NBA DFS: Zach LaVine and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for November 12

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: Zach LaVine (SG). If you’ve been out of #WojWatch of late: Nikola Vucevic is off today’s game and the next few days while going through health and safety protocols. That doesn’t impact the likes of DeDe and ZLV directly, but the aftermath will most def be there for the two wings as they will get to eat a little bit more than usual. Vooch is leaving 14 FGA on the court for other Bulls to take, and LaVine is undoubtedly going to be the main man getting some of those and putting them on his plate. Zachary has missed on reaching 33+ DKFP just once this season (he shot a season-low 33% on 18 FGA with no freebies in that match) and he’s averaging 41 FP per game in November (five games played). LaVine is scoring 23+ per game, his shooting is ridiculous as he’s hit shots at a 52.5% clip on 20 FGA this month, and he’s also contributing steady numbers on all boards/dimes/steals cats. Must-play kid of the day.
• Hate: R.J. Barrett (SG/SF). Barret keeps growing as a player, no doubt about that. But he’s sucked a bit of late. Obviously, the price isn’t sky-high and Barrett can still be a good under-the-radar player going on the cheap today with some upside against the Hornets. But man, he’s not doing that much to have us truly confident. Six games in November that have definitely not been bad on average (16-5-2) but not even good in the past week with two 9.3 and 16.3 true stinkers. Facing two wildly different teams in Cleveland and Milwaukee in the past seven days, Barret went for a 6-3-1 line against the former (23.1% on 13 FGA with 4 TOs) and then put up a 9-3-1-1 line against Milly just a couple of days ago. Even in the Philly affair sandwiched by those two bad games and although he finished with a 15-10-4 dub-dub, RJ shot 30% on 20 FGA and he’s been at or below 40% in five games straight. Not loving this play.

Plays at the Forward positions

• Love: Anthony Davis (PF/C). LeBron is still out and the Russ-AD pair has delivered plenty of fantasy goodies. I’m not saying they have thrived and carried the Lakers places, but they are working for us fantasy players out there. Davis has been a little bit banged up but even then he’s absolutely demolished fools left and right. Other than his 7-minute outing on Nov. 6 after getting off the court for good, AD has four games played in November and he’s averaged 58+ DKFP always hitting 50+ and with a couple of 65+ outcomes to his name. That’s AD to you this season. 24+ points, 9+ rebounds, 3+ dimes, 1+ steal, and 1+ block in each of those individual four games has been AD’s baseline this month. His average line has, of course, been higher nearly at 28-13-4-2-4 with a 53% field goal percentage, a 72% freebie clip, and a 30.6% usage rate. Demolition Brow-Man.

Picks at the Center position

• Love: Evan Mobley (PF/C). Folks were super excited with Mobley for like a week, then the Scottie Barnes Craze arrived and all of them forgot about the Cavs big freshman. Shaking my head... But Evan surely knows how to Mob foes, dawg. And he has not stopped doing so since he hit the ground running from day one (yes, he put up a silly 17-9-6-1-1 stuffed line in his debut against the Grizzlies). Mobley’s November: five games, average of 35 DKFP, 36 MPG, a baseline of 18-8-2 with a block, and a spicy 52.4% shooting from the floor on a more than healthy 14 FGA diet on a near-starter-average 23%. Mobley has hit 49 and 32 PF in his last two games with lines of 26-9-5-1-1 (73.3 FG%) and 19-7-2-0-1 with a ridiculous 36.1 USG%. Can’t ask more from a very affordable rookie like E-Mob.
• Hate: Al Horford (PF/C). Man, I’m a sucker for oldies masquerading as goldies. And our Pal Al surely looked the part in the very early days of the season when he was performing to a steady 10-10 baseline in his return to Boston. Seriously. He racked up five dub-dubs in his first six games only missing by two points the time he didn’t pull the feat off. Insane, even more considering he never played more than 33 minutes in any of those dub-doubling games. But since then (Nov. 4, included, that is) Horford has been on the low going from 30 minutes of playing time to 26 and lastly 24 against Toronto a couple of nights ago. The points have gone down to 11 PPG, the boards are far from double digits at 7, then 4, then 5, and the usage has also dropped from 23-24% to a below-average 19.9% in the past three games. The Beantown Boyz have been hit with a heavy blow (Jaylen missing the next two weeks) and Horford keeps starting, which should keep him hitting his 25+ DKFP, but it’s not very appealing to pony up $7.6K for a man that has fallen below his prior average of 42.3 DKFP to a ground-level 23.8 FPPG in the last three... Ugh.

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!