NBA DFS: Harrison Barnes and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for October 24

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, and players to target/fade if you want to win tonight’s slate of games!

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

Picks at the Guard positions

• Love: Tyrese Maxey (PG). No Simmons, no problem. Sure, the 76ers dropped one against BKN a couple of days ago, but it’s not that we’re going to murder them for it—at the end of the day the Nets are making the Finals in every “analyst” prediction, so there’s that. Maxey is the new point in town, and he couldn’t have really done more to this point if you ask me. The average line is sitting at a spicy 17-4-3 in 35 MPG a day, and although it is sure that the playmaking and defensive numbers might be a bit higher for our entire liking, the truth is that Max has dropped pops with gusto on back-to-back 41%+ shooting from the field (14+ FGA) while getting moderately nice 21% usage rates in both games. Only the 31st-highest salary on the slate but a top-12 projection as my calculations see it. Not bad.

Plays at the Forward positions

• Love: Harrison Barnes (SF/PF). We have to assume 2022 H-Barnes is a mirage, right? Right? I mean, check this fool’s couple of lines from the first two games of the season and try avoiding passing out: 36-9-2-2 with 8 treys against Portland in 37 minutes and then a 25-15-2-1 with 2 long-rangers in 38 minutes facing Utah. Jeezus. The usage is high at 26%, the minutes can’t get higher, the shots are falling at a frenetical 48.8% clip, and the three-point percentage is even higher at a ridiculous 58.5% so far on a marvelous 8.5 3PA per game volume. Always loved Barnes, but right now we’re hitting Nirvana, folks. Also: revenge game against GSW.
• Hate: Jaylen Brown (SG/SF). No player has had an explosion and a stinker as big as those coming from Jay B. Brown debuted to the tune of a masterful 76+ DKFP game against New York (helped by two OTs, mind you) in which he cooked a career-high 46 chicken wings and paired that scoring with 9 boards, 6 dimes, 3 steals, and a block to round things up. Then, against Toronto two nights ago, all he could do was finish with a measly 9-4 line (yes, that’s it, no more contribs) shooting 23.1% from the floor on 13 FGA, turning the ball over five times, and committing two fouls. He also had four turnovers against the Knicks, so that might be there to stay. Brown has shown his floor and his ceiling in consecutive games, and he’s probably more of a middle-ground, 40-DKFP player on a nightly basis. Even then, the Cs should run Houston out of the building tonight and Brown might see limited playing time cutting his upside. Let him marinate for a day or two, please.

Picks at the Center position

• Love: Robert Williams III (C). God bless this soul. The Celtics, if you remember, traded for old-pal Al Horford this summer but have kicked off the season starting RW3 in back-to-back games. In a double OT against New York, Will played 45 minutes, and in a regular 48-minute game against Toronto in which Boston got mollywhopped, he went to play 29 minutes. Healthy playing time. Williams put up a dub-dub in G1 (16-10-3-3-5) while loading his freaking line all across the board, and he came back to earth a bit on G2 but still dropped a nice 9-6-0-1-3. It’s going to be hard to have this man swatting 3+ shots a day, but the upside is right there. Houston doesn’t scream fear and Williams comes with high dub-dubbing possibilities tonight and a ground-level salary that makes him an appealing flier to take as a last-slot-filler.
• Hate: Jaren Jackson Jr. (PF/C). Cold start from the Grizzlies no. 2 man. JJJ has played an average of 31 minutes per game in his two outings, and he’s even been able to get a healthy 19.7% usage rate playing next to mighty Ja. All he’s been able to do, though, is averaging 34 DKFP (on a very steady basis, though, with outings for 33 and 35 FP) against both Cleveland and the Clips topping at 21 points, 7 boards, 2 dimes, one steal, and 4 blocks looking at the season-highs from those two games. I’m afraid that’s not going to cut it for me. JJJ is perfect from the free-throw line (10-for-10), which should regress a bit, and he’s hit 6 three-point shots already, which should also come down soon. Triple-J is hoisting 11.5 FGA and 6.5 3PA hitting only 39.1% of his total shots from the floor. Not liking this thing that much, to be honest.

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!