NBA DFS: Julius Randle and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Feb. 12th

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

• Just in case you missed it Curry just hit 10 treys yesterday, reached 40 pops, handed Orlando an L, and has the Warriors playing 8th-seed ball in the West with a winning record. Hoops Intelligentsia is keeping Curry out of the MVP conversation because “Curry isn’t winning”, while they have Jokic on a pedestal while he’s playing for a team just like one game above GSW and 7th in the West. Keep the narrative up, fools.
• Shout-out to yesterday’s Prom King, Max Strus. 21 points, 5 treys, 0-0-0-0 rest-of-line. Yessss. First time this happens in Heat’s history, by the way.
• Ben Simmons ain’t with no BS: “I’m the best defensive player in the NBA”, this guy dared to say yesterday. Damn, son.
• The second return of the All-Star voting results came out yesterday with Klay Thompson climbing to the eighth spot and Alex Caruso to the 10th in the West Guards group. Keep it up, trolls, we need some laughs on these pandemic days.
• Kemba said yesterday that his low-performance levels are not related to any knee issues. I don’t know if that’s good, or bad. Boston needs warm bodies at the point, and shooters packing centimeters and wings. We’ll see how they handle the deadline.
• James Wiseman looked close to a potential comeback as recently as yesterday... but now Steve Kerr is dropping the hammer on those reports saying that the rook will be re-evaluated weekly and the org will go from there. Sucks.
• Tyler Herro is not injured but he entered the safe and healthy protocol circuit yesterday so keep an eye there as he might miss multiple games.
• League execs believe Wizards will eventually trade Brad Beal, reports Marc Berman of the New York Post. Tell me where does one apply to become a league exec, because I think I’m fully qualified.
• ESPN’s Bobby Marks is calling Minny to trade the hell out of the roster that is not named Karl-Anthony. Makes sense, because these Wolves hella suck. I’m with you, Bob.

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: Julius Randle (C). This is your typical buy-low play. Randle comes off his second-worst game of the year, which happened three days ago against Miami in a night when he finished with just 30 DKFP to the tune of a 12-8-3-2 line. The problem was the shooting, as he hit just 22.2 percent of his 18 shots from the field and had he shot his usual 47%+ he’d have finished with 20+ pops and around 40 DKFP. That bad shooting won’t be there tonight, Rose has had more time to jell and practice, and since Jan. 31 included Randle has only dropped below 43 DKFP once, in that aforementioned Miami game. Julius has been a surprise this season, is still in the All-Star run, and although it might sound ridiculous he’s a nightly sound fantasy play these days, even more against a stupidly bad Wiz squad.
• Hate: Zach LaVine (SG). There is a real possibility Kawhi clamps Zacharias tonight, which I don’t like even just one bit. LaVine has become a three-or-D(unk) menace these days, and that’s basically all he does. Cut his scoring, and he’s cooked. I’m not saying he can’t drop a few buckets on the Clips, but I’m just not convinced he can keep hitting 35+ pops a day on a 60% success from the field... Zach has strung four games finishing with 45+ DKFP, which will make you believe he’s worth the gamble, only he did so against Orlando (x2), Washington, and the Pels. Not liking ZLV.

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!