NBA DFS: Chris Paul and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Wednesday, Aug. 12th

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

• Cool, calm, and collected. Dame dropped 61 pops on Dallas yesterday, his third 60+ point-performance on the season... and the second time ever that has happened: only Wilt did it back in 1962 (15 times) and 1963 (nine games). Insane in the brain.
• News of the day: the NBA will name a Player of the Seeding Games and an All-Seeding Games Team. Yay! All of the restart games were left out of the “official” awards consideration, so it is reasonable to have fun with what has happened during the last couple of weeks and hand out some fake gold, although truth be told, Dame Lillard alone should get all of it.
• Philly didn’t play either of Simmons, Embiid, Tobias, and Horford yesterday, sure, but let’s not take from Phoenix snatching another W and moving to a perfect 7-0 with just one game to go. It’d suck to see them miss on the play-in, but it’s very possible for that to happen as it all depends on what Portland and Memphis do next.
• The Heat will have Kendrick Nunn back and available for tonight’s game against Oklahoma City after positive passing the quarantine period. High stakes for both franchises in this game.
• We’re about to lose a low-key legend in a few months, folks. Former Finals MVP Andre Iguodala announced yesterday that he will retire in one year or two, which makes sense considering he’s already 36 years old and just a role/bench player for Miami.
• The Nets will run a full process prior to deciding on who will be their head coach starting next season. Jacque Vaughn should have plenty of chances to retain the job, although names like Jason Kidd, Ime Udoka, Jeff Van Gundy, and Ty Lue have been popping up lately.

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• You already know about this, even if you don’t follow basketball at all, because it was absolutely insane to watch happen live: Dame Lillard scored 61 points against the Mavs, dropped 9 treys on Dallas, grabbed 5 boards, dished out 8 dimes, and was even able to steal a rock. This fool shot the rock 32 times and somehow managed to score 53.1 percent of those attempts from the field, and was perfect in his 18 free-throw shots. Seriously. This is Dame (84.25 DKFP) world, and just live in it.
• The distance between Lillard’s fantasy points and second-best Devin Booker (58.75) was the same as that between Book and the 27th-best performer (Robert Covington at 32.75). Crazy. Only three more players with 50+ DKFP, those being Ja, Luka, and Porzingis.
• Pretty unique ROI King Award winner yesterday with Kyle O’Quinn getting it home. Quinn was this close to finishing with a triple-double but dumb Furkan Korkmaz missed him open and instead shot—and missed—a three-pointer. Quinn finished with a noice 9-10-11 line to go with 2 steals and a block, shot 70.6 percent, and did all of that on a mediocre 10.2% usage rate. All in all, 45 DKFP at the minimal $3K. Shout-out to the KO’Q!
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award goes to... Giannis Antetokounmpo! I never thought I’d see something like this coming from the G, but here we are. Giannis dropped a Zidane—a headbutt, that is—on Moritz Wagner yesterday and got ejected after 10 minutes of playing time in which he could only rack up 25.25 fantasy points while getting into this game priced at a monster $10.5K. Close to Giannis were Jusuf Nurkic and CJ McCollum, neither of them topping 22 DKFP.
• Not many double-doubles with only five between points and rebounds (Poeltl, Keldon Johnson, Harry Giles, Vucevic, Valanciunas) and three between pops and dimes (Morant, Doncic, Rubio).
• The best and most frustrating dub-dub of all came from O’Quinn, who finished with 10 rebounds and 11 dimes... and 1 pt short of the trip-dub.
• Super-sub Chris Chiozza started for the Nets and led the slate along with RoCo with 4 steals each, while Bostonian Robert Williams was the only man inside the bubble to block 3 shots yesterday.

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

• Love: (PG) Chris Paul, OKC ($8200, vs MIA): CP3 has played more than a fair share of minutes since the restart, and Oklahoma City keeps playing for position in the Western Conference standings with different potential matchups depending on what they do next. Miami is in the same position, only in the East. This should be an interesting, competitive game, and that should benefit Paul rack up fantasy points. The veteran point is at 18-5-7-2 inside the bubble while logging 29 minutes per game. He’s only had one truly booming game (against the lowly Wiz) in Disney, but he’s a lock to reach those 35-to-40 DKFP easily and finish with some 15-5-5 line no matter what. Not overly expensive and one of the few players/games with something in play as to trust him today.
• Hate: (C) Nikola Jokic, DEN ($9200, vs LAC): Totally opposite side of the coin. The Nuggets and Clippers could still flip positions in the standings, but it looks like a stretch and I’d be shocked if any of these two teams put on a major effort here battling each other instead of keeping bodies safe thinking on the true postseason play. The Nuggets faced the Lakers two days ago and already benched the whole starting unit for the whole last quarter. I don’t see them risking anything today, and it is not that finishing as the no. 2 team in the West hands you a playoffs-cupcake (the Mavs, most probably) so there is nothing for the Nuggets to gain running Jokic for extended minutes tonight. And on top of that, the tag Jokic carries is mental for the low upside and the questions around Denver’s approach tonight.
• Love: (C) Bam Adebayo, MIA ($7700, at OKC): Back to that Miami-OKC contest, Bam Adebayo should play and try to help Miami clinch the highest-possible seed in the East. The best news for Bam come from the other side of the court, as the Thunder will probably be missing both big men Steven Adams and Nerlens Noel, giving Adebayo more room to operate and put on a show. Adebayo only logged 22 minutes in his last outing facing Indiana so he should be back to his average 30 minutes of playing time inside the bubble, and he’s been putting up 15-8-5 lines constantly with a dub-dub already since the restart on Aug. 1 so chances are high he drops another 10-10 today paired with a good bunch of dimes and perhaps a couple of blocks to spare. Cheap pick, potentially high ROI with upside.
• Hate: (PG) Jamal Murray, DEN ($7000, vs LAC): The reasons to fade Murray are pretty much the same used for Jokic (read above). Murray came back four days ago and was already “forced” to play 39 minutes including overtime against Utah, and obviously the point’s minutes were cut all the way down to 24 in his second bubble-game against the Lake Show. If he gets the run he’s a good 20-5-5 bet, but I highly doubt Denver will put more stress on him leading up to the postseason. Remember, the Nuggets are still missing season-long starters Barton and Harris so it is not that they can afford to risk any more injuries. Not falling for this Jam even at such a low 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!