NBA DFS: Julius Randle and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Thursday, Jan. 21st

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

• The NBA keeps postponing games left and right. Kinda worrying for teams like the Wizards, which have played just 11 matches this season and none since Jan. 12th. The next game on Washington’s schedule, as things stand, would take place next Monday, which would mark 13 days and virtually two weeks since the last time we saw the team ball...
• So far through almost a month of games, 22 of the 30 NBA teams have suffered at least one postponement.
• The Nets Big 3 finally got together and debuted yesterday against Cleveland... in a double-OT loss to the Cavs. The three-headed monster scored with gusto, but they also left Collin Sexton to hit 42 pops on them. Yikes.
• Luka Doncic keeps being ridiculous as he logged his 30th career-trip-dub against Indiana. Not the greatest of performances, but Luka is already 14th in the NBA trip-dub leaderboard on par with Ben Simmons. These two are the only active players below 25 years of age inside the top-15.
• Seth Curry couldn’t make it to yesterday’s 76ers game against Boston. Same for Tatum. Similar situation for both, still questionable to play in tomorrow’s second leg of the back-to-back mini-series.
• Two months on the shelf for Pistons rookie Killian Hayes, who will be rehabbing and resting for the next couple of months before coming back.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s slate roundup

• When you are part of a two-overtime game, odds are you rack up numbers. Ask KD, who led the slate in minutes played with 50 rounds of the clock and posted the highest DKFP tally at 77 FP. He wasn’t that great, truth be told, averaging just 1.54 DKFP/min but he still closed his line at a tasty 38-12-8-1-4 shooting 48 percent from the floor on 25 FGA and committing only 2 turnovers.
• Much more impressive was the duo of Trae and Capela for the Hawks. They also went to OT, sure, but none topped 44 minutes and Capela finished 27-26-2-1-5 for 76 FP and Trae (66) went back to his mental ways with a 38-4-10-2-1 game in which he hit 3 treys on a monster 33.5% usage rate.
• Three more 60-DKFP players in Embiid (42-10 with 21 FTA!), Sexton (42-5-5), and Ayton (26-17 and 5 blocks).
• Eight players in the 50-to-60 clip, including Harden, Kawhi, Porzingis, Curry, Kyrie, Vucevic, PG13, and Doncic.
• The ROI King award went to... Kendrick Nunn! Very spicy game from the Nunn, who was all but religious. Nunn dropped 28 pops on the Raps while hitting 4 treys, and paired that scoring outing with 8 boards, 5 dimes, and a theft shooting 75% on 12 FGA... for 47 FP at just $4K. Noice. Jaden McDaniels, Terence Davis, Taurean, and Theis were other sweet values from yesterday’s slate.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Andre Drummond! The Cavs played Jarrett Allen in a revenge game against his former team, and Jarret Allen almost doubled Dre’s fantasy score while topping his minutes. Dru carried the fourth-highest salary of eligible players, yet his 13-7-3-1 line for 26 DKFP was putrid at best. Kevin Huerter disappointed a lot on his first huge-salary day, while Simmons, DLo, Jaylen, and DeRozan sucked too.
• There were 13 dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Zubac got the cheapest of them all; Lowry/Dwight missed by 2/3 points; AGordon/Oubre/Plumlee/Gay by a rebound) and two between points and dimes (George’s 19-12 and Trae’s 38-10; FVV missed by an assist).
• Two triple-doubles yesterday, although it’s up to you to give Harden props as he reached it on a double-OT game in which he played 50+ minutes for a 31-10-12 line. The other one came from Luka, the 30th in his career, to the tune of a 13-12-12 performance in just 38 minutes of playing time with a super low 22.2% usage rate.
• More silly numbers: Kawhi stole 6 rocks with no other player topping 4, and both Capela and Ayten tied for the lead in swats with 5 blocks each.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 4 (Jan. 11th to Jan. 17th)

• If you remember what happened last week, Doncic was—along with Brad Beal—the only player to average 65+ DKFP per game, although he played just three games. Well, Luka has improved on that and this past week, in three more games, Doncic (33-13-12-1-1) has averaged a stupid 75 DKFP. Only Jokic (27-12-10-4-1) came remotely close to Luka with 68 FP himself.
• Kevin Durant only got to share the court once with newly-acquired James Harden, but KD led the week among players with 3+ games played in PPG notching 34 pops a night in three games. Doncic and Dame were the only other players to average 30+ PPG in the past seven days.
• Myles Turner missed Sunday’s game but he still played 3 other times last week averaging a stupid 4.0 BPG. Noel ranked a distant second with 2.8 BPG in four games. LOL
• Enes Kanter’s über-efficient season might see a drop in per-minute numbers now that he will be starting for Portland, but Kanter kept up the highest DKFP/min average among players valued below $5.5K during the past week putting up a 1.46 mark. Clarkson, Tillman, and Boucher were some other overly-efficient per-minute players during the last seven days.
• The algorithm has yet to catch up with LaMelo Ball’s game, no less than the youngest of trip-dubbers in NBA history. Ball has played four games this past week putting up an average of 43 DKFP at just $6.2K. Somehow, the Hornets keep playing him off the bench and starting Rozier and Graham...
• Silly cheap values: Alexander-Walker, Quickley, Bruce Brown, Tillman, Tate, Grayson Allen, Vincent, Poeltl, Achiuwa, Okoro, Dort
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Boucher, Duncan Robinson, Myles Turner, Clarkson, Fox, Danny Green, Wood
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Ingram, Trae, Paul George, Porzingis, VanVleet, Gobert, John Collins
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Alexander-Walker, Gabe Vincent, McDermott, Quickley, Marcus Morris, Lu Dort, Caldwell-Pope, Kennard
• Cheap threes: Isaiah Joe, Marcus Morris, Dort, Caldwell-Pope, Kennard, NAW, Vincent, Redick, McLemore, McDermott, Trent Jr., Knox
• Cheap boards: Achiuwa, Bruce Brown, Biyombo, JaMychal, Jaxon Hayes, Zubac, Poeltl, Roby, Birch
• Cheap dimes: Iguodala, Tate, Quickley, Aaron Holiday, Vincent, Kennard, Caruso, DJ Augustin
• Cheap steals: Okoro, Tillman, Dort, Vassell, Connaughton, KCP, Sumner
• Cheap blocks: Noel, Gasol, Poeltl, Biyombo, Tate, McGee, James Johnson, Favors, Pokusevski
• Cheap FG% (min. 9 FGA): Bruce Brown, McDermott, NAW, Marcus Morris, Trent Jr., Redick, Okoro, Quickley, Bacon, Dort

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

• Love: Julius Randle (C). Randle posted his first double-double of the season back on Dec. 27th and that marked the start of an eight-game streak in which he dub-dubbed (including a 28-12-11 trip-dub against Cleveland). Three games with 7, 5, and 6 rebounds broken that trend, but Randle is back at it with back-to-back dub-dubs against Boston and Orlando for 48 and 44 DKFP respectively. Hard to believe Dr. Julius will remain with us for long not bringing his Mr. Randle persona to the table, but here we are folks. Randle is averaging a 23-11-6 line nightly, and while I’m not entirely sure the Knicks are at peace with Randle handle the offense, the thing is that he’s been great at it. Randle can’t block a shot to save his life and the steals are too random, but he stays out of foul trouble and has turned the ball over 4+ times in just one of his last seven games, so it’s not that he will impact your lineup negatively.
• Hate: RJ Barrett (SG/SF). Speaking of New Yorkers... The Maple Bamba, well, is pretty much that. Barret is shooting a putrid 40% on the season, and from Dec. 23rd to Jan. 11th that average was sitting at an even worse 36.5%. That hasn’t bothered RJ, though, as he’s shooting a freaking 15.9 rocks per game, the 29th-highest mark among players with 12+ GP... while having the worst FG% among those in that group (tied with Trae Young). That’s why Barrett is incredibly inefficient this season, scoring just 0.84 points per shot (FTA included), and on the fantasy front, things don’t look much rosier with an average of just 0.92 FP/min, quite below average. The couple of dub-dubs he’s posted in his last two games look nice, sure, but they have inflated his salary without a solid resume so far this season as to start trusting RJ all of a sudden.
• Love: Rudy Gobert (C). Gobert’s last game was against New Orleans two days ago, and as expected (I highlighted him as the one to love in that slate) he had it easy against the Zion/Adams pairing inside. The Croissant put up a nice 13-18 dub-dub to go with a dime, a steal, and 3 blocks on the night for 46 DKFP and the second-best performance of the day. Three games in a row for GobGob shooting 75+ percent from the floor and blocking 2+ shots. The double-doubles keep piling effortlessly, the fouls and turnovers are never a concern and excluding one game of the 14 he has played this season, Gobert has always put up at least 1.07 FP/min and is averaging 1.31 on the season.
• Hate: Brandon Ingram (SF). Ingram has been falling down a cliff lately—or perhaps more than lately. It’s been six games in a row in which BI hasn’t topped 44 DKFP, and in fact, his scores have gone downhill consecutively from 44 to 42 to 36 (twice) to 30 (twice) in that span. What was an average 25-6-6 line to start the year has turned into a 20-5-4 since Jan. 6th, and that is not bad, but it is bad considering the prices Ingram is frequently available at. The usage has stayed the same, the shooting isn’t bad, but Ingram is attempting a tad fewer shots and not contributing as much on the boards, which is killing his upside. Brandon has played below-average on a per-minute basis in three of his last four games, including two days ago against this very same Jazz team (17-3-4 line for 30 FP).

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!