NBA DFS: Eric Gordon and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Monday, Feb. 15th

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: Bradley Beal (SG). Not quite a revenge game for Beal, but Brad is going against old pal Wall tonight and I’m betting on a show coming from both of them today. No surprise in finding me giving Love to Beal in this column, but how can I not do so when he comes at a discount (below $9K) and off a freaking 54 FP game just yesterday when he murdered Boston to the tune of 35 pops, 7 boards, 5 dimes, and 2 steals? That’s insane, and Beal alone made more than two and three C’s fans out there in Twitterverse question if the team should make moves ASAP, even calling out Tatum and Brown. That’s a little bit overboard, but that’s Beal’s impact. Four games in a row at 40+ DKFP and returning great value. Nobody understands today’s discount, so take advantage of it.
• Hate: Ben Simmons (PG/SF). With JoJo (seemingly; he’s questionable) out of tonight’s game against Utah and Simmons not knowing how to shoot the ball to save his life, Benny’s upside is cut down a bit. Embiid present or not, the truth is that Simmons has been too bouncy in terms of fantasy scoring lately, which gives me pause. He can do it all on the court and I’m the no. 1 stan of the man, don’t get me wrong, but keep in mind you’ll be paying a high salary for someone who has alternated 45+ DKFP performances with <37 DKFP stinkers for the last three weeks, bottoming down at 25 FP against Detroit back on Jan. 25. The dub-dub is always going to be looming right there, but also the low 10-7-7 that will kill your lineup as you’ll be putting tons of cash on Ben’s name. Not entirely liking this play, even less against a Jazz team that can’t lose these days.
• Love: DeMarcus Cousins (C). Any time you find Christian Wood out, you gotta play DMC. As simple as that is, believe me. Woody won’t come back until late February, and Cousins has started every game in his absence. The results? A mighty 1.18 FP/min on around 25 MPG, which is not great for a starting fantasy player, but definitely a very tasty value to fill your roster with a biggie at a very cheap salary. Cousins has put up three trip-dubs in the last five games, and the other two matches finished with him at 9-9 and 7-7. Not only can he score and rebound, though, as he’s also dishing out 2.5 APG on the season and averaging 1.5 stocks a night. And it is not that the Wiz have a lot of big bodies out there...
• Hate: Tobias Harris (PF). Did Tobi get anxious when the All-Star voting started and the first two results updates were released? I mean, Tobi was absolutely fantastic throughout the first part of the season, but he’s been a little bit on the low and dropping his lines a bit since then. Sure, the 30+ DKFP games keep coming nightly, but the truth is that he’s not cutting it for me that much. Same as with Simmons (read above), I’m scared of the matchup and Harris himself has scored below 20 pops in three of his past five games, and couldn’t reach more than 6 rebounds in his last two even playing 36+ minutes in both of them. The shooting has been good in February (52.7% from the field) but the FGA and the usage rate are dropping by the day.
• Love: Eric Gordon (SF). If Eric G is not the most under-the-radar kid in town, he must be close. Peep the average line in February: 22-3-3 with 3 three-pointers per game and a shooting percentage of 51.2 from the floor. Gordon is going to the charity stripe 5 times a pop, hitting 90% of his freebies, barely committing PF, and running for near 32 MPG. He’s been alternating starts and pines of late, but no matter what he’s racking up numbers and getting to 30+ DKFP easily in whatever role the Rocks play him. Dipo is out tonight, which tells me Gordon will start next to Wall for the second time in three days... with the first of those (Feb. 13 against NYK) seeing Gordon reach a spicy 40 DKFP. Not bad for the 30th most-expensive player of the slate, is it?

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 8 (Feb. 8 to Feb. 14)

• A tight, tight race at the top of this past week’s fantasy leaderboard with Giannis averaging 64 DKFP and Luka coming in second at 62 FP, both with 4 GP. While Giannis did it mostly on PTS and RBD with a touch of stocks (32-13-5-1-2), Luka thrived at the trip-dub-slash with a 36-8-9 baseline but just below 2 stops per game. That being said, Giannis averaged 1.74 FP/min while Luka fell way short of that mark at 1.62. Edge Giannis.
• Luka’s 36 PPG were insane, but Zach LaVine kept proving how much of a heater he’s been all year long by finishing with 35.7 PPG himself in 3 games played. ZLV keeps putting up 28-5-5 lines nightly, something only he, Durant, Curry, and Luka are doing this season, and something only nine other players have done in NBA history at least once.
• You know the L has become a true make-or-miss league, right? Well, tell Minny’s own Malik Beasley. Malik put up the highest 3PG mark of the week with 5.8 long-rangers per game, even more than Curry and ZLV (5.5 and 5.3 respectively). One of the very few bright Wolves lights.
• Joel Embiid’s week was impressive. He averaged 55 FP with a variation of just 7 FP in his 3 GP. Dame put up the highest FP mark (46) with the smallest variation (6 FP) among players with 4 GP.
• Silly cheap values: Saddiq Bey, James Ennis, Justin Jackson, Grayson Allen, Dylan Windler, Satoransky, Bacon
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Lou Williams, Terrence Ross, Josh Hart, McConnell, Valanciunas, Horford, Dejounte, Kyle Anderson, Joe Ingles
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Karl-Anthony Towns, Ben Simmons, FVV, Tobias, Ingram, Drummond, DeRozan, Kanter, Lowry, Ayton, Jerami
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Bey, Justin Jackson, Grayson, Forbes, Aaron Holiday, Semi Ojeleye, Jaylen Nowell, Cory Joseph, Nnaji
• Cheap threes: Bey, Grayson, Forbes, Nnaji, Justin Jackson, Ojeleye, Sterling Brown
• Cheap boards: Harry Giles, Dwight, Sterling Brown, Windler, Derrick Jones, Willy Hernangomez
• Cheap dimes: McLaughlin, Augustin, Justin Jackson, Chuma Okeke, Sterling Brown, Raul Neto, Damion Lee, Baynes
• Cheap steals: McLaughlin, Kira Lewis, Connaughton, Campazzo, Danny Green, Grayson
• Cheap blocks: Noel, Gafford, Jaden McDaniels, Isaiah Stewart, Biyombo, McGee, Gasol
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Bey, Justin Jackson, Grayson, Forbes, Aaron Holiday

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!