NBA DFS: CJ McCollum and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Wednesday, Aug. 26th

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

• Jamal Murray kept building his superstar-case yesterday dropping 42 on Utah to keep the Nuggets fighting for that second-round spot.
• Luka came down to Earth, though, and the Mavs are now at the same position as the Nuggets down 2-3 to the Clippers.
• Shout-out to Giannis for claiming the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award!
• The Lakers have their series aligned and Rajon Rondo will probably miss today’s game just out of precaution. He looks like a lock to play from the get-go in round two, though.
• Dame Lillard is most probably done for the year. He won’t play in Game 5 tonight and even if Portland somehow snatches the win odds are he won’t be back for Game 6 or wherever the Blazers get.
• Jamal Crawford wants to get back to NBA courts next season at age 40. Basketball Gods, please, make this happen.
• This sounds like a broken record but Tyronn Lue is also a candidate for the Rockets head coach position if D’Antoni doesn’t re-sign with Houston.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s Slate Recap

• Already mentioned him in the daily news section, and indeed Jamal Murray was the best play in yesterday’s slate of games reaching all of 68 DKFP on the night playing 41 minutes and dropping 42 pops. He paired that scoring outing with a neat 8-8 in boards and dimes and shot 65.4% from the field shooting the rock 26 (!) times. Back-to-back games without committing a turnover also, which is pretty cool.
• Kawhi stepped up to put the Mavs at the verge of elimination by getting his 32-7-4-1-1 stuffed line yesterday in just under 30 minutes, becoming the only other player to get 50+ fantasy points.
• There were only three more players inside the 40-to-50 DKFP clip, including Jokic, Paul George (!!!!!!), and Donovan Mitchell.
• After a long time out of the spotlight, the ROI King award went to... Montrezl Harrell! And that is quite surprising because he only played 22 minutes yet he finished with a monster 19-11 performance good for 37.25 fantasy points at just $4.1K. Super efficient game by Monty. The other great play of the slate was Jamal, who is still being overlooked by the algorithm...
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Luka Doncic! Hard to believe, I know. But Doncic had his worst bubble game even while logging 31 minutes of playing time and reaching 38 DKFP with a 22-8-4 line. He was tagged at a massive $11K, which is normal considering what he’s been up to, but yesterday’s performance just didn’t cut it at all. Another great dud was Lou Williams with his 13.25 DKFP at $6.4K.
• Only two dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Harrell and Gobert) and none between points and assists.
• Royce O’Neale led the slate with 3 steals and both Zubac and Kleber blocked 2 shots each.

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

• Love: (PG/SG) CJ McCollum, POR ($8100, at LAL): With Dame out of tonight’s game, it makes sense to build around CeeJay. McCollum already boasts a high 25.7% usage rate on the year and that number will only get up and up today against the Lakers in a win-or-go-home game for Portland. McCollum’s price might be seen as a little high considering his bubble run but it is not that Portland will have many more options to feed tonight.
• Hate: (SF) Khris Middleton, MIL ($7800, vs ORL): I think this is the complete opposite play as that of CJ. Milwaukee is 3-1 and virtually in the second round already. Even the smallest of efforts will put them there. Will they risk an injury or whatever to Midd or Giannis? No sir. Midd will play tonight, sure, same as Giannis. But odds are they finish with around 25 to 30 minutes without forcing anything. They can give you their casual 40 or 50 points even in that scenario, but it’s not very interesting to pay this much for someone who can lay an egg easily in an almost meaningless game.
• Love: (SG) Evan Fournier, ORL ($5400, at MIL): Absolute flier here, but at that price and with Orlando just playing for shits and jiggles tonight this might be Evan’s night to bomb away and finish with a great fantasy tally. Fournier hasn’t been that good inside the bubble, but we know what he’s capable of as he showed earlier in the season. With the Magic missing pretty much every single body in their squad odds are Fournier plays 35+ minutes, shoots the hell out of every possession, and just on pure volume reaches 20 pops to go with a few boards and dimes. At his low price, he’s a good lineup filler.

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!