NBA DFS: Jaylen Brown and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Tuesday, Feb. 25th

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, statistical 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

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• Ben Simmons missed yesterday’s game and he could in fact miss the remainder of the season. Nothing clear yet, but the possibility is there. The Sixers are waiting to know more information and work on a return timeline, but it’s all up in the air right now. Tough, tough break for Philly and Benny’s owners in fantasy.
• Jeremy Lamb is the one done for good. He will officially miss all of the games left in the schedule, the playoffs, and also probably time from the upcoming season too. That’s what happens with torn ACLs.
• The Pistons won’t buyout Derrick Rose’s contract, and the Lakers can start forgetting about him.
• The Lakers, though, are back at it when it comes to potentially adding Dion Waiters. I don’t believe a thing related to this story, but who am I to say. Los Angeles could even add me to the roster and end winning the chip nonetheless, so whatever.

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• If this is what missing Simmons means for Philadelphia I’m pretty sure they’ll be happy with the situation. Joel Embiid led the slate yesterday with a monster performance that saw him get 79 DKFP to the tune of 49 points, 14 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals, and a block. JoJo shot 70.8 percent from the floor, hit a triple, scored 93.3% of his freebies (15 attempts), and logged an impossible usage rate of 40.3 percent in 36 minutes. Nuts.
• Four more players got to between 60 and 70 fantasy points, which is ridiculous: Bam Adebayo (64.25; 22-13-9-3-4 in 41 minutes shooting 60%), Ricky Rubio (62; 22-6-11-7 in 33), Bradley Beal (61.5; 55-2-3 with a massive 8 treys in back-to-back 50-burger nights), and James Harden (61; 37-6-9-2 in 34 minutes). Honorable mention to K-Middleton and his 59.75 (40-5-5-3).
• Great returns in value from four players part of four shitty teams. One clear ROI King yesterday, though, and it was Dennis Smith Jr. after getting 44.25 DKFP at just $3.3K (15-7-5-7 in 29 minutes starting for the Knicks). Other values: Kevin Porter (51.5 at $4.2K; 30-8-3-3 in 41 with 4 triples), Shabazz Napier (47 at $3.9K; 27-4-7-2 in 36), and Gorgui Dieng (38.5 at $3.4K; 14-10-0-1-4 in 28).
• And the DOTS Award goes to... Paul George! PG13 is reaching a point where things don’t look any good. Whatever his body is going through LAC must be hating and worrying about. George logged 21 minutes and could only get 20 DKFP while priced at $7.8K. Other slate-ruining players from yesterday: Deandre Ayton (24.75 at $8.9K), Andre Drummond (25 at $8.1K), Jonas Valanciunas (16.25 at $6.9K), and Ja Morant (16.5 at $6.8K).
• We had up to 12 double-doubles via points and rebounds (Zubac and Mo Wagner missed on it by four and two points; six players missed on it by one single rebound) and four dub-dubs with points and dimes (Harden missed on it by one assist). Frustrating dub-dub for Bam yesterday, as he finished the game just one dime shy of getting himself a pretty sweet triple double. Sucks, but the line was stuffed as hell (22-13-9-3-4).

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

• The Montrezl Harrell Window is still open so you should be getting as many shares as you can as soon as possible, be it DFS or season-long leagues. Harrell has played three games in the past week and he’s by far the best value in the whole NBA. The line reads 21-9-2-1-2 in 30 minutes of playing time off the bench. Just so you get an idea of his production, he’s at 41 DKFP per game, and priced at just $4.9K on average. Unbelievable discount.
• Steven Adams and Daniel Theis are a couple of truly valuable bigs mostly out there in the wild. Adams is at 17-14-1-2-2 and back to his winning ways, while Theis is averaging 18-10 and a block per game for the Celtics.
• Silly cheap values: Kelan Martin (12-4-2-0-1 in 19.7 mpg), Gorgui Dieng (9-6-1-2-1 in 18.3), and Kent Bazemore (19-5-1-2 in 26.3).
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: CJ McCollum (30-6-9-1 in 40 mpg), Ricky Rubio (16-5-10-4 in 29.3), and Aaron Gordon (21-10-7-1-1 in 39).
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Andre Drummond (11-10-1-1-1 in 22.5 minutes), Julius Randle (15-11-3-1 in 31), and De’Aaron Fox (21-3-5-1 in 32), and Domantas Sabonis (18-11-4-1 in 32.3).
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Kent Bazemore (18.7 ppg in 26.3 mpg), Jordan Poole (16.7 in 32), and Kevin Porter (13.3 in 24.5).
• Cheap threes: Nicolo Melli (3.7 in 21.3), Ben McLemore (3.7 in 20.3 and Anfernee Simons (2.7 in 24).
• Cheap boards: Ivica Zubac (9.7 in 17.7), Bobby Portis (7 in 22), Harry Giles (6.7 in 25.3).
• Cheap dimes: Shabazz Napier (4.8 in 22.3), Dennis Smith Jr. (3.7 in 16.7), and Garrett Temple (3 in 27.3).
• Cheap steals: Luguentz Dort (2.3 in 23), Glenn Robinson III (2.3 in 15.3), and Troy Brown Jr. (1.8 in 20.3).
• Cheap blocks: Chris Boucher (2.7 in 13), Maxi Kleber (2 in 22.5), and Nerlens Noel (1.7 in 13.7).
• Cheap shooting: Daniel Theis (68.5 fg% on 10 fga), Montrezl Harrell (65.2% on 10.7), and Joe Harris (52.1% on 10).

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

• Love: (SG) Jaylen Brown, BOS ($6600, at POR): The price is right. Actually, the price makes me laugh a bit. Jay-B has put up numbers that have mirrored those of All-Star and teammate Jay-T. Only Tatum is $2.2K more expensive! Sure, Tatum has separated himself a bit lately and that brought him to the ASW, but that’s not reason enough as to entirely skip and drop Brown from your daily plans. Jaylen is still averaging 20-6-2-1 and just 2.4 turnovers nightly while playing more than 33 minutes per. The shooting is sublime at 49.7% from the floor and a good 37.9% from three on 5.5 attempts. While he had it a bit hard leading up to the break as he was a little banged up, everything is going smoothly these days as he’s logged back-to-back games with 33 and 39 minutes of run in which he’s dropped 20+ points, grabbed 6+ boards, and hit 2 and 3 triples respectively. The points are a lock, the rebounds will end north of 5 more often than not, and he’s always sprinkling some assists/steals/blocks around to round his performances. Ultra cheap winning play.
• Hate: (PF) Lonzo Ball, NO ($7000, at LAL): Revenge game! Yay! Nope. Zo had an impossible month of January (42 DKFP per game to the level of a top-25 player in the league) but in February things have gone all the way down and Lonzo is just a 34-DKFP player these days. The salary is quite high for that level of production, and although I love Ball to the limit and consider him some sort of Ben Simmons Lite, he’s not doing enough to cut it. The usage is incredibly low (normal as he plays along with Zion, Ingram, Jrue...) at around 15% on offense and he’s struggling to reach his usual 10-6-6 line this month. He keeps scoring from long range and maintaining good percentages overall, but the numbers are low all across the board and LA won’t make things any easier for him tonight.
• Love: (C) Nikola Jokic, DEN ($10000, vs DET): I’m not buying even one percent of the narrative, but some folks out there are putting Jokic in the runner-up for MVP conversation—because we all know who the MVP is already. I have experienced so many Nugget-letdowns than I don’t think the franchise will never win a chip or roster an MVP or whatever, but man does Jokic look good these days. Big Honey has graduated to Huge Honey or Monster Pooh, whichever you prefer. You have to go all the way back to Jan. 2 to find an under-30 DKFP game from NJ. He has not dropped under 48 DKFP in February. He’s averaging 27 points, 11 rebounds, 8 dimes, and almost 2 steals and 2 blocks per game while shooting a massive 65.5 percent from the floor. Even on back-to-back “bad” games after the break his lines read 32-7-5-1-1 and 24-7-6-2-2. Not bad for a baseline.
• Hate: (C) Victor Oladipo, IND ($6300, vs CHA): This is not totally fair as Vic seems to be banged up a bit and might even miss today’s game—he’s tagged as questionable at the time of this writing. Take this as a cautionary tale going forward, though. Dipo came back a few games ago from a year-long recovery process but it’s taking him ages to get in rhythm, way more than most expected. It’s been eight games already, five of them starting and playing north of 25 minutes, but his best game in fantasy parlance went for just 25.25 DKFP on Feb. 7 against Toronto. His season-best line would combine every cat for just 15-4-4-2-1. He’s shooting with horrific 33/25/76 splits, turning the ball over two times per game, and averaging just 11-2-3 in his active games. Indiana will need Vic to make any impact in the posteason, and in the future if they (and he) opt to extend the contract that links both parties. At this pace, I’m starting to think the best play is to fade Oladipo almost every day and find him another owner in season-long leagues. Not an easy sell, and he’s at his lowest value now, but I’m not trusting him getting any better soon enough.

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!