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
- I gave you the link to LeBron’s newest tattoo yesterday. Today, it’s all about Anthony Davis’ version of it. And it’s even better than Bron’s.
- Keep an eye on the injury report if you play fantasy basketball, and even if you don’t. We hoop lovers will need to check back later today to know more about both Kyrie Irving and Trae Young, as they had to leave the court early with knee and ankle injuries respectively.
- Whispers are starting to get some traction with Thursday’s trade deadline approaching. It looks like DRose will stay in Detroit (he wants to and the Pistons said a few days ago that they’ll go by Rose’s desires though you never know for sure), KAT is a lock to stay in Minny forever and ever (until he leaves as a free agent, that is), D’Lo should remain a Warrior until July at least, and the Knicks... are interested in Dennis Schroeder. LOL.
- Only four—all early—games today with the Super Bowl looming. Enjoy them American Eggball parties out there tonight!
Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup
- Cancel the season, wrap it in gift paper, and give it wholly to Damian Lillard because the guy is unconscious. Another night, another monster game by Dame. The man finished with 79 DKFP to the tune of 51 (!!!) points and 12 dimes, 2 rebounds, and a steal. He hit 9 triples while shooting 58.6% from the floor and scored each and every one of his 8 freebies on the night logging a massive 39.6% usage rate by game’s end. The Jazz didn’t even know. It’s been six games in a row scoring 36+ points for Dame, something that has only been done 27 times in the history of the game. Another performance like that and he’d be the only player along with Harden and Kobe to do so at least seven consecutive times inside this century. Nuts.
- We had such an incredible night a couple of days ago, if you remember, that the last one fell completely short of expectations and great performances. Only Lillard got more than 56 DKFP with four other players inside the 50s: Bradley Beal (56.5 DKFP, the AS-snub served him well), Towns (56 DKFP, racking up the goodies but keeping those Ls up), LeBron (52 DKFP, against the Kangz LOL), and Hassan (51.75 DKFP, with an easy 17-21 dub-dub).
- Shout-out to muscle-man Meyers Leonard for giving his bettors the highest ROI of the slate after having a sweet 18-14-1 game for 39.5 DKFP while priced at just $3.4K. Gotta love these plays.
- Another three monster ROIs came from Maxi Kleber (39 DKFP, $3.8K), Finney-Smith (44.74 at $3.8K), and Cody Zeller (48 at $5.1K).
- Time to crush some dud-heads! Sure they fell down injured, but that ain’t going to save them I’m afraid. Trae entered the slate at $10.3K but in his 26 minutes could only get to 19.5 DKFP. Same with Kyrie, who played 29 minutes and got to 23.5 DKFP at a really high $9.1K. Condolences to those with them in their lineups.
- Embiid wasn’t injured, but what he was bad as hell. Check this out: 20.75 KDFP priced at $9.6K in 23 minutes of play, scoring 11 points and grabbing 5 boards... while shooting 9.1% (yes, single-digit nine-percent!) on 11 attempts. These Sixers look way way bad for an on-paper title contender.
- Lovely line by Dwight Howard yesterday: 0-9-0-0-2. It was all about the boards and the blocks. He didn’t even try scoring finishing with just one fga. Ha!
- We had 10 dub-dubs via boards, and two via dimes. LeBron checked both feats to finish with a neat trip-dub at 15-10-11 on the night. Not a triple-double, but Bam Adebayo’s stuffed 4-14-5-3-4 line was a pleasure to watch evolve.
What’s cooking? Statistical trends from the past seven days
- I try to keep this fresh, but sometimes facts are so heavy you need to just keep putting them out there. Go. Get. Jakob. Poeltl. Man is mental. 30 DKFP per game in his last four, price/availability ultra-affordable, near 12-9-2-1-2 averages, 79.3 fg%, 20% usage rate. Jeeeeeeez.
- Put an eye on Jordan Clarkson and the other one on Jalen Brunson and don’t even move them. Both off-benchers have four games played in the last seven days and both of them are logging 25%+ usage rates when they’re out there. Clarkson is averaging 19 pops to go with 1.5 rpg, 0.5 apg, and 0.8 spg. Brunson is at 15-3-4 shooting even more efficiently.
- Get rid of Lou Williams if someone is willing to buy high in your league, and don’t play him in DFS. Three games on the low-low for Sour-Lou. He’s still scoring 18 per, because he’s shooting 17 goddamn shots a game, but other than that he’s just contributing 2 boards, 4 dimes, and less than a steal nightly.
- I loved French Fournier earlier this year, but the passion has dried out a bit. He’s still valued out there yet his production hasn’t been that good lately. Only 11 points on 31 minutes per game to go with an extra 2-5-1 isn’t cutting it. The shooting has been horrific in his last three games at a ground-level 24.2% from the floor and only 1.3 three-pointers made per game.
- Hoping the Knicks don’t engineer their path to Schroeder because he’s playing delicious basketball these days. Three games in the past seven days with averages of 23 points, 5 boards, 7 dimes, and 1.3 steals in 33 heavy minutes of run.
Gotta Win The Day: Best/Worst DraftKings plays for tonight’s slate
- Love: (PG/SG) Devin Booker, PHO ($8700, at MIL): Lillard has been hot but Book isn’t far from him. It’s been 18 games played for Booker since Dec. 27, and in all but one of those, he has finished with more than 31 DKFP and averaging a combined 47.8 DKFP in that month-long span. Book is on a four-game streak of scoring 27+ points and has hit 32+ in three of those four. He’s finishing more possessions (33% compared to 29%) than at any other point in the season, and the AS-snub bug seems to be helping him too as it’s doing with Beal.
- Hate: (SG/SF) Eric Gordon, HOU ($5900, vs NO): Eric-G touched the sky a few days ago when somehow he reached 70 DKFP after dropping 50 crickets on the poor Jazz. That wasn’t just Gordon’s best scoring performance of the season, it also almost doubled the second-best outing he had logged earlier this year (27 against Minny). As anyone could have expected, G came back to planet Earth crashing and the hit was so hard he built a hole the size of Australia upon impact. In his last two games after that historic performance, Gordon has finished with 17.5 and 27.75 DKFP in 30 and 31 minutes respectively, which is just trashy. The points went from 50 to 8 to 17, the dimes from 6 to none to 1, etc, etc... Most worryingly, the usage on that 50-point night was all the way up to 34.4% but in the last two, it’s been down to his season-average of near-17%. Nothing to love here.
- Love: (SF/PF) Kelly Oubre Jr., PHO ($6400, vs MIL): It’s been so long since I’ve featured Machine Gun Kelly here but he’s been doing enough to get him back in the column. Top-25 performer in his last four slates, Wave Papi is on a 22-9-2-1 average line in that span and although he only dub-dubbed in his last game, he fell short of the feat by one board in three of his last five games and by two in the one prior to that. He’s been that good, seriously. Phoenix has been handling him more balls to finish possessions too by ramping up his usage lately and he sits at a season-high 26.6% usage rate in his last five compared to 21.9% on the season. Booker always eats, but Oubre is getting a sizable part of the cake these days and making the most of it.
- Hate: (PG) Eric Bledsoe, MIL ($6700, vs PHO): Remember, kids: go with the hot streak, not the hot game. What are the chances Bledsoe has another 60-DKFP game in himself? And even more what are the chances he plays to that level in a span of six days? Two percent? One? None? Yeah, it’s zero. Sorry for the hate to the Erics out there, but I just can’t go any other way. Never ever in this very season had Bled got himself a dub-dub before that 60-DKFP night (34-10). Other than that, he’s been a 25-DKFP averager playing like a top-75 player at the very best in his last six games going back to Jan. 14. Pretty sucky numbers overall and unsustainable scores going forward those he posted in the last few games including that explosive 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!