NBA DFS: Kevin Durant and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Saturday, Feb. 13th

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 on top of that, I’ll bring you some statistical trends from the past week of games!

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

• Love: Kevin Durant (PF/C). Kevin Durant is pissed off. The NBA put on a show a few days ago when the league didn't allow him to play, then it did, then it didn’t, etc. To sum up, KD ended hitting the locker earlier than he should, was forced to miss some games due to health and safety protocols, but will be back on a court once for all tonight facing a lowly Warriors team that is lacking bodies left and right. The Nets will have their Big 3 available, and Durant protects to have the best ROI among all three parts of it, so it makes sense to pony up and pay the high price against a team that won’t know from where they’re hitting it. Rested, locked, and loaded, KD is a must-play today. Oh, have I mentioned this is a Revenge Game? Yay!
• Hate: Kendrick Nunn (PG). With Goran Dragic still out, everything points toward Nunn starting his fourth game in a row and sixth in the past seven games. Starting or not, Nunn has played 30+ minutes in all of his last 11 games going back to Jan. 18... and he’s plainly sucked. Only four times in that span has Nunn played to average levels on a per-minute fantasy basis, with the other games being widely below-average for his fantasy GMs. Sure, the totals are there to some extent if only because of the hyper-extended minutes of play, but he’s just not cutting it for me. Expect some 15-5-3 line with a potential steal here or there, but keep in mind that you’d be paying for someone that won’t give you any extra buck for the bang.
• Love: John Wall (PG). Allow me to expect the Knicks to hit a very brick-layered Wall tonight. It’s a good old days affair between the remnants of Johnny and Derrick, but hey, they are playing nice ball these days so there’s that. Only thing is, Wall is way above Rose’s level this season after coming back from two years in the shelf as a Wiz. Wall projects to 41+ DKFP tonight, which is the ninth-highest mark among all eligible players, while carrying “just” the 14th-highest salary of the slate. That doesn’t sound too good, but that also means that Wall’s potential ROI is huge considering that salary is at only $7.1K on the day. Wall has been playing more minutes steadily for the past five games (from 22 to 28, 33, 35, 36) and putting up an average 22-4-6 line in that span while hitting 4 triples in four of his past six games. Everybody do the John Wall.
• Hate: Bam Adebayo (C). Among top-dollar players, Adebayo projects as the worst play of tonight’s slate. Makes sense, considering he’ll have to Bam-Bam with Rudy Gobert, who is athletic enough to follow Bayo everywhere no matter how much he tries to stretch the court. I’m not saying Bam is not going to be a nice play if you are happy paying $8K+ for 37 DKFP, that is. But if you want real returns on investment, you can find Gob for a laughable $7.1K with a projection to one more FP. And that’s what I call a very. Solid. Play.
• Love: Eric Gordon (PG/SG). Eric Gordon has alternated starts and benchings depending on the availability of Wall and Oladipo, but he’s performed quite well when he’s been given the chance and the algorithm has yet to catch up. In fact, the algorithm is so dumb that even with Gordon putting on six consecutive monster-ROI performances he’s seeing his salary drop today. LOL. Eric G is averaging 22+ PPG, 3+ 3PG, 3 RPG, and almost 3 APG this month in five games (three starts), playing 32+ MPG, and shooting a bonkers 50% from the floor on a more than healthy 15 FGA per game while going to the free-throw line 5 times per hitting 87 percent of his freebies. Bargain flyer.

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

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!