NBA DFS: Goran Dragic and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Sep. 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

• Sweet, sweet, all-second-round playoffs-basketball yesterday. Toronto saved the day and the season snatching a win from Boston on an OG Anunoby buzzer-beater, and Denver finished Game 1 resting its starters because the Clips absolutely demolished the Nugs.
• Kawhi is the first and only player since MJ to score 29+ points in each of his team’s first 7 postseason games. And he did so playing limited minutes yesterday as LA didn’t really need to run him for long thanks to the score. Neat.
• Draymond Green kept tampering on TNT yesterday saying that Miami doesn’t respect Milwaukee’s shooters. Do you know which team has great shooters, which also happens to be the team Green plays for? Welp.
• Ja Morant was named Rookie Of the Year yesterday, missing on a consensus decision by one freaking vote... that went to Zion. Whoever the fool voting for Williamson instead of Ja, he’s in for some words coming from the rook: “I want to figure out who was that person who didn’t pick me first. I want to shoot a direct message to them and thank them for motivating me even more … If anybody know who that is, let me know.”
• The Nets named Steve Nash (say what!?) their head coach for the 2020-21 season. Completely out of left field.
• The Sixers seem to be close to reaching an agreement with Tyron Lue for their head position. Nothing final or closed yet, though.
• Another oldie but goldie looking to enter the coaching circuit? Chauncey Billups.
• Minnesota will move hell and earth to trade its no. 1 pick of the 2020 draft but if they ultimately can’t do so odds are the Wolves take Anthony Edwards to pair him with D’Lo and KAT.
• Same plans (trading their picks) seem to be in place for Golden State (no. 2), Atlanta (no. 6), and Phoenix (no. 10).

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s Slate Recap

• About time for Kyle Lowry to step up and play the dog-game we always knew he had in him. Lowry led the slate becoming the only 50+ player and reaching 54 DKFP against Boston yesterday. Of course, he somehow played 46+ minutes (LOL). He finished with 31 pops, 6 boards, and 8 dimes including the game-winning inbound-ball, while also adding 2 steals and shooting a good 56.5% from the floor. Sweet.
• Both Jaylen Brown and Kemba dropped 44+ fantasy points each, but that went for nothing as Boston hold onto the league until the clock hit double zeros... only for OG Anunoby’s buzzer-beater to fall throw and hand Toronto the W.
• The other 40+ fantasy player: Kawhi with a 29-2-3-2-1 performance in which he scored 75% of the 16 shots he took and all 4 freebies.
• With the Raptors getting their first second-round win and saving their season yesterday, the ROI King award went to... OG Anunoby! It makes sense considering the man was the one hitting the basket that allowed Toronto to cut Boston’s advantage in half and set up a 2-1 series going forward. All in all, OG dropped 12 points and grabbed 10 boards to go with a 1-3-2 in assists/steals/blocks. Nothing otherworldly but quite a lot for someone being slept on by the algorithm. The other two super-valuable plays: Marcus Morris and Paul Millsap, although they both fell behind 34 DKFP.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Nikola Jokic & Jamal Murray! Any of the two Nuggets were good candidates, so with them being part of the same squad they opted to show love for the other one and share the award. How cute! Jokic played 30 minutes and Murray 33, they rested because the game against the Clips was totally out of hand, and neither of them scored more than 15 points nor grabbed more than 3 rebounds... They sucked to 22 and 26 fantasy points respectively in a night to forget inside the bubble for the Nuggets as a whole.
• Only two dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Jaylen Brown’s 19-21 and OG’s 12-10) and none between points and assists.
• Shout outs to all of Kemba, OG, and Millsap for stealing 3 rocks each, and to Jaylen Brown (?) for blocking 4 shots yesterday somehow, although he pretty much allowed OG to win Toronto the game on that last play...

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

• Love: (PG) Goran Dragic, MIA ($7000, vs MIL): For some reason, Dragic’s price still is something worth laughing at given this man’s exploits on the court. The Dragon reached 44 DKFP in Game 1 against the Bucks and doubled-down on that performance with a 40-DKFP one two days ago. Since he’s starting games he’s just been incredible, and he’s the best value (average DKFP vs. price) available these days and still active in the postseason over no less than Jamal Murray. Dragic is doing it all with 23 ppg, 4 rpg, 5 apg, and 1 spg. That’s absolutely fantastic and Milwaukee has not had an answer for him in the first two matches of the second round. Obviously, the Bucks will put on a monster effort tonight, but options keep popping up for these Heat on offense (Butler, Bam, Goran...) and they won’t be able to stop everyone. For his price this looks like a must-play option today.
• Hate: (PG/SG) James Harden, HOU ($11200, at LAL): Holy Toledo the algorithm is crazy as hell. See, Harden is a beast. Harden is averaging the sixth-most fantasy points since the start of the playoffs (54.8) in seven games. He’s playing almost 36 minutes per game with a 30-6-8 line. That’s great. Do you know what is not that great? Houston had to play a full seven-game series against OKC that finished two days ago. LA hasn’t played a game since last week. Do you know what happened to Denver yesterday after playing seven games against Utah: they were blasted left and right. I’m not saying The Beard can’t have the game of his life, I’m only saying chances are low he does. And if he does not, then the slightest of drops in production, at his price, will kill your lineup.
• Love: (SF/PF) Kyle Kuzma, LAL ($5000, vs HOU): This comes absolutely out of nowhere. If you read Harden’s blurb you know that I’m into the whole tired-and-blasted narrative for the Rockets tonight. That means that both Houston and LA will probably give third-fourth-fifth-fiddle players extended run because the game might get out of hand soon. Enter Kuzma and his sweeeeet discounted tag. Kuz is far from great, he’s averaging just 20 DKFP in the postseason, but he’s also played an average of 24 minutes off the bench in all five games against Portland with usage rates under 22% in four of those five matches. If all goes according to plan that should change today, and the last time Kuz faced Houston in the bubble he played 30 minutes and finished with a great 40-DKFP tally to the tune of a nice 21-5-3-2-2 line on a palatable 27% usage rate. That’s what I’m envisioning here, and for his price that’d be great value in return.

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!