NBA DFS: Pascal Siakam and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Wednesday, Sep. 9th

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

• Championship or bust for the Bucks this season, and Miami made sure it was the latter rather than the former closing their series with a 4-1 gentleman sweep. Gianni’s FA-Clock is ticking already.
• The Lake Show took the series lead after yesterday’s win and they’re now just two games from reaching the WCF. Houston, as always, is on its way to falling short of reaching the Finals for the nth time.
• Quite sad that it took Coach Bud to fall 1-3 down to Miami—and Giannis getting injured—to start playing his best guy for more than 30 minutes... Middleton played back-to-back 40+minute games in the last two matches, but it was just too late for it. Will Bud survive the offseason?
• One who didn’t last long: Billy Donovan, as he and Oklahoma City are parting ways after his contract ran out earlier this summer and now that OKC is out of contention. Obviously, he’s already making headlines putting his name next to those of the Bulls, Pels, Sixers, and Pacers as potential destinations.
• Giannis keeps saying that he wants to stay in Milwaukee and will not ask for a trade. We’ll see...
• Speaking of the Bucks, it looks like they might make a run at trading for Chris Paul to try and help Giannis and the rest of the bunch jump over the hump next season, which is key as the Greek will enter free agency by the summer of 2021. It’d take a lot to get CP3 if only to match his salary in return, though, so Milwaukee will need to manufacture some serious moves.
• After yesterday’s elimination, Marvin Williams announced his retirement after 15 seasons in the Association. Shout-out to the Marv for his nice career!

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s Slate Recap

• LeBron definitely doesn’t know how to stop being great. Another slate led by LBJ yesterday to the tune of 63+ DKFP that translated to 36 points, 7 boards, 5 dimes, a steal, and 4 (!) blocks. He was insane, dominated from the get-go, and helped LA take a 2-1 series lead that is starting to gear the WCSF toward the Lake Show.
• The Lakers-Rockets showdown from yesterday was, in fact, quite the show in town. All of LeBron, AD, Harden, and Russ broke for more than 54 fantasy points and were the only four players to get more than 40 DKFP. Harden was super close to a trip-dub (33-9-9), AD reached a monster dub-dub line (26-15-6), and Russ finally got it right dropping 30 on LA while grabbing 8 rebounds.
• Kawhi, on the other end of the court yesterday, was the second-best play of the slate with his 53.3 DKFP to the tune of a 23-14 double-double to which he added 6 dimes, 2 blocks, and a middle finger. He played all of a massive 42 minutes, but it is not that LA did not need all of them, though.
• Both Middleton and Butler finished with 40 DKFP each, the only two to get to that mark of the rest of players in the slate. Midd needed all of 42 minutes while Jimmer reached that mark with a sweet 17-10-6 dub-dub to send Milwaukee packing.
• You won’t believe this because it’s been two games in a row but the ROI King award went to... Rajon Rondo! Holy Rajon. RR has been incredible and a key for the Lakers getting their shit together in the last two games, flipping the series against the Pocket Rockets. See, Rondo finished with 39 DKFP after being priced at under $4K again, which returned massive value for his owners. He dropped 21 pops on Houston on just 30 minutes, dished out 9 assists, and was able to get 2-2-2 boards/steals/blocks. So good. Tyler Herro was also great yesterday with his cheap 14-8-6 productive line.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Bam Adebayo! Considering he played just 30 minutes, it makes a little more sense to find Bam here. Even with that, though, it is not often that a biggie—much less a do-it-all like Bam is—falls so short of his potential and finishes with just 13 points and 6 rebounds as ‘Bayo did yesterday while carrying the fourth-highest price of the slate. Another silly bad play: Goran Dragic. See the trend? Miami won, advanced, and just didn’t need much effort for some of their assets.
• Only three dub-dubs via points and rebounds (AD, Brook, Butler) but none between points and assists.
• LeBron did the impossible blocking 4 shots, while it was RoCo who became the greatest theft by stealing 4 rocks.

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

• Love: (PF) Pascal Siakam, TOR ($7800, at BOS): Boston ran Toronto out of the court two days ago to put them absolutely against the wall with the series now 3-2 in favor of the Cs. Win or go home, Raps. Spicy P hasn’t been really great in the playoffs, against Brooklyn or Boston, but his price is reaching hilariously cheap levels. Pasky could rest a bit the other day, playing only 28 minutes while getting on foul trouble, so he should be good for another 40+ minutes game tonight. That’s good, because the two times he’s done so against Boston in the past five games he finished with 44 and 42 fantasy points dropping 17-8-6 and 23-11 lines. I think it’s time for Siakam to step up his game once more and force a decisive Game 7. Truth be told, the Raps looked frustrated and angry by the end of Game 5 so I bet on a collective effort tonight with Siakam—and Lowry—leading the way.
• Hate: (PG/SG) Jamal Murray, DEN ($8600, vs LAC): Get-right game for Jamal this one, and a must-win match for Denver if they want to keep the series going and their chances of advancing alive. The problem with Jam is that he’s not been that good for the past three games facing the Clips. His Game 2 performance wasn’t bad but it is not that he put up terrific numbers (27 points, 3 rebounds, 6 dimes) and was helped by the bonus of the steals and blocks. The other two outings were horrid, with just 12 points and 14 in the lats game. I guess facing Kawhi and George is not the same as being defended by a crop of Jazz-men, plus it is clear that Jokic is the go-to weapon of the Nuggets against a Clippers team that lacks interior presence. Not my favorite play this Murray, definitely.
• Love: (SF/PF) Michael Porter Jr., DEN ($5200, vs LAC): Sneaky, cheap, under-the-radar play here to fill your lineup. I’m not saying MPJ is going to have back-to-back 40-DKFP games as he did last time out (18-10-3-1-3), but in just 23 minutes against the Clips in Game 3 he played great ball. Denver needs everything and then some to put on a fight against LA, and that means something more than just Jamal and Jokic. Porter Jr. came off the bench, as he’s been doing since Game 4 of the series against Utah and had his best game in that role to date inside the bubble. It is not that he will put on 40 minutes of playing time, but he is very efficient and can rack up fantasy points on the boards with ease against the Clips. If he can shoot relatively well he could finish close to another dub-dub and return great value tonight.

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!