NBA DFS: Trae Young and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Mar. 6th

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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• It’s happening, folks. DION WAITERS IS A LOS ANGELES LAKER. Now it’s just a matter of time he gets LeBron-dragged all the way to an NBA Finals.
• The free-agent market keeps moving with the Rockets trying Luc Mbah a Moute out. Nothing clear about how close both parts are to an agreement, but there’s that.
• Nico Batum apologized for not playing up to the level of his monster deal with the Hornets. That is good... I guess? He also said the future of the team is bright and he doesn’t see himself as part of it. No one around Charlotte does, either.
• The Kawhi-less Raptors, a team everybody deemed done for good no more than eight months ago when Leonard left, have clinched a playoff spot. Eat that L, haters.
• Told you about Dragan Bender being out of contract yesterday after his 10-day deal with the Warriors expired. Well, Golden State re-signed Dragan Bender to a second similar 10-day deal yesterday. Shouts to Bender for Bending the mold and fight for an NBA roster spot. Kudos to the man.
• The Knicks want to get Chris Paul this summer. He is 34 years old. He’s owed more money than he can even count. The Knicks are supposedly starting their rebuild. Chris Paul is definitely the guy you want to build around with eyes in the future, for sure. Keep it up, New York, you the real MVP.
• Steph Curry came back, and he’s so mad he’s already thinking about playing in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
• LeBron said that he’s never cared about getting MVP awards, but instead about being the best in the world. Isn’t there some sort of relationship between the two things?

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• Absolutely brutal slate yesterday. Russell Westbrook led it yet he could only reach 57.75 DKFP on the night. He dropped 29 points on the Clippers while grabbing 15 boards and dishing out 5 dimes with a steal. Not the greatest of performances, but still enough to crown him among his slate-peers. Just so you get an idea of the overall level.
• Only three more players inside the 50s: Tobias Harris (54.5 DKFP to the tune of a 28-14-3 line with a block), Kyle Lowry (53.25 with a 26-5-10-2 line and 4 triples to his name), and Norman Powell (50.25 with a 37-3-2-3 effort in all of 38 minutes).
• We didn’t even have any superb valuable play, though Ivica Zubac turned out to be our ROI King by racking up 35.5 DKFP at a palatable $4.2K after posting a 17-12 dub-dub with a block. Other three players coming close to great ROI marks: Jeff Green (23 DKFP at $3K), Marquese Chriss (45 at $6.6K), and the aforementioned Norman Powell (50.25 at $6.6K).
• And the DOTS Award goes to... James Harden! JH dudded like a champ as he entered the slate with the highest price at $10.7K but could only get 30.75 DKFP in his 28 minutes of playing time. Stinker of a performance, that was.
• Some other horrific value-performances from yesterday: Pascal Siakam (33.25 DKFP at $9.1K), Robert Covington (21.75 at $6.7K), Nemanja Bjelica (17.75 at $6K), and Lou Williams (13.25 at $5.9K).
• Just four games but eight dub-dubs via points and rebounds (with PG13 and Bazemore missing by a single board) and a single points-assists double-double by Kyle Lowry. Again, not the greatest of days for numbers.

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

• He’s probably not going to be a league-changer or DFS-slate-breaker any time soon, but Mike Scott has rocketed all the way up to the leading spot on the most-valuable play during the past seven days. He’s logging 29 mpg and putting up 11-7-3-1 lines these days while scoring 2.7 three-pointers per game shooting 55.6% from the floor on a super-short 12.9% usage rate.
• Terrence Ross is heating up big time. It’s been four games in the past seven days and he’s dropped 28 ppg in those to go with 3.5 rebounds, 1.5 dimes, 0.8 steals... and a monster 5.8 triples per game!!! Pretty cheap and/or available in most leagues out there still, so take advantage of the hot streak.
• Silly cheap values: Tyus Jones (12-3-5-2 in 19.5 mpg), Trey Lyles (15-6-1-2-1 in 35.7), George Hill (12-4-4-1 in 22.7), Brandon Knight (18-2-6-1 in 29)
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: OG Anunoby (18-7-2-5 in 38.3), Lonzo Ball (19-8-9-3-1 in 35.8), Collin Sexton (30-4-4-1 in 39.3), Seth Curry (28-2-3-1 in 34)
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Chris Paul (16-3-6-2 in 30), James Harden (24-4-7-3 in 35.3), Bam Adebayo (14-11-4-0-2 in 32), D’Angelo Russell (22-5-7-1 in 33.5)
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Brandon Knight (17.7 ppg in 29 mpg), Patty Mills (15 in 21.7), Mychal Mulder (13.5 in 30.3)
• Cheap threes: Svi Mykhailiuk (3.3 3pm in 30.3), Mycal Mulder (3.3 in 30.3), Kelly Olynyk (2.5 in 14.8)
• Cheap boards: PJ Tucker (8 in 33), Willy Hernangomez (8 in 18), Mike Scott (7 in 29)
• Cheap dimes: Matthew Dellavedova (5.3 in 25), DJ Augustin (5.3 in 19), Cody Martin (4.8 in 20.3)
• Cheap steals: Tyus Jones (1.8 in 19.5), Jordan McLaughlin (1.8 in 20.3), Delon Wright (1.5 in 24.5)
• Cheap blocks: Alex Len (1.8 in 17.8), James Ennis (1.3 in 25.3), Jerome Robinson (1 in 24.3)
• Cheap shooting: Bobby Portis (58.6 fg% on 11 fga), Danuel House (48.9% on 11.7), Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (48.1% on 10)

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

• Love: (PG) Trae Young, ATL ($9900, at WAS): You have to go all the way back to January to find Trae priced at less than ten grand. That alone is enough reason to take advantage of the situation today and go play him, as Young has been a top-20 player on the season and top-10 if we don’t count the few games he had to leave early due to injury. If you want an even stronger reason to go with him tonight, well, let’s say Young never misses on scoring big-time fantasy goodies on back-to-back games. Trae’s price is probably down because he had a rough one last Monday against Memphis (under 24 DKFP in 29 minutes), but not once in the season has Trae logged two consecutive games getting 39 or fewer DKFP on both. That’s insane, and that single occurrence happened back at the start of December. If we consider a “rebound-game” one that happened after scoring fewer than 30 DKFP, Trae has averaged 56.5 KDFP in the five such games he’s had this season. Oh, and the Wiz are the cupcake anyone would order to have a get-right night, aren’t they?
• Hate: (PG) CJ McCollum, POR ($8200, at PHO): I knew this was going to happen, and you should have known too. Dame came back on Wednesday and what did that mean? CJ flopped. It has happened all season long. This back-court isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. It works, but only to an extent. The Blazers—CJ and Dame, that is—are what they are, and when Dame cooks and is the leading man CJ just shies away. Mac still got his good 39.5 DKFP the other night, but he went from scoring 40 to dropping 22, his usage rate tanked all the way down to 26.9%, and that was only Dame’s first game back. This is your actual ROS McCollum, folks. Forget about the monster averages this man had put up since the break, because those are gone forever. Not a single chance he keeps posting nightly 50-DKFP lines. Count on CJ for the 35-to-40 fantasy points on his best nights, but don’t expect much more for him.
• Love: (SG/SF) DeMar DeRozan, SAS ($7200, at BKN): The possibility of a trade leading up to the deadline probably boosted up DeDe’s cache and made us care more about him than we expected. Wrong narrative, though, as DeRozan still merits of all the attention we have available. Looks to me like every single soul out there has forgotten about him—and the Spurs, by extension—but Double-D keeps putting up numbers. The price is reasonably low as the last week hasn’t been the best for DeRozan with a paltry 33-DKFP average since last Saturday, but that’s precisely what makes me believe in a rebound sooner rather than later. The minutes keep up at more than 35 nightly and although the usage has gone a bit down the shot attempts have stayed healthy with at least 10 per game in those three. DeRozan is a true 20-point scorer on a nightly basis so he’ll get back there in no time, and he’s kept his rebounds (5.3) and dimes (7.5) way up since the ASW break. No reason not to think he’s just had a little bit of bad luck on the scoring side of things and that he can’t get it back tonight at a steep discount against a middle-of-the-pack-D as that of the Nets is.
• Hate: (PG) Chris Paul, OKC ($7500, at NYK): While he is staying healthy and avoiding injuries, CP3 might be running out of gas. Paul has been a monster this season and his 37 DKFP per game aren’t bad at all, much less considering his 31.7 mpg on the year for an average of 1.16 DKFP per minute on the court. But his last few games have left a lot to desire. Going back to Feb. 21 and since the ASW Paul has played seven games and played as a top-35 played. That’s good, only it’s also a little short of his top-20 performances from the month and change that preceded those matches. In those seven games Chris has only reached 38+ DKFP once and while he’s kept his scoring numbers up (17.8 ppg) the rest of the cats have suffered quite a bit with the rebounds down to 4.1 and the assists to 6.5. Those numbers are mostly on par with his season averages, but leading up to the All-Star he had been torrid and this version of Old Paul seems to be on the verge of a total collapse. Fading for the time being.

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!