NBA DFS: Victor Oladipo and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Jan. 22nd

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

• Four games on the shelf for the Grizzlies squad, as the NBA has postponed all of their matches until Jan. 28th contest against Chicago.
• It is not that the bullet point above is super important, but it marks a change in the way the NBA is going to handle COVID going forward. Instead of allowing teams to isolate individual players, the whole team would be forced out of their scheduled games until they are cleared, missing seven-to-ten days and three-to-four games on average.
• The Cavaliers felt forced to trade Kevin Porter Jr. after his outburst a few days ago, and the Rocket pounced trading for the sophomore and giving Cleveland just a second-round pick in return—which is in fact so protected (top-55) that would most probably end in nothing. A super cheap what-the-heck flyer with tons of upside.
• Michael Porter Jr. seems to be finally back with the Nuggets after missing the past four months or something. No, seriously, MPJ hasn’t played ball since Dec. 29th and Denver is hurting for some reinforcements.
• On the other hand, Jayson Tatum was confirmed out of tonight’s Boston vs. Philly second leg of their mini-series. Seemingly in for today’s slate: Myles Turner, who won’t let a banged-up hand stop him from fighting for that sweet DPOY award.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s slate roundup

• With just three games played it was always going to be reasonable to not have very explosive performers. LBJ led the slate with his 59 DKFP, so you see how there weren’t any fireworks on Thursday night. LeBron played 38 minutes (perhaps his most impressive stat...) and finished with a good 34-6-8-1-1 all-across-the-board contribution in LA’s win against Milwaukee.
• There were only two more 50+ fantasy-point players, one from each of the other two games played yesterday. DoMi was great for Utah, reached 55 DKFP, and put up a 36-7-5 line hitting 6 treys against NOLA; while Julius Randle exploded for a 16-17 dub-dub that fell just one dime short of becoming a trip dub as Jules logged 9 dimes and 54 DKFP.
• Just four players in the 40-to-50 clip including Steph, Giannis, AD, and Jrue.
• The ROI King award went to... Donovan Mitchell! That’s correct. Even carrying an already-high $7.9K salary, DoMi’s 55 FP on the night were more than enough to make him the true ROI King yesterday. He wasn’t literally the most valuable player (Noel and KCP had higher ROIs), but he was the most potent/valuable play. Wiseman, Jrue, and Conley were great, cheap plays too.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Brandon Ingram! Are we watching BI going from Most Improved Player to Most Regressed Player? Smh... Ingram has been dropping duds for a while now, and yesterday marked the nth time he’s done so this season. Ingram could only reach 30 FP on an $8.5K tag, which sucked for his fantasy GMs. Zion wasn’t otherworldly either, and Dennis Schroder’s 10 DKFP were absolutely mediocre.
• There were three dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Randle, Giannis, and Gobert) and none between points and dimes (Joe Ingles missed on it by a dime and two pops).
• No triple-doubles yesterday, although Julius Randle fell just one assist short of pulling off the feat. Not a bad line for him, though, finishing 16-17-9-1 although he was rather bad at shooting the rock hitting just 36.4 percent of his 11 FGA... for a putrid 0.89 points per shot. Thank god he at least scored all of his 7 FTA, saving his night a bit.
• More silly numbers: Conley and Caruso both logged 3 steals, while Noel and Gobert shared the block-lead with 4 swats 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: Victor Oladipo (SG). With all of the hoopla surrounding the Nets new Big Three, it makes sense Victor Oladipo has flown a little bit under the radar for the past few days. That doesn’t mean he’s been bad to start his Rockets tenure, though. In just to games, starting four days ago, Dipo has scored 4 combined points, grabbed 10 boards, and dished out 15 dimes to go with 6 stocks. The averages aren’t hard to calculate: 27-5-7-2 in just 31 MPG, and even in one of those two games (the last one against Phoenix), Dipo shot a poor 31.8 percent on 22 FGA. Vic has reached 54 and 45 DKFP in his two games in Houston, and his minutes should ramp up a bit to around 35 per night. The efficiency is incredible at 1.57 FP/min and he should keep killing it going forward, starting tonight.
• Hate: Devin Booker (SG). I can’t say Book is playing bad basketball, but Book is definitely not the player we have grown accustomed to watching ball on a nightly basis in the past. Booker has scored 30+ points just once in 13 games this season even though he’s shooting 46.8% from the floor on a healthy 17 FGA per-game dose of shots. Dev is not hitting a lot of treys (five combined in his last four games), and his contributions on both the rebounds and assists categories are rather low at just 3.4 RPG and 4.0 APG. The turnovers have gone down lately after destroying half of his upside earlier on the year, but the usage rate is also dropping below 30% more often than not and Book’s ROI has been a little bit low in 2021.
• Love: Clint Capela (C). Don’t take this pick for what it is not. I’m not offering you Clint as a viable option because of his Shaq-esque 27-26 double-double two days ago. The thing is, Capela has put up dub-dubs virtually all season long, is on a five-game streak of doing so, has absolutely displaced John Collins from the go-to-biggie role, and has played 36+ minutes in Atlanta’s last three games. It’s been three games (vs. POR, MIN, and DET) in which Capela has posted 23+ points and 15+ boards lines and reached at least 54 DKFP. His per-minute fantasy-point average is at 1.45 since Jan. 11th (included) and the value he’s returning for his prices is insane. Four days ago, against this same Wolves squad, Capela closed the night with a 23-15-2-2-3 line. Just saying.
• Hate: Kristaps Porzingis (PF/C). Hot take of the day here, folks. Pretty much the contrarian fade, this one. See, KP has been steadily improving since he debuted back on Jan. 13th. He has scored 27, 33, 34, 40, and finally 53 DKFP in his five games, a clear ascending trend that has yet to stop. And that’s precisely what I’m betting on happening tonight. Porzingis is playing around 31 MPG, and all of his games have been on the above-average side of per-minute fantasy performance. His last two went for 1.30 and 1.66 (!) FP/min, which is just absolutely unsustainable. I have zero confidence in Kris keeping up his 68.8 shooting from the last two games, and while he will probably still finish with some 20-10, his value is too dependent on those high shooting percentages. I could be very wrong, but I’m just not trusting this Porzingis.

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!