NBA DFS: Bradley Beal and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Jan. 1st

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

• Orlando is undefeated no more after falling to the Sixers. Ben Simmons hit a triple. The world was definitely on the verge of coming to an end in 2020, folks. We dodged a bullet by flipping the calendar page. Here’s hoping for a much better 2021 from the FakeTeams squad!
• The Rockets are low-key good and nobody is seemingly realizing or counting them because they’re all on hold waiting for Harden to get bolted out of town. Watch him stay put.
• LeBron’s no. 1 fanboy and high-school classmate—and also ESPN-pundit—Brian Windhorst brought a little bit of heat to the Harden trade talk by claiming a blockbuster is coming sooner rather than later. I could have said the same, only I’m not on TV so nobody would have listened to me.
• Russ played yesterday, logged another triple-double, and the Wiz lost another game. He will load-manage today, so maybe Washington get its first W of the season (?).
• The Pacers have lost T.J. Warren indefinitely as he will undergo surgery to fix a stress fracture.
• Kyrie Irving: “There shouldn’t be any roles that are deemed for male or female…But there’s still a fight. I am glad Pop got ejected and put Becky at the driver’s seat.”. Shouts out to Kyrie, Pop, Becky, and everybody that made the league evolve and help this thing to happen. Kudos to Becky on a very well deserved feat.
• Markefulle Fultz went trolling Philly by saying the struggles with the Sixers helped him grow. A growth, in case you don’t have any clue about a thing, that is now helping the Magic and not the 76ers. Flex on the Process.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s slate roundup

• Pretty shitty night to close a pretty shitty calendar year. No player reached 60 DKFP, but at least we had a pleasant surprise as Mr. Otto Porter led the slate with 57+ fantasy points yesterday. He did so by hitting five triples while stuffing a 28-12-3-3 dub-dub line for the Bulls in their W against the lowly Wiz. The usage wasn’t overly high at 19.8% but Otto avoided turning the ball over while hitting 71.4 percent of his shots from the field.
• Russ and Harden were close to Otto, but couldn’t lit the cigar. Russ finished with another triple-double (22-10-11) and another loss, and Harden led the slate in scoring with 33 pops to go with a 6-8-1-1 rest-of-line. Sabonis (25-11-7) was the only other player in the 50-to-60 DKFP-clip.
• Five more players finished in the 45-to-50 DKFP-clip, including Richaun, Wood, FVV, Fox, and Wall.
• The ROI King award went to... Otto Porter! No real mystery here, as Otto Porter is a relatively good player but has never lived up to the hype he carried into the Association (I mean, Otto was the no. 3 pick of his class...). This is just Porter’s fourth career-game with at least a 20-10-3 line, which speaks volumes of his talents. Anyways, Porter started for a COVID-impacted lineup missing players, dropped a fine 5 treys on Washington, and handed his fantasy GMs plenty of goodies. Richaun Holmes was sublime for the Kings too, along with Harrison Barnes.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... DeAndre Ayton! It feels good when I tell you to fade someone and I hit the nail right on the goddam head. Daytona wasn’t open for business on New Year’s Even, it seems, even with some CP3 ready to burn the circuit and dish out some tasty assists. Ayton had the fifth-highest salary among biggies in yesterday’s slate yet he could only finish with 25 DKFP in 28 minutes. Ugh. Chris Paul, SGA, Zion, and most of all Bojan Bogdanovic (3-1-1) were absolutely atrocious to close the year, too.
• There were 10 dub-dubs via points and rebounds (it could have been a lot more, as seven players finished either 3 points or 2 boards shy of it; Josh Hart put up the cheapest one) and just one between points and dimes (Coby White’s 16-10 with 6 rebounds).
• Just one triple-double in Russ’, who is a perfect 4-for-4 this season. In trip-dubs and losses, I mean. Russ put up a resounding 22-10-11-1 line but he turned the ball over 5 times and finished the game with a -10 plus/minus.
• More silly numbers: both Fox and Myles Turner led the slate with 4 thefts, while Thomas Bryant swatted the most shots with 3 blocks.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from the preseason

• Luka is starting to drop more-than-expected fantasy goodies of late related to his price... Doncic has the lowest ROI among all players tagged at 8.5K+ on average through Wednesday, which we fantasy players don’t like just one bit. Luka is averaging 40.9 FP while priced at an average 10.5K, and that won’t cut it for long. The line is at a reasonably good 24-6-6-1 but that’s not what you expect from a top-salary guy.
• Of those in the group of super-expensive plays (8.5K+), both Jokic and Drummond have been the two most valuable players so far this season. Their tags are already through the roof, but they could climb even higher if they are able to keep their exploits up. Anyways, they’re very well worth their prices.
• Silly cheap values: Josh Jackson, Darius Garland, Lu Dort, JaVale McGee.
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Dejounte Murray, Julius Randle, Jerami Grant, Jaylen Brown.
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Luka Doncic, Devin Booker, Ricky Rubio, John Collins, Kelly Oubre, Will Barton, Anthony Davis.
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Josh Jackson, Lu Dort, George Hill, Avery Bradley, Patty Mills.
• Cheap threes: Gary Trent, Lu Dort, Patty Mills, Avery Bradley, Damion Lee.
• Cheap boards: Enes Kanter, Royce O’Neale, Jarrett Culver, JaVale McGee, Marc Gasol, Jakob Poeltl, Bobby Portis.
• Cheap dimes: Tomas Satoransky, TJ McConnell, Cole Anthony, George Hill, Killian Hayes.
• Cheap steals: Jeff Teague, Brad Wannamaker, Justin Holiday, Payton Pritchard, James Johnson.
• Cheap blocks: Robert Williams, Marc Gasol, Nerlens Noel, Aleksej Pokusevski, P.J. Dozier, Bismack Biyombo.
• Cheap FG% (min. 9 FGA): George Hill, Avery Bradley, Lu Dort, Josh Jackson, Doug McDermott.

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

• Love: Bradley Beal (SG). I don’t think the Wiz are an 0-4 team. Seriously. Even if they suck all around the squad other than at Brad & Russ spots, the offensive fireworks from those two should be more than enough to at least defeat the Bulls... Washington is flying to Minny for tonight’s affair, and while the Wolves are a tad better than Chicago, odds are Beal cooks one more time. Russ is resting this one, so the loss is not guaranteed. Also, when Russ rested last Sunday Beal was forced into a 36% usage rate and finished with a 29-5-7 line and 47 DKFP against the then-undefeated Magic. The Beal looks very tasty in this first round of 2021 games.
• Hate: Anthony Davis (PF/C). Not liking AD, nor any Laker, in DFS contests this season. Not until we hit June or July and the playoffs roll around. I know, LBJ has three games above 47 DKFP and the other two at 35+. AD has one 50 FP game and two more at 35+ too. But Davis’ performance simply stinks when compared to his salary. His ROI is ground-level these days, and it is not that this thing is going to change and stay up for long. AD has played more than 31 minutes once in four games, his usage rate is down to 25%, and he's pretty much a 20-8 player these days with some dime-upside. I’m sorry, but even if AD gets his 40 DKFP that’s not going to cut it for me, much less at a bonkers $9.5K tag.
• Love: John Collins (PF/C). The Hawks didn’t hand JoCo his much-wanted max deal at the end of 2020. That means Collins will be a restricted FA entering next offseason. What hasn’t changed on Collins’ front is that I’m 100% positive he will fill his bag big-time whether he stays in Atlanta or goes elsewhere. Collins might not be a mighty defender, but he’s a beast on the offensive side of things and these Hawks can drop points in bunches. Atlanta is playing Brooklyn for the second time in a row, and two days ago JoCo had his best game of the season putting up a 30-10 dub-dub with a dime and a steal, hit 2 treys, and finished the day with 48 DKFP. Not bad for a $7.2K play.
• Hate: D’Angelo Russell (PG). The Wolves are a goddam walking mess. Rubio is bitching about the team’s attitude, KAT is already banged up and missing games, Anthony Edwards hasn’t been horrid but it’s not that the no. 1 pick is the G(Rookie)OAT,... and DLo is underperforming badly. Sure, he’s had three 18+ point games and hit a good number of long-rangers, but other than that his dimes are down to 4.3 APG and his boards currently sit at 2.5 RPG. Russell is a turnover machine, too, with 14 possessions lost in his four games. The algorithm has yet to catch up because Russell’s salary hasn’t moved almost a nail, which makes DLo a very putrid play.

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!