Wolves and paired those (via three treys) with a sweet 11 boards and four (!) steals. He had toyed with the double-double a few times this year already, and the moment arrived after logging a massive 38 minutes and a more than palatable 25% usage rate. Machine Gun Kelly has become a fixture on the attack of this good-not-great Suns and is in a three-game streak of finishing within the top-10 DKFP nightly leaderboards (43, 39, 50.25 points). Not the best matchup against Denver but he’s good enough alone and if he gets even more help he could have the ultimate explosion.
Love: (PF) Julius Randle, NYK ($7100, vs BKN)
Will it be today? Will The Randlewus become the Nets slasher and trasher? I hope so. This game is far from friendly, folks. The Knicks lead the all-time series between both teams 104-102, so they can afford a loss and still remain champs of Manhattan, but there is no way in hell any of those two will concede the game and be ashamed. Enter J30, half-man half-machine. Knick Julius is a little off Pelican Julius, sure, but still. For all the wrong he does, Randle is still almost averaging that sweet dub-dub to the tune of 16.4 points and 9.1 rebounds. His 3.8 dimes per are high at the position, let’s be honest here, and he’s snatching a steal per game. For some reason he can block a rock, but whatever. He’s been a little atrocious from three and the line, but at least his floor 43.7 percentage isn’t as ugly. More than one DKFP per minute and an average of 34.84. I’m buying a bounceback to his early-season days of continuous double-doubling tonight.
Love: (C) Montrezl Harrell, LAC ($6300, vs NO)
You know how it goes. You play Lou, you play Motrezl. You play Montrezl, you play Lou. It is something one can’t escape. I’m a sucker for the pair. Harrell can be a little frustrating at times, not going to lie, but more often than not he provides. You know you’re into someone good when you find him rated 40th by ESPN rater (Lou-Will is 37th, by the way), but you don’t need those silly fantasy stats to see Trez’s value. Another high-energy player, he’s putting up an 18-7-3 line and adding a pretty useful 2.2 stocks to his profile. He’s launching 12.8 shots to the rim per night and hitting them at a 59.3% clip. Forget about the treys and hope for a free throw success improvement (63.5% through 16 games), but keep in mind Trez is averaging 1.14 DKFP per minute. That’s more than okay if I tell you he’s playing up to 30 rounds of the clock a night, am I right?
If you have any comment or question about the daily column, tonight’s games, players involved in them, or even season-long fantasy NBA topics, just drop it below or reach out to me on Twitter at @chapulana and I’ll get back to you as soon as I grab a keyboard!