NBA DFS: News, statistical trends, and best/worst DraftKings daily plays for Wednesday, Jan. 29th

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

• Vic. Is. Back. Oladipo will make his season-debut tonight with the Pacers against the Bulls, and I can’t be happier. Indy has been playing incredibly good ball already, so the addition of Oladipo should boost it even more. Not chem problems should appear given that Vic will slot nicely in a lineup that as of now has relied basically on a point-guard (Brogdon) and a big man (Domas), so he should take on the guard-wing position/role smoothly without any negative impact. Sweet addition to our daily slates, indeed!
• Embiid came back and dropped a dub-dub (24-10) in just 26 minutes. Nothing too new here, but also nice to have the Biid back. Let’s see how this impacts Simmons again as he had been playing pretty well as of late. Also, thank God for this as it will mean Al Horford gets his ass back to the bench and sees fewer minutes. What a relief.
• No Lakers vs. Clippers game yesterday. We’ll see when it is re-scheduled to enjoy another epic battle between Hollywood’s top dogs. 2-0 on the series for the Clips so far, with the next scheduled game coming on March 8th.

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Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• Do you hear that? Those voices saying K-Midd is just a second banana, the ultimate second-fiddle to Giannis’ world-beater? Welp. Khris was just in the freaking Middle-a-ton yesterday getting himself 76.5 KDFP (!!!) to the tune of a massive 51-point outing to go with 10 rebounds (that sweet dub-dub!) and 6 assists. KM hit 7 threes on 26 attempts from the floor scoring at a massive 61.5% clip, adding 12 points from the charity stripe. He did so in fewer than 36 minutes, which is to say, in under three “real-time” quarters.
• Two other guys logged 60.5 and 60 DKFP: Bradley Beal (47-0-6-1-1) and Eric Bledsoe (34-6-10-1) respectively. This means it’s been back-to-back Eric Nights in the NBA, folks. It was Gordon’s turn on Monday, Bledsoe’s on Tuesday... Paschall’s on Wednesday!?!?!?!? Let’s hope the rookie makes it a trifecta of fantasy goodies!
• It feels impossible given his $7K price, but K-Midd had the highest ROI at 10.93 yesterday with his 76.5 DKFP. Other than him, kudos go to Thomas Bryant who dropped a delicious 18-10-6-1-1 stuffed line in 32 minutes for 44 DKFP ($4.1K; 10.73 ROI) and to Willy Hernangomez for getting the dub-dub at 12-10-1-2 in only 19 minutes of run ($3K; 10.33 ROI).
• Draymond Green keeps being completely undervalued with his last price going at $5.4K yet his production always paints the box score from A to Z: he finished yesterday with 46.25 DKFP after having a rounded 9-9-12-1-3 night on an incredibly low 12.9% usage rate! A little frustrating because he does a bunch of everything but not a lot of anything, though.
• Among the putrid duds from yesterday, we find Luka Doncic (yes, you read that right), who could only muster 32 DKFP after entering the slate at a massive $12K price. Any player would be happy with those fantasy points attached to his name, but for Doncic that’s like missing the game entirely.
• Ben Simmons was another glaring dud with only 30.5 DKFP while priced at $10K. Fred VanVleet couldn’t even reach 30 fantasy points (27.25) yet he was quite expensive in the slate at $8.2K. Jeez.
• Up to 17 dub-dubs yesterday around the Association, 14 of them via points and boards, and the other three helped by dimes. Not a dub-dub for him, but gotta acknowledge Jrue Holiday’s gem of a night after having himself a nice 28-2-8-3-4 night in which he did basically everything he wanted to in his 33 minutes of playing time.

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

• Eric Gordon’s massive game a couple of nights ago is boosting his averages, but even without that one, he’s been thriving lately. EG has the seventh-highest ROI of the past week among all players with at least a game and the second-best among those with four games played (Austin Rivers is first).
• Kris Dunn’s price (average $5.4 in his last four) is quite low for what he’s doing with these lowly Bulls. On a super low 13% usage rate Dunn is still averaging 11 ppg, 6 rpg, 5.5 apg, 2.5 spg, and 0.5 bpg during the past week of games. Not many players are being this efficient right now at that price and usage. Let’s hope Chicago gives him more leverage.
• Other sweet average-lines from the past seven days (only players with at least three games played, and reasonable prices/availability): Larry Nance Jr.’s 16-1-10-4-1, Buddy Hield’s 26-6-3-1, Thon Maker’s 10-8-2-1-1, Serge Ibaka’s 17-7-2-2-1, and Zion’s 18-8-2-1.
• Some ugly average-lines, on the contrary (only players with at least three games played, valued at $7K+ on average): Will Barton’s 10-4-4-2-1, Lou Williams’ 16-3-5, and Kristaps Porzingis’ 15-5-2-1-1.
• Keep an eye on some under-the-radar players out there in the wild, such as Kelly Olynyk, Donte DiVincenzo, Thomas Bryant, and Malik Monk. Great lines recently at very sweet prices.

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

• Hate: (SG/SF) DeMar DeRozan, SAS ($8400, vs UTA): While DeDe got it right against Chicago a couple of nights ago, it was 1) the Bulls and 2) his season-high game in terms of usage rate at 38.9%. Roz needed to shoot the ball 21 times to score 36 pops... of which 14 came from the charity stripe. So, all things considered, he just scored 22 “real” points on those 21 shots. Nothing to be too proud of, I guess, and of course, the three-point counter read zero. DeDe has been a rollercoaster since Jan. 22 with two performances on the 29-31 DKFP range and two other in the 46-53 range. Utah is tough as nails and is winning basically every game it plays these days while allowing just the second-fewest fantasy points to its opponents. The matchup sucks and DeMar’s shaky performances aren’t appealing at all.
• Love: (C) Hassan Whiteside, POR ($8500, vs HOU): Portland hosts the Rockets and Captain Capela is questionable to make it to the court. Not that Mr. Hassan needs any help to up big digits, but hey, any help I’m sure he welcomes. Hassan has been playing super duper ball all year long: the line reads 16-14-1 on the season to go with a massive 3 bpg and only 2 turnovers per through 43 games played already. The shooting can’t get much better at 59.8% from the floor, something reasonable considering he’s scared of getting out of the paint. A little bouncy performances lately, sure, but it’s been four games of his past six in which HW broke for more than 45 DKFP and in five of those six he dub-dubbed, so not a lot of doubts around his name. Closer to a 20-16 line than his season-long averages these days.
• Hate: (PF) Nemanja Bjelica, SAC ($6700, vs OKC): Buddy is the guy to go with around Sacto these days. Bjeli, though... Some fools will fall for him after what he did in his last game (54 DKFP against Minny two days ago) but he needed 41 minutes to reach the 20-9-8-2-3 line (massive, sure, but so was the playing time...). Other than that game, Nem had been on a five-game streak of not getting to 40 DKFP so there’s that. The shooting is always great with Bjelica because he often limits his attempts to around 11 fta per, but that also puts a ceiling on his scoring upside leaving him in the 10-to-15 points range. If all work for him he can get some boards and dimes, but more on the low-side of single digits than the high one.

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!