NBA DFS: Reggie Jackson and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Aug. 14th

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

• Last day of the regular/seeding season, folks. We made it to the play-in and the postseason! In this the year 2020 of our Lord! Yessir!
• Portland and Memphis will face each other tomorrow for a place in the playoffs. If Portland gets the W, then we rest on Sunday and come back on Monday with the Blazers facing the Lake Show. If Memphis gets the W, then we run it back on Sunday with a win-or-go-home for both teams to snatch that final postseason spot.
• On the bad/sad side of news, Phoenix achieved the seemingly impossible feat of finishing 8-0 in the seeding run... but still miss the play-in mini-series because of Portland and Memphis efforts in the bubble and their prior record advantages.
• On the other other side of news, Washington avoided going 0-8 by defeating Boston yesterday, getting that sweet win for a 1-7 record and a flight back to DC.
• Houston won’t have Russell Westbrook for the start of the playoffs, and that can mean huge trouble for the Pocket Rockets.
• Rajon Rondo has entered the bubble. Next steps for RR: quarantining for a few days, then join team practices, then burn some fools in the playoffs.
• Speaking of the playoffs, the NBA released the schedule for the first-round games and we’ll have four games every single day at least from next Monday (Aug. 17) to the Monday following that one (Aug. 24). After that, some series will start to be over and we’ll have fewer matchups per day, but oh boy is it going to be a packed week the next one.
• Kinda important news on the 2020-21 season: NBA players union head Michele Roberts is preparing players to start next season between January and March. We’ll keep an eye on that one, as it had been floated that the NBA could be preparing for a start on Christmas Day.
• It looks like whichever team has an opening at the head coach position for the 2021 season will seriously consider signing Ty Lue. The Knicks got Tom Thibodeau but any of the other vacancies could very well be filled by Lue in a few months.
• Dan Gilbert wants Cavs as a playoff threat next season. I want to be rich tomorrow. There is a chance, but I kinda don’t see either of those things happening.

Duds and Studs: Last night slate roundup

• In another insane night for Dame (42-12 with 8 triples), the actual fantasy leader was Jonas Valanciunas with his first career trip-dub against Milwaukee. Both men led their teams to the play-in with monster 70+ DKFP performances. Lillard finished with 72.75 fantasy points although JoVa outscored him by a single point to cook 73.75 himself to the tune of a massive 26-19-12 line with a 64.7 percentage from the floor.
• With every team playing random lineups, only Caris LeVert (37-6-9-2-1) broke the 60-point barrier while four guys finished inside the 50-to-60 DKFP clip: Josh Hart, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Thomas Bryant, and Nemanja Bjelica.
• Another result of the Rando-Squads: yesterday’s ROI King: Boban Marjanovic! The Mavs giant played more than ever, surpassed the 29 minutes, and finished with a great 18-20 double-double that included 3 assists for the man. He did all of that at just $3.5K finishing with a 47.5-DKFP bounty. More very valuable players yesterday: Josh Hart, Frank Jackson, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Jabari Parker—all of them now on their way home.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award goes to... Luka Doncic! We know this was about to happen. Dallas completely scratched KP from yesterday’s game and although Luka started the match against Phoenix he played only 13 minutes before getting benched. He could rack up all of 26.25 fantasy points while having the most-expensive price of the slate at $11.4K. LOL at those who played him. Pretty much the same happened with LeBron, who played 14 minutes and dropped 26.25 points at $11K.
• Not great but not bad night on the double-double front with six coming via points and rebounds (Boban, Dejounte, Josh Hart, Jarrett Allen, Jusuf Nurkic, Garrett Temple) and two between pops and dimes (Bjelica and Lillard). Shame on Rubio for falling three points short of a 10-12.
• Shouts out to JoVa for his trip-dub (26-19-12) and Ja Morant for his softer one too (12-13-10).
• The Celtics started Tremon Waters and he went on to lead the slate with 5 steals. The Spurs didn’t start Drew Eubanks but he was able to block a slate-leading 4 rocks.

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

• Love: Instead of the normal picks I hand out daily, I will run through some names here in general because no one is playing DFS today as it’d be a pretty nice way to just lose money. There is no love to find in any of your average stars around the league today, seriously. You gotta peek at the bottom of the salary list, play some fliers, and just hope for the best. Some Heat players might have nice performances and put on serious shows if they get the run, namely Tyler Herro, Kelly Olynyk, Duncan Robinson, and Kendrick Nunn. Perhaps Indiana runs Justin Holiday hard and he gets a chance at racking up fantasy points, same as Doug McDermott and T.J. McConnell. Another good bet could be Reggie Jackson, as the Clippers will rest the hell out of everyone and Jax is on a revenge game against his former team in OKC.
• Hate: As I already said above, don’t even think about putting the likes of Harden, Kawhi, JoJo, Jokic, Lowry, etc... on your lineup. It makes no sense because nobody is playing for anything today, and those guys won’t probably even sniff the court. They are all great fantasy players, sure, and even if they run for like 15 minutes they’ll probably end with 30 points, but the upside is just minimal considering what you’d be paying for them. I would even go to say that some low-key “stars” such as Danuel House, Malcom Brogdon, Paul Millsap, Al Horford, etc... aren’t worth paying for today either. Go with the most random players today. Put names you have never heard of in your lineup. Those are your valuable plays today, and hate the most famous fools around the league. We’ll always have time to get back to them next week.

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!