NBA DFS: Nikola Vucevic and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Thursday, Feb. 11th

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

• As “bad” as the Tampa Raps have been, they are already sitting fifth in the Eastern Conference having won four of their last five games. Talk about improvement.
• KAT finally came back and he hasn’t missed a beat. Dub-dub on the night of his comeback with an 18-10 in the 31 minutes he graced the court. If only could Minnesota win a basketball game...
• The Lakers missed AD again, and they also went to overtime for the third game in a row. Either they want to test LeBron’s endurance limits or I don’t know what this silly game they’re playing is about.
• The G League came back yesterday and will be played for the next month in Orlando’s bubble. If you don’t want to miss what’s going on, you know what to do.
• We all know the Pistons are legit bad. They’ll be even worse now with Jahlil Okafor undergoing surgery on his left knee and expected to miss at least six weeks going forward.
• Good news for a needy GSW squad: James Wiseman remains out but he should be back soon. Not tonight, though, as he’s been already ruled out for the game against Orlando.
• The NBA keeps plotting the All-Star Weekend, or rather the All-Star Sunday. Latest news: the Slam Dunk Contest looks like it’ll be a halftime event this year with the Three-Point Contest and Skills Challenge also slotted to happen the same day.
• Also regarding the Association, the league backtracked on its free-anthem policies and is now forcing all franchises to play it before tipoff. Cuban ate that L.

Duds and Studs: Yesterday’s slate roundup

• Pretty big slate with pretty big names putting up pretty big games. None of them reached Gianni’s performance levels, though, as the Greek racked up fantasy goodies to the tune of a 47-11-5-1 line for a total of 70 DKFP against Phoenix. Monster day for the Eurostepper, who also logged a massive 40.1% usage rate... yet finished -3 in +/- in a one-point loss to the Suns.
• Zachary LaVine and Luka both finished with 64 FP, although the former got there on pure scoring dropping 46 pops (9 treys included) while the latter had an all-across-the-board contrib with a 28-10-10 trip-dub.
• The only other player with 60+ DKFP: Trae Young, who brought back his bitchy ways and screamed at the refs in the last play of the game. Even on that L diet, Trae still put up numbers with a 25-7-15-1-1 stuffed line and the second-most assists he’s dished on a single game this season.
• Three guys in the 50-to-60 clip, with the members of the club being Kawhi, Kyrie, and our ROI King Al Horford.
• The ROI King award went to... Al Horford! Good old Al heard the rumors of a potential trade—back to Boston, no less!—and decided to raise his value and appeal for a contender to go after him. Al reached 56 DKFP on the night thanks to a stocked 25-8-8-4-1 line, a 61.1 percent shooting from the floor, and a great 1.66 FP/min average in his 34 minutes of playing time in OKC’s OT losing effort. Kenrich Williams, DeAndre Jordan, Brunson, Lou, and Millsap were other great values.
• And the DOTS (Dud of the Slate) Award went to... Fred VanVleet! Not the best day for FVV, who keeps showing a bouncy profile night in, night out. It was a night to forget for the Vleet, who could only finish with a lowly 14-4-7 line for 28 DKFP even though he carried a top-10 salary. Jokic, Harden, KAT, and Domas weren’t that bad, but fell short, while Porzingis plain sucked.
• There were nine dub-dubs via points and rebounds (Crowder and Batum needed a few more points and Domas/Kuzma/Portis missed by a board) and four between points and assists (Ricky fell five points short).
• One triple-double yesterday, from the mighty Luka Doncic. This man can do it all, and he does it so effortlessly that I often think his trip-dubs have zero value, seriously. This one finished reading 28-10-10 (with a steal and two blocks) on a night that ended in victory for the Mavs even though Krispats did everything to drag them down.
• More silly numbers: Al Horford pulled off 4 thefts, while rookie Jaden McDaniels blocked 4 shots for Minny.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 7 (Feb. 1 to Feb. 7)

• Finally, Steph claimed his throne for a week. Curry played three games during the past seven days and finished with the highest DKFP average at 63.3 per game. That’s just bonkers, and his 1.75 FP/min is the highest mark among players with 3+ games played, even those with much smaller MPG averages. Somehow Curry dropped 41 PPG to go with 5+ RPG, 6+ APG, and 1+ SPG while shooting 57.1% from the floor and hitting 7+ 3PG.
• The closes player in PPG to Curry, Joel Embiid, could only score 34.7 pops per game. Fox, Doncic, and FVV were the only others to score 30+ through at least three games played.
• No player was able to close the week averaging a trip-dub in 3+ games, although James Harden was the closest clocking in with a 22-8.7-12 per-game line with a steal to spare. Butler was close too at 19-9-8, and Draymond was his usual frustrating self with a stupid 5-8-12-3-2 stuffed line.
• Although FVV finished with the sixth-highest DKFP per game mark (53.8), he was also the most bouncy player among all with 3+ games played, logging a DKFP-deviation of 23.9 FP. Reasonable, considering he alternated a career-night (77 FP) with a resounding dud (30 FP) and a good-not-great game sandwiched in the middle (53 FP).
• Josh Jackson keeps rebuilding his image in the L, and he was the best sixth-man of the week to the tune of 36.9 DKFP with an average 20-6-3-1-1 line in three games. Haliburton put up 34.6 DKFP also off the bench in all of his four games, although LaMelo was the clear Rookie of the Week thanks to his four starts and 41.3 DKFP average on those.
• Silly cheap values: Toscano-Anderson, Bazemore, Kenrich Williams, Monk, Patrick Williams, Valentine, Favors, Muscala, Kaminsky, Forbes, Roby
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Draymond, Boucher, Josh Jackson, Horford, Josh Richardson, Tristan Thompson, Portis, Diallo
• Some very expensive players not doing enough to help their owners: Anthony Davis, Beal, Russ, Wood, Drummond, Middleton, Oladipo, Brogdon, Booker, Morant
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Monk, Forbes, Patrick Williams, Payton, Milton
• Cheap threes: Monk, Forbes, Shamet, Danny Green, Snell, Bullock, Danuel House, JJ Redick
• Cheap boards: Tristan Thompson, Hart, Whiteside, Giles, Toscano, Kleber, Favors, Kaminsky, Pat Williams, Willy Hernangomez, Gafford
• Cheap dimes: Satoransky, Augustin, Rondo, Bembry, Payton, Milton, Brunson, Bane, Anfernee, E’Twaun Moore
• Cheap steals: Layman, THT, Roby, Moore, Iggy, Danuel House, Favors
• Cheap blocks: Roby, Favors, Len, Eubanks, Gafford, Whiteside, Bitadze
• Cheap FG% (min. 9 FGA): Forbes, Pat Williams, Korkmaz, Valentine, Nowell, Bullock, Bane, Bacon, Monk, Milton, Payton, Rodney Hood

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

• Love: Nikola Vucevic (C). Either the league is barren of big-man talent, or the Warriors have been ultra-lucky in terms of the biggies they have faced thanks to their recent schedule. These are the names: Poeltl, Kleber, Theis, Ayton, Reid, Favors, Robinson, and Gasol going all the way back to Jan. 18. Even some those were able to reach between 35 and 45 DKFP here and there, so odds are Vucevic just crushes GSW tonight. Vuc has played 25 games this season, and he’s dropped below 35 DKFP just three times. That’s insane. Vuc is one of the most wildly underrated players in the L, a walking dub-dub, a 25-12-3-1 do-it-all averager in the last month of games, and a 21 FGA a night shooter. Not the best Niko, but one who has put up 45, 51, 55, and 61 FP in four of his last five games. Jeez.
• Hate: Fred VanVleet (PG/SG). Knowing—actually, not knowing—how FVV works, there is a great chance FVV goes and puts on a show today. Freddy is the bounciest player ever when it comes to performing on a night-to-night basis. He comes from a 28-DKFP game against Washington yesterday and is now entering the second game in two days... only now against a healthy Celtics squad (they’re missing Marcus Smart, but still). VanVleet is going to log 34+ minutes of playing time because that is just what he does nightly, back-to-back or not, but I don’t have FVV as the 30+ or 50+ points player he’s shown flashes of in the past couple of weeks, much less against the fourth-best fantasy D in Boston’s. The algorithm opted not to drop the salary, and you’d be paying for Dr. Fred (the 50-5-5 impossible performer) or Mr. Vleet (the 9-2-5 ultra-sucker).

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!