NBA DFS: News, statistical trends, and best/worst DraftKings daily plays for Tuesday, Jan. 28th

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. On top of that, I’ll bring you some news, statsitcal trends from the past few days, some studs/duds from the last slate of games, and much more!

Hoop Land Times: News and notes from around the Association

• Not a single relevant piece of news today. Feels good to work this way.
• If you still want something, well, the trade deadline is approaching fast with its date set to Feb. 6. That is a bit over a week from now, so teams will ramp negotiations up during the next few days and there truly is tooooooo much calm around the L right now before a probable thunderstorm. Let’s keep our hopes up, folks.

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Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• As it always happens, the day you hate someone, the day he drops a bomb of a game. Enter Eric Gordon, new Master of Shamers. Eric-G went OFF and cooked himself a 50-burger against Utah with a stuffed 50-6-3-2-1 line that put him at the top of the DKFP leaderboard yesterday reaching 70 fantasy points.
• The only other player to reach more than 60 DKFP was our buddy Andrew Wiggins (63.75), who played a massive 43 (!) minutes against Sacto and was this close to posting a trip-dub, finishing the day at 36-9-8 with 7 triples to his name. The actual Buddy—Hield—finished third in the slate with 56.25 DKFP, just in case you were wondering.
• Believe it or not, Luka missed on getting a triple-double (29-11-5). The kid is so ridiculous that seeing him falling short of that feat nightly feels like underperforming, which is like expecting Bam Adebayo to have a 30-30-30 every day—oh, hey, he had a monster 20-10-10 trip-dub yesterday!
• As incredible as it sounds, Eric-G wasn’t the best value play of the night. That came down to his price, as he was tagged at a high $6.9K. The best values were Jakob Poetl (40.25 DKFP at $3.2K; 16-13-1 with 3 blocks in 36 minutes), and Danuel House (47.75 at $3.9K; 21-11-2-5 in 46 minutes). I have already mentioned Poetl during the past few days here and there and he keeps having incredible performances. Considering playing him in DFS and make him a no-brainer addition to your season-long-league teams!
• Total bluff-game by KAT, who entered the slate priced at $10.3K yet only scored 39.5 DKFP against Sacramento with a—considering what he’s capable of and the sky-high price—middling 23-8-3-1-1 line shooting just 38.9%. These Wolves are horrific and it’s actually sad to see Wiggins and KAT stuck in such a putrid team.
• Two more duds: Zach LaVine’s 37 DKFP at $9.8K (23-6-2-1 in 35 minutes), and Ben McLemore’s 12.5 DKFP at $5.8K (6-2-2 in 24 minutes).
• Ten guys finished with a dub-dub, six biggies and four wings/guards. The most unexpected: Delon Wright with a 14-12-4-1 line in 27 minutes of run and just a 19% usage rate.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from the past seven days

• Austin Rivers has played four games in the last seven days and is returning the highest ROI in the league in that span. He’s been valued at just $3.2K on average yet playing 28 minutes per and averaging 27 DKFP. Not going to win you the slate, but you can’t get more points for fewer dollars. The line sits at 15-4-2-1 and it’s all down to an incredible 59.1% shooting from the floor on a more than healthy 10.8 fga.
• T.J. McConnell is averaging 27 minutes of run in his last three games during the past seven days. In that time he’s keeping up a great 10-3-9-2 line with amazing dime numbers and under a turnover (0.7) per game.
• Dwight Howard is just another reserve these days. Sure, but in just 21 minutes per game Superman is averaging 9.7 boards, a steal, and 1.3 blocks per game with a 73.3% fg% in his three last games. Definitely a nice roster-filler more available than not.
• For the haters: no one is averaging a trip-dub during the past seven days but Nikola Jokic is the closest to doing so (at least three games played) averaging 23.3 ppg, 12 rpg, 9.3 apg and a sweet 2.3 and 0.7 steals and blocks per game to round it all. *Chef kiss*

Gotta Win The Day: Best/Worst DraftKings plays for tonight’s slate

• Love: (SG/SF) Bradley Beal, WAS ($8300, at MIL): Not the cheapest of guys facing a kinda mid-hard matchup, but this Beal can’t be cooked to a better point these days. In the most emotional of nights he still dropped 40 on the Hawks, so just imagine. Beal is in the middle of a three-game streak in which he’s broken for more than 50 DKFP each time, having scores of 58.75, 51, and 53.75 fantasy points. He’s scored at least 36 pops in each of those and the rest of the line reads 4-6-1 while he’s shooting 63.1% from the floor in this span going back to Jan. 22. Even at his high price, the return is so sweet that this man is more than worth it. Fourth-highest DKFP average in the past seven days among those with at least three games played. No slouch.
• Hate: (PF/C) John Collins, ATL ($7900, at TOR): What should we make of Big Johnny C? The production per-minute is outstanding at 1.28 DKFP, but the problem is he just can’t stay on the court and it is all his fault! Collins is averaging five personals per game during the past couple of weeks (seven games played) and he even fouled out a couple of nights. His minutes are limited a bunch because he just runs into trouble every day. That’s why he’s played more than 29 minutes only twice in that span. Again, the numbers are great, and he’s a dub-dub menace against whoever you put in front of him, but in the games he’s played fewer than 30 minutes lately he’s been limited to around seven boards instead of the 10+ you would expect from him. Not an easy task for him to stay alive for long tonight against the Raps.
• Love: (PG) Kyle Lowry, TOR ($7300, vs ATL): These Hawks... Man, these Hawks. If you are looking for a team giving up fantasy goodies in bunches to the opposition on a nightly basis you will find no better source than Atlanta’s. KLow keeps playing mental minutes (37 mpg on the season, 35-plus in his last three) and although his numbers have dropped in his last five games during the last ten days this should be a complete get-right game. Starting point-guards have averaged near 40 DKFP against the Hawks in the past couple of weeks, so it makes sense to think of Kyle as a potential point-getter tonight playing Atlanta in frozen Toronto.
• Hate: (PF/C) Kristaps Porzingis, DAL ($7100, vs PHO): Another great player limited a ton but his cut-down minutes... 1.2 DKFP per minute on the court are great, but only if you play a shit ton of them each game. Kris is at 30.6 mpg on the season but it’s been six games and counting since the last time he broke the 30-minute mark, all the way back on Dec. 26! In the four games since he came back from injury exactly a week ago, he’s averaging a much worse 30 DKFP per game compared to his 37 prior to that date. The stat line sits at 15-7-2-1-1 these days, which is good but probably not great given the $7K label hanging from his forehead. Dub-dubber in his best nights, ten-fiver in his worst.

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!