NBA DFS: Hassan Whiteside and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Wednesday, Mar. 4th

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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• The Knicks keep doing Knicks things, and now they have reached the point at which the very own Spike Lee has said he’s done with the team for the season and won’t be attending any game of those still to be played at MSG. This franchise never learns. Some things never change. And they probably still believe they’ll get some highly coveted FA this summer or next one...
• Steph Curry has balled with the Warriors G League affiliate and we’ll have news today on whether or not he’ll be on the court tomorrow facing Toronto.
• Speaking of G League stuff... LiAngelo Ball has been offered a contract by a G League team and he’s expected to sign it. Gelo had been practicing with OKC’s minor league team already, so we’ll see how the experiment goes and if turns into an eventual major league gig.
• Kelly Oubre Jr. will be out four weeks, which means he’s officially out for the season. Ugh. At the same level or even worse, Kris Dunn (MCL) won’t be on any court for quite some time also missing the remainder of the season. Sucks.
• Coach Timmy! Tim Duncan stepped up and covered for an absent Pop on the Spurs sideline coaching San Antonio to a win and getting a perfect 1-0 (1.000%) so far in his coaching career.
• Get hyped: Zion has been cleared to play on back-to-back games starting tonight against Dallas. The league is screwed big time now.

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• Some heavy stuff yesterday around the NBA. Anthony Davis broke the slate—precisely when his price went south of $10K for the first time in ages—and finished with 70.75 DKFP to the tune of a 37-13-2-4-2 line hitting 4 triples and shooting 68.4% overall from the field. Of course, the Lakers smashed the Sixers.
• Two more players on the 60s: Caris LeVert (66.5 DKFP) carried the Nets to an OT win over Boston in which the man went nuts for 51 points (!!!), most of them scored between the 4th quarter and the extra-time, to close the night with a 51-4-5-1 line in under 36 minutes. Jrue Holiday (61.5) was bananas getting himself a 27-10-12 trip-dub in under 38 minutes facing Minny.
• Four more players in the 50-to-60 DKFP clip: LeBron (58.75), Lonzo (52.75), Beal (52.5), and Siakam (52.25). Shouts to Zion (49) who fall short of the clip but still had an all-around game putting up a neat 25-8-3-4-1 line.
• Not often do you see such a monster ROI King like Chris Boucher turned out to be yesterday. The Raptor finished with 45.75 DKFP while priced at just $3.2K, giving him a 14.3 (!!!) ROI on the night. The line read 19-15-0-2-1 and he only played 28 minutes with a 23.7% usage rate. Crazy performance.
• Two more players with very nice returns: Glenn Robinson III (35 DKFP at $3.2K) and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot (30.5 at $3K).
• On the other hand, the DOTS Award goes to... Gordon Hayward! He could only play 16 minutes before leaving the court, got 11.75 DKFP at $7.4K, and left 100% of his owners frozen cold. Other horrific performers at their price: Tobias Harris (29.25 at $8.2K), Montrezl Harrell (21.25 at $6.2K), and Steven Adams (19 at $6.2K).
• Just five dub-dubs via points and rebounds (DeAndre Jordan, Horford, and Jarrett missed on it by a couple of points, other three players by three boards), and six through points and dimes (no player logged nine assists yesterday, weird).
• Kudos go to Jrue for posting the only triple-double of the slate with a sweet 27-10-12 line. Jokic was close with a 16-13-7-1-2, same as LeBron with his 22-7-14-1-2 line.

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

• Bismack Biyombo is a thing. Wait, what? He’s a thing, believe me! Three games in the past seven days for the Double-B with an average 11-8-2-0-3 line in just 26.7 minutes for the Hornets. He’s by far the most valuable player of the last week (in terms of ROI, that is) as his price and ownership are ground-level for his production. Jump on him if you have room in your season-long roster and consider him as a lineup-filler if you’re looking for an ultra-cheap DFS player.
• OG Anunoby is so close to playing 40 minutes (38.7 mpg) and he’s making the most of those runs. OG is at 20-8-3-5 in his last three games and though his price is a little higher than your average value-player he well merits paying for.
• Silly cheap values: Shake Milton (23-3-5-1-1 in 33.8 mpg) keeps holding tons of value at a not-so-high price. Same goes for Mychal Mulder (12-4-1 in 30) and Jalen McDaniels (6-6-2-1-1 in 20.3).
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Kristaps Porzingis (30-13-2-1-3 in 34.3), Marcus Smart (19-5-9-3-1 in 38.7), Lonzo Ball (17-7-10-3-1 in 33.7), Norman Powell (24-3-2-1-1 in 38).
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Chris Paul (16-3-6-1 in 29.3), Devin Booker (21-3-7-1 in 38.3), Rudy Gobert (13-9-1-2-4 in 33.7), Brandon Ingram (23-4-4-1 in 35.3).
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Patty Mills (13.3 ppg in 23.3 mpg), Trey Lyles (13 in 32.8), Bryn Forbes (13 in 23.8)
• Cheap threes: Cam Reddish (3.3 3pm in 29.7), Cameron Johnson (3 in 26), Patty Mills (2.8 in 23.3)
• Cheap boards: Alex Len (9.3 in 19.5), Bismack Biyombo (8.3 in 26.7), Maxi Kleber (7.3 in 25)
• Cheap dimes: Cory Joseph (5 in 22.8), DJ Augustin (5 in 19), Matthew Dellavedova (4.8 in 22.3)
• Cheap steals: Jordan McLaughlin (2.3 in 18.8), Trey Lyles (1.8 in 32.8), De’Anthony Melton (1.5 in 23.5)
• Cheap blocks: Bismack Biyombo (2.7 in 26.7), Maxi Kleber (2 in 25), Alex Len (2 in 19.5)
• Cheap shooting: Bobby Portis (58.2 fg% on 9.3 fga), Jordan Poole (55.5% on 9.7), Gary Trent Jr. (51% on 14.3)

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

• Love: (PG) Kevin Porter Jr., CLE ($5300, vs BOS): Forget about slate-winners for a second. This is not that type of play, that’s for sure. KPJ hasn’t started for the largest part of the season and has only featured in a starting five three times in his 49 games. He started two days ago against Utah, though, and played almost 41 minutes. Since coming back from the break and in his last five games KPJ has played around 34 mpg and averaged 33 DKFP. Now check his price. It’s buried underground for the upside he carries, which isn’t low by any means. Porter has the ability to drop 15+ points easily any day, and just a week-and-change ago he scored 30 pops on Miami to go with 8 boards and 3&3 steals and dimes. That’s probably Porter’s ceiling, but that ceiling translated to 51.5 DKFP on the day. I’m not saying he’s getting there again tonight, but even a 35+ DKFP game would return a very high value from the rookie. Go grab him.
• Hate: (C) Rudy Gobert, UTA ($8000, at NYK): It looked like Rudy G finally got his shit together a couple of nights ago... until we realized it was Cleveland the team he was facing. Yes, Gob reached 45.75 fantasy points, but that’s the only time he’s broken for more than 40 points since coming back from the ASW break more than two weeks ago. His average fantasy tally in his last six games is a very much paltry 33 DKFP (down to 30 if we don’t count his last game), so just imagine. It makes sense, considering Gobert has played pretty bad during that stretch. He’s grabbed double-digit boards just one time (back on Feb. 21) and fallen under 10 points a couple of nights too. If the dub-dub is not part of his line you’re pretty screwed because he’s priced as a surefire big man so that’s baked into his check but he’s just not getting there lately. The blocks and steals have been up for some reason, same as the shooting from the floor, but again, if the points and rebounds are not there (and they are not there) Rudy’s a clear fade.
• Love: (C) Hassan Whiteside, MIA ($9500, vs WAS): On the other hand, Hassan has been killing it since the break ended, and since the dawn of times on Earth to be more precise. Now this is what you call a surefire biggie dropping dub-dubs on a nightly basis. Just 11 times (of 57 games played) has Hassan missed on dub-dubbing this season, and only three times in his last 28 games going all the way back to Dec. 28! For someone not giving a crap about anything that’s not bad, is it? Even on a moderate amount of minutes (32 mpg in February) and a horrific usage rate (19.8%) he’s still putting up numbers. Mr. White’s been this Side of great. His last six games after the ASW have gone for an average 18-15-2 line with a silly 3.3 blocks per game to go with. The shots are healthy at 13.8 fga per game, the turnovers aren’t overly high, and the fantasy points come in bunches at 47.5 DKFP per in that span. Play of plays against the All-O-No-D Wiz.
• Hate: (SF) Khris Middleton, MIL ($7200, vs IND): Hating this pick. Hating it so much, because you won’t find anyone who loves the Bucks low-minutes high-efficiency game more than this man typing this right now. Midd (1.25 DKFP per minute on the court) is no Giannis (1.95 !!!) but he’s still ultra-valuable while playing under 30 minutes per game on the season. This team is ridiculous. Bledsoe is at 1.17 DKFP per minute and Brook/DiVincenzo/Hill are at 0.96/0.95/0.93 all playing fewer than 27 ticks a night. The problem with Middleton is more about the value he returns for his price than anything else. He’s a great play most days, don’t get me wrong, but the minutes are always going to be low so he either makes it all work or you’ll be screwed by him. K-Midd hasn’t been that great since the ASW, having two games over 40 DKFP but three under that mark including a 23-DKFP stinker against Miami just a couple of nights ago in which he could only finish with a putrid 12-7 and a steal shooting 25%... That’s not your average Midd, but it’s what you’re risking getting, and even if he flies up to the 35+ DKFP he’d still only be borderline valuable given the $7K+ price.

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!