NBA DFS: Coby White and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Tuesday, Mar. 10th

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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• Things are getting serious with Coronavirus. All major sports are restricting media access to locker rooms, and it is not out of the equation that the NBA ends holding games under “closed-doors” and without any fans in the crowd. Some competitions in Europe are already doing so and even a few of them (most prominently the Italian soccer Serie A) have just canceled the season for the time being. Wash your hands, fam.
• San Francisco is one of the affected cities, and the Country of Santa Clara’s Public Health Department has prohibited public and private mass gatherings through the end of March. What does that mean? Well, the San Jose Sharks of the NHL are most probably going to play without fans from now on (not clear when that will start) and it’d be just a matter of time the Warriors have to do the same, potentially having to skip games entirely in the worst of scenarios.
• Been telling you lately that Norman Powell is for real. Just yesterday he was named along Bron as the Player of the Week. No wonder considering the mental performance levels he’s been showing during the past few games.
• We should have an update regarding Joel Embiid’s condition later today. Watch Philly praying.

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• Sweet game by Trae Young who finally freed himself of the flu and put on a 61.5-DKFP show yesterday against Charlotte. Trae got a double-double to the tune of a 31-4-16 line including 6 triples on 43 minutes of playing time.
• Only three more players broke for more than 50 DKFP yesterday in a super small slate of just three games, and two of those played for the Hornets (against Atlanta) making it a top-three from the same match: Devonte’ Graham got 58.5 DKFP with a 27-4-10-4 line though he could only shoot 34.6% on 26 (!) field goal attempts, and Terry Rozier reached 55 DKFP himself with a beast of a 40-point performance including hitting 8 triples and pairing that with a 4-3-1 rebounds/dimes/steals on the night. The other 50er was Pascal Siakam, who finished with 52.75 fantasy points and a 27-11-8 line.
• Two monster ROI-returners in Kyle Korver (39.5 DKFP at $3K) with a 23-4-4-1-1 stuffed line and Caleb Martin (41.5 at $3.2K) with a 23-0-4-3-2 shooting 80% from the floor. Both men hit 5 triples each.
• And the DOTS Award goes to... Rudy Gobert! Gob played 31 minutes and all he could do was reaching 17 DKFP at $7.9K. Big-time dud. Other really impressively bad performers were Norman Powell (ZERO DKFP at $6.8K), Bojan Bogdanovic (8.75 at $6.1K), and Nikola Jokic (33.25 at $9.5K).
• Not an entirely bad night for dub-dubbers considering it was a three-game slate. We saw five double-doubles via points and rebounds (Rondae Hollis-Jefferson missed on it by two points, three more players by a single board), and two on points and assists (no player finished with 9 dimes).

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

• Not many players with four games played in the past seven days, but one calls for attention given his silly price/ownership: Caleb Martin. The rookie has posted up a nightly 12-1-2-1-1 line in 24.5 mpg under a 17% usage rate. Not the gaudiest of averages, but enough for his price and minutes.
• Of those with three games played, kudos go to Jeff Green and his 18-5-1-2 line in 24.7 minutes for the Rockets. He’s fitting the small ball model like a glove and might turn into a really important part of Houston’s postseason run off the bench once things get serious in a month. Duncan Robinson is another name to consider back again, as his price hasn’t skyrocketed but he’s back to his early-season days by averaging an impossible 25-5-2-1-1 line in 37.7 mpg while hitting 8 (!) triples a game.
• Silly cheap values: Shaq Harrison (16-5-3-3-1 in 32), Delly (7-4-10-1 in 36.7), Jerome Robinson (10-4-3-2-1 in 30), Glenn Robinson III (15-5-2-1 in 29)
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Devonte’ Graham (25-2-8-2 in 37), Ibaka (18-12-4-0-1 in 33.3), Rubio (18-7-11-2 in 35), Osman (17-4-3-2 in 38.7)
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: DLo (17-4-5-1 in 29.8), Donovan Mitchell (18-3-4-2 in 33), Gobert (11-9-2-1-2 in 33), Butler (16-5-5-2 in 31.3)
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Cam Reddish (19.7 ppg in 26.7 mpg), Jeff Green (18.3 in 24.7), Derrick White (16 in 23.3)
• Cheap threes: Mychal Mulder (3.3 3pm in 29.3), Cam Reddish (3 in 26.7), Kyle Korver (3 in 16.3)
• Cheap boards: Mike Scott (8.3 in 31.3), Dewayne Dedmon (8.3 in 22.3), Ivica Zubac (8 in 17.3)
• Cheap dimes: Matthew Dellavedova (9.7 in 36.7), Cody Martin (6.3 in 32.5), Jordan McLaughlin (6 in 22.3)
• Cheap steals: Shaq Harrison (3.3 in 32), Gary Harris (3 in 32.5), Delon Wright (2 in 25)
• Cheap blocks: Derrick White (1.7 in 23.3), Shaq Harrison (1 in 32), Dewayne Dedmon (1 in 22.3)
• Cheap shooting: Jeff Green (75.6 fg% on 11 fga), Duncan Robinson (66.3% on 12.7), Cam Reddish (60.3% on 12)

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

• Love: (PG/SG) Coby White, CHI ($6400, vs CLE): I haven’t checked the archives, but I’d say Zion and Ja have been the only rookies to lead the column this season. Not many bench guys (perhaps Lou Williams and Monty Harrell) have done so either. Yet here is Coby bringing both profiles together with his off-the-pine-rookie-beast winning candidacy. Not that it should surprise you if you have been paying attention. White struggled mightily for the first three months of the season playing like a borderline top-100 player, and then February arrived and with him the new Koby White. Only two times in his last 13 games (going back to Feb. 2) has White dropped under 34 DKFP and finished out of the top-40 players in the slates he’s been part of. He’s averaging over 40 DKFP in his last eight games since the break, which means he’s played like a top-20 player at the very least coming off the bench. That hasn’t kept him out of the floor, though, as he’s averaging a monster 33.5 mpg and 27-4-4-1 nightly lines. That’s mental. He’s hit at least 2 triples in his last eight without failing at it, and his actual average is of 4.1 3pm in that span. Incredible evolution for the ultimate microwave-player.
• Hate: (PG) Kemba Walker, BOS ($7200, at IND): Kemba screwed the Celts a couple of days ago committing an embarrassing turnover that handed OKC a W, and truth be told he’s been rather bad in his three games after the break, all of them played during the last week. In those three he’s just averaged under 30 DKFP topping at 33 versus OKC with a paltry 14-6-5-2 line... shooting 28.6% (!) from the floor. That was as ugly as it gets, but not much worse than his 37.5 and 29.4 percentages from the prior two games. Kemba has struggled to hit 20 points more often than not in the past couple of months and his contributions have been on the low side of things in the past month and change. He has hit more than 35 fantasy points just once since Jan. 28 (nine games played) and he’s playing fewer than 30 minutes these days. Nothing to be too excited about.
• Love: (SF) DeMar DeRozan, SAS ($7400, vs DAL): LaMarcus Aldridge remains out, and that only means one thing: let DeDe eat. And Double-D is indeed eating all he can put in his belly. DeRozan’s March outings read like this: 27 DKFP, 36, 43, 44. He’s hot and heating up even more by the day. His points have gone from 10 in the first game to 25 in the last one (increasing each passing match), and he’s averaging a nice 6 boards and 7.5 dimes on the month. He’s logged one double-double versus Charlotte no longer than a week ago and toyed with another one facing Brooklyn last Friday when he just needed one more assist to complete the feat. That has been DeDe lately. He’s fall short of a bunch of dub-dub nights, but he’s been so close that he brings that extra punchy upside with him every single day. Not many players are going to give you more fantasy goodies than DeMar at this price, and tonight’s matchup could be bombastic if Luka misses it, which isn’t out of the realm of possibilities as he’s a little bit banged up.
• Hate: (SF) Kawhi Leonard, LAC ($9200, at GS): Look, Kawhi is a monster. Nobody can’t say otherwise, and I won’t. He eats production for breakfast. He doesn’t need 40 minutes to reach 40 fantasy points and 30 rounds of the clock would probably be enough for him to get there—in fact, he’s averaging a pinpoint 1.5 DKFP per minute on the court. But Kawhi just played against the Lakers a couple of nights ago in a very demanding game in which he logged 37 minutes—his largest amount in eight games going back to Feb. 13—and he’s probably going to be on the low 30s (assuming he even gets there) against an absolute mess of a team like the Warriors. At his current price, you’d need a near-50 DKFP game from Leonard to return some good value, which could very well happen given how bad GS is, but which could very well not happen given how the Clips might give Kawhi some rest as they’ll go against the Nets and Pelicans on back-to-back nights this weekend. Absolute boom/bust play not worth the risk.

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!