NBA DFS: DeMar DeRozan and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Monday, Feb. 1st

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 Wiz defeated the Nets yesterday in a bonkers final set of plays, and after the game, Russ said he is finally healthy after “playing on one leg” earlier this season. Don’t get this for what it is not, though, as the Wiz will keep sucking.
• That’s mostly because Beal will be out of the capital sooner rather than later. Do you need more to predict that than Beal’s zero-shot outing in yesterday’s first quarter? Yikes...
• A career-high scoring night for Jokic, who dropped 47 on the Jazz and ended the 11-game winning streak of Utah. Not bad for The Dough.
• Kyle Lowry and Aaron Gordon kept their feud up, and ultimately Gordon was forced out of the game after Lowry first hammered into his knee and the forward later rolled his ankle. Cold World, Gordo.
• The Pels are known to be looking for Lonzo/Redick suitors, and it all points toward Philly/Boston/Brooklyn as potential trade partners for the latter. Not looking very good in terms of a fit in Brooklyn for any of them, but both Boston and Philadelphia would definitely welcome a scoring bench-guy like JJ for their postseason aspirations.
• The Celtics Marcus Smart got injured against the Lakers and it looks like he will be out between two and three weeks. We’ll see if that forces Boston to make an early move for JJ, although they shouldn’t just rush it with Kemba now fully fit and playing nightly minutes.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s slate roundup

• Virtual tie at the top of the fantasy leaderboard with both Russ and Jokic getting 73 DKFP each. Russ did it in three fewer minutes, so we’re going with his slightly higher per-minute production to crown him the king of the slate. Westbrook helped the Wiz beat the Nets—you read that right—thanks to a monster 41-10-8-2-1 near-trip-dub on a night he shot 57.1 percent from the floor on a slate-leading 28 FGA. Jokic dropped 22 pops in the first quarter alone and finished with a career-high 47 chicken wings to go with 12 boards, 5 dimes, 2 steals, and a block.
• On a large slate of games, only one player closed his day in the 50-to-60 clip: biggie Dre Drummond and his 62 DKFP to the tune of a ridiculous 25-22 dub-dub against a thin Wolves squad. He added a 4-1-1 rest-of-line.
• Three fools with 50+ FP: KD was one fantasy point short of making it to the clip above, but couldn’t after finishing with a 37-7-6-2-1 stuffed line, Siakam contributed a 30-10-3-3 dub-dub, and Brad Beal kept his part of the deal up with another great 37-6-4 game... that ended in a W!
• As many as 10 players in the 40-to-50 clip, with Randle (27-12), Lowry (12-6-15), and Vuceciv (15-14) dub-dubbing.
• The ROI King award went to... Jeff Green! I have been preaching Jeffrey's Gospel for long after the Nets formed their Big 3. I mean, this guy is going to get a lot of spot-up and open shots, he can slash to the rim, and he is going to keep logging minutes next to at least one of KD/Kyrie/Harden nightly. Just yesterday he dropped 23 pops (including 4 treys) shooting 70% from the floor on just 10 shots but that’s all he needed (along with a 7-3-1-2 rest-of-line) to reach 43 DKFP. Anthony Edwards, Joe Harris, Dwight Howard, and Mo Wager were kinda great values too.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Domantas Sabonis! Not the best of days for Indiana’s biggie, who could only reach 32 FP in his 37 minutes of play against a stout Philly D. Domas scored 21 and pulled down 8 boards but he turned the ball over 5 times and his 4 PF didn’t help his efforts either. FVV, DLo, and Myles Turner didn’t do a thing either.
• There were seven dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Baynes needed two more points, Nance eight, and no player finished with a 10-9 line) and one between points and dimes (Lowry’s 12-6-15).
• No triple-doubles yesterday, with Russ getting the closest to the feat thanks to a close-but-no-cigar 41-10-8 performance in a Wiz winning effort against the Monstar Nets—which were missing Harden, though.
• More silly numbers: Simmons and Thybulle stole 4 possessions each for the Sixers, with four players (Ed Davis, Jaden McDaniels, Watanabe, and Lamb) swatting 3 shots each.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 6 (Jan. 25th to Jan. 31th)

• For the first time this year we have a fantasy leader not named Luka... yet we’re still stuck in the Euro-beat as it is Giannis who’s at the top this time. The Greek played 3 games this past week and all he did was average 67.6 DKFP to the tune of a 32-15-7-1-1 line. Not bad, as he even logged a seemingly impossible-to-reach-in-Milwaukee 38 MPG and still put up a 1.78 DKFP/min mark. Only Dr. Dre was able to average more points per minute at 1.81 among those playing more than four minutes per game.
• Giannis’ 32 pops a game were good, but the leader on the scoring department was no other than Brad Beal. Beal keeps building his case for a trade although he won’t admit his desire, and he did so in his four games played through the last seven days putting up 35.8 PPG. Beal is shooting a freaking ton of shots (28.5 FGA), which is why he’s not even close to the highest-scoring efficiency (1.26 PTS/shot). Trae Young led the week there with 1.73 PTS/shot among players attempting 15+ FGA per game.
• One thing is not the same as the others in terms of MPG. As many as 11 players have been on three games this past week while averaging at least 37 MPG, but it was quite surprising to find Gary Trent Jr. tied-second in the leaderboard with a monster 38 MPG on the week. That didn’t quite work for his fantasy upside, though, as he averaged the fewer DKFP (31.9) per game among players with 35.5+ MPG last week...
• Silly cheap values: Kaminsky, Zeller, Maledon, Whiteside, Nader, Watanabe, Anfernee, Baynes, Bacon
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Reggie Jackson, Anthony Edwards, Lonzo, Trent Jr., Hield, Alexander-Walker, Kanter, Jeff Green, Haliburton
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Sabonis, Curry, Randle, Irving, Capela, Vucevic, Porzingis, Jerami
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Anfernee, Rivers, Maledon, Diallo, Ingles, Nader, Nowell, Pacon, Whiteside
• Cheap threes: Anfernee, Maledon, Ingles, Muscala, Forbes, Rivers, Monk, Korkmaz, Connaughton, Finney-Smith, Timothe, Watanabe
• Cheap boards: Zeller, Baynes, Howard, Birch, Tristan Thompson, Poeltl, Kaminsky, Iggy, Looney, Whiteside, Robert Williams
• Cheap dimes: Monte Morris, Ingles, Iggy, Kaminsky, Wanamaker, McLaughlin, Zeller, Looney, Alexander-Walker, Okoro, Lonnie
• Cheap steals: IThybulle, Alexander-Walker, Bacon, Stanley Johnson, Garrison Mathews, Campazzo, Rivers
• Cheap blocks: Alexander-Walker, Poeltl, Robert Williams, Pokusevski, Dwight, Birch, Bitadze
• Cheap FG% (min. 9 FGA): Rivers, Anfernee, Miles Bridges, Nowell, Nader

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

• Love: Andre Drummond (C). I’m not going to write a lot about this play because I already did yesterday, and Cleveland is playing the second leg of a back-to-back mini-series against Minny tonight. Dru logged 32 minutes, finished 25-22, had his fourth-best game of the season (62 DKFP), and pretty much demolished a squad that will feature the same guys for the second night in a row. You know what to do, as the price has stayed low and even if Allen eats some chances from Dru the latter will thrive against a hella thin interior D.
• Hate: Clint Capela (C). After a scorching stretch of games in mid-January, Capela’s value has dropped its swag lately. Don’t get me wrong, Clint is still a great fantasy asset if you can afford him, but for his high salaries the return is just not entirely cutting it anymore. If I pay $9K for a guy like Cap I’m expecting at least 50+ FP in return. The problem is that while tagged at those heights, Cap hasn’t been able to top 46 FP in his past three games, and could only log a 9-11 against Brooklyn four days ago. Atlanta is going against a rested LBJ/AD pair tonight, Trae is shooting more than ever, and Clint’s usage has gone from 22+ percent in his heyday to 19+ in the past four games. Nothing seemingly substantial, but the FGA are down from 16.7 to 11.5 and the shooting has fallen from 69% to 45% as of late.
• Love: DeMar DeRozan (SF/PF). DeDe is a pretty-good-looking value play today. San Antonio is going against Memphis’ bottom-10 defense when it comes to fantasy points allowed and DeRozan is at a low $7K on the slate. On top of that, Memphis is missing Winslow, Allen, JJJ, Tillie, Valanciunas, etc, etc... Don’t be afraid of playing DD even given his last game came against this very same team two days ago... and all DD did was finish with 7 putrid DKFP. That was mostly due to shooting the ball a measly six times hitting only two of those shots, one of them a trey. Barring that stupid performance, DeRozan’s best game of the season came precisely against the Griz on the season’s opening night all the way back on Dec. 23. 28-9-9-1-1 was the line back then, and I’m betting on a repeat today.
• Hate: Jerami Grant (SF/PF). They’ll try to sell you the “revenge game” narrative over this one, with Jerami facing his former team tonight in what is a back-to-back for the Nugs after playing Utah yesterday. Nothing to it, though. Grant opted to sign with Detroit while Denver was offering him the same money—although a smaller role, yet still a starting one—and so far Jerami has proved his worth. In real basketball terms, that is, because fantasy players can’t be too happy with Grant’s late performances. It’s been five of six games dating back to Jan. 22 in which Jerami hasn’t reached 40 DKFP. His salary, though, has not dropped below $7.8K in that six-game span, which is just a horrific return in value. Grant has gone from 34 to 27 to 22 DKFP in his last three games against CLE, LAL, and GSW, and I’m sorry but until he comes back to his 45+ FP ways on a steady basis I’m passing on him.

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!