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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) Jamal Murray, DEN ($7400, vs WAS)
We’re talking about Jamal, who rises above all. Talk about it. Ja is on back-to-back games of scoring 22 points and dishing out at least three assists, grabbing six or more rebounds, and stealing at least one ball. That’s what I call sweet complete rounded production. The Arrow started a bit slow but he’s scored 20-plus pops in six of his 10 games in November and shown much more than that. He’s on a line of 19-5-5 for the season with 1.8 stocks to make it prettier, and his free throw percentage of 88.6 success rate has been great. The Wizards score a damn lot, but they also allow a bunch of points per game. In fact, Washington is allowing the third-most DKFP per night to the opposition, so you can expect Murray to rack up fantasy points tonight.
Hate: (PG) Luka Doncic, DAL ($11400, vs LAC)
For $4K more than Murray, you should fade Doncic today. Look, I don’t hate him, but this is the ultimate test for him so far this season. The Clippers are straight dogs on D. (Now The Don will go and put up a trip-dub... If he does you can pay whatever his price is going forward and forget about the PG position for the rest of the season. Thanks).
Love: (SG) Lou Williams, LAC ($6300, at DAL)
The Underground GOAT as he labeled himself. What a man. Give me Lou every. Single. Night. This fool is coming off the bench and still averaging 22.5 PPG and 5.8 APG. Mental performances are nothing surprising coming from him. He hogs the ball like a true champ with a 28.5% usage rate on the season, but oh boy is he providing. His 1.13 DKFP per minute are great, and he’s getting there also through rebounding with an average of 3.6 boards per. If he could raise his 3P% (35.8, already better than his career average, but lower than last year’s mark) a bit, we could close shop and declare him the master of (fantasy) puppets.
Love: (SF) Davis Bertans, WAS ($5200, at DEN)
This could end being the play or the play, in both senses. The Wizards are scoring a ton, and much of that is thanks to The Real Deal Bradley Beal. But Beal isn’t scoring 120 points per game, so he’s needing some help. Part of it DB is giving. No one has a better hairstyle and no one could expect Davis to do what he’s doing. The Latvian Laser is indeed mashing. Bertans is dropping 13 points a night while pairing those with 4.6 boards and 1.9 dimes. Those are nice numbers, but the good calories come from his shooting splits. On a miserable 15.4% usage rate (Wizards, pls) Bertans is shooting almost 10 times per game from the floor scoring at a 45.6% clip, and he’s attempting 7.6 treys while hitting 44.3 percent of them. Not many free throws (0.9 per) but a ridiculous 91.7% success from the line. Bertans is shooting more and scoring more efficiently than ever. We can only hope this is real and he keeps it up or the Wizards will ride the tank.
Love: (PF) Paul Millsap, PF ($5400, vs WAS)
I once bet against Millsap and he burned me, so I’m not making the same mistake again. No, sir. The thing with Millsap is the thing with vets. You know they’ll be there. You know they’ll provide no matter what. Are they going to win you the day? Probably not. Does that mean you can disrespect them? Hell no. In fact, you should pay your respect big time. The Anchorman is going to get you 30 DKFP every night, whether he’s playing home, away, on Mars, or underwater. Paul has had three dub-dubs already and toyed with the feat a few other times this season, so he ain’t no joke. He’s not playing as much as others but his 26.9 minutes are good enough, plus he’s making good use of them with a 1.04 DKFP per minute average. His shooting is ridiculous (49/50/88) and he’s throwing rocks to the rim from all distances so there you have that. Contributions all across the board, from rebounds to assists, to steals, to blocks and all on a low-low 1.1 turnovers per.
Love: (C) Kristaps Porzingis, DAL ($6900, vs LAC)
Wait, what!? KP at a bargain price? I’ve always loved thrift shops, so I can’t say no to this deal. The Zing hasn’t been otherworldly but he hasn’t been underwhelming either. K-Por has finished in the top-40 of the night in his last six games with an average of 41.42 DKFP. Not bad. He’s posted a dub-dub in five of those games and the only time he missed the mark he still logged seven boards and blocked four (four!) shots. He’s entrenched in the 25% usage rate, averaging 31.3 MPG, playing under Baby GOAT Luka, and is this close to getting the glorified dub-dub on the season (18.5 and 9.1) through 15 games. His 2.2 blocks are the sixth-most in the cat and that is including DeAndre Ayton (4.0 in one game played...) and Myles Turner (2.5 in eight games, half those of KP). Beast.
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!