NBA DFS: Rudy Gobert and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for November 9

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: Reggie Jackson (PG). Reggie Jackson is surely not the greatest player ever, nor is he having a monster of a start to the year, nor anything like that. But with the Clippers missing tons of players he has stepped up his game a bit and he’s dropped 11+ points in all games except one so far. He’s finally gotten his shooting right with three consecutive games in which he’s dropped 19, 20, and 29 pops while shooting 50% on a healthy 16+ FGA-per diet. The usage is all the way up to almost 24% in November (four matches) and he’s yet to play less than 36 minutes in a game taking place this month. Again, Jax is not a monster of a player, and perhaps not the safest of plays out there, but given the low salary and the upside we could very well be talking about a top-10 DKFP guy tonight with a top-5 ROI on the day.
• Hate: Damian Lillard (PG). At some point, Dame will be back, right? Right? I don’t know. Is Dame actually plotting a trade away from the PDX in the shadows? Just imagine. Nah, now seriously, what’s going on here? Lillard is shooting a paltry 35% from the floor while attempting 19 FGA a day. His three-pointers are falling at a putrid 25% clip yet that’s not keeping Dame from attempting a silly 10 3PA per game. Thank God he’s at least hitting 85% of his freebies, I guess... Dame’s 38 DKFP per game is just an aberration right now, yet the algorithm is keeping him in the top-5 salary realm, which makes no sense at all. I mean, the production is that of a $7.5K player tops, not that of one tagged at an unreasonable $9.2K as Lillard is. We call that Name, not Game. Or maybe Dame, no Game. Dame lastly faced the Clips back on Oct. 29 and he went for 40 DKFP, which is not bad, but again, not great for the fourth-highest salary in the slate if you ask me. Oh, did I mention that the Blazers had another game against L.A. four days earlier than that one... and Dame finished the day with his lowest score of the season at a putrid 18 DKFP in 28 minutes? There’s that.

Plays at the Forward positions

• Love: John Collins (PF/C). It’s always been about who to pick between Collins and Capela from the Hawks, right? Well, my reasoning to go with JoCo here is simple. Both Collins and Capela should keep Gobert busy, but as always the fantasy bounty will most probably not get shared between them. Now, considering the stiff defense they’ll face but the fact that Capela is the one operating in the paint and not stretching the court at all (something Gobert will mirror on defense), it has to be Collins getting the best of Utah tonight, am I right? Capela has started slow, hasn’t really put any sky-high fantasy tally to date, and Collins has been 6 FPPG better than his partner in crime so far this season. Collins is edging Capela in everything other than RPG (8.9 to 10.9) while putting up better shooting splits than Cap even on a bulkier diet of shots—of course not to mention the 2.8 3PA per game to Capela’s... zero.

Picks at the Center position

• Love: Rudy Gobert (C). The Croissant is delicious and he’ll earn his breakfast tonight facing the Twin Towers that Atlanta will be throwing his way in Collins/Capela. Even if Utah ends losing this match and those two finish the day at like 25-20-5 each, odds are Gobert does enough and has plenty of chances to block shots and goes at the two of them for buckets in bunches. Gobert is averaging a ridiculous 15-16-1-1-2 line this season. He’s basically doing everything out there on the court, and he’s playing a high 31.4 MPG these days. Of course, no three-pointers on Rudy’s radar, but a neat 74.6 FG% (low 6.7 FGA, mind you) to go with a still-to-bounce-bac 68.4% on a bulky 7.6 FTA. With Donovan Mithcell starting the season kind of slow on the shooting department (almost 26 PPG, yes, but on a low 42/30/89 splits), Gob has stepped up and done everything to perfection through the first ten games of the year.
• Hate: Clint Capela (C). If we didn’t know about Capela’s eased-in start to the year we’d be very very worried. Thank God, we know. Thank God, we are smart enough to not pony up the $7K+ he’s tagged with today given his putrid performance (below 29 FPPG in 11 games...) to kick the year off. I mean, one thing is to start slow and gear up on a nightly basis, another one is to do what Captain Cap is doing these days. Sure, he’s got his fair amount of dub-dubs (six in those 11 games played) but not even with those feats to his name has he ever topped 40 DKFP in a single game this season yet. Not liking this thing, seriously. The ROI has been rather low because Cap has maintained his salaries around the same value as the one he carries today... and he’ll be facing a monster in Rudy Gobert inside the paint. Definitely fading Clint.

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!