NBA DFS: Clint Capela and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Sunday, Feb. 21st

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: Clint Capela (C). Capela is putting up 1.37 FP/min this season. That’s simply insane. In today’s slate, only seven players are at-or-above Capela’s per-minute production levels, and they rank 1-through-7 at the top of the salary leaderboard for this slate. Capela’s $8K is just a bargain, as the cheapest of those other seven guys is KAT at $9.5K already! Cap has been a revelation for the Hawks, is a walking dub-dub, and comes into today’s game against Denver in a four-game streak of reaching 43+ DKFP against Indy, New York, and Boston (x2). Not only that, but he also cooked himself some tasty 57 DKFP in his last outing against the Beantowners in just 31 minutes on the court. The line? A mighty 24-15-1-2-4 shooting 79% from the floor and a perfect 2-for-2 from the line while losing just two balls and committing just one foul. Must-play.
• Hate: Fred VanVleet (PG/SG). There is still no confirmation about Ben Simmons’ availability tonight for the Sixers—he’s listed as probable at the time of this writing—but he should be back after missing the past two games. That doesn’t bode well for Fredo, as Lowry is also potentially missing this one and FVV might have to take on more ball-handling and thus face more shares of Simmons than he would otherwise. FVV is the epitome of randomness, as you already know, and he’s also been way on the low of late: 28, 32, 35, 53, 39, and 33 are his last-six fantasy scores, which is just not going to convince me to pony up $8K+ biggies on his name. The shooting slump is serious serious with three of the last five games from Freddy falling below 35 percent from the floor on a massive 17+ FGA.
• Love: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (PG/SG). You don’t know a thing about SGA because Shai plays for OKC, and OKC sucks. Nobody tunes into Thunder games and Shai doesn’t pull off the highlight-worthy tape nightly, but he’s been rather incredible this season and can’t stop growing each passing day. Shai is one of six players in the league putting up a 22-5-6 average line this season. The other five? Harden, LBJ, Luka, Jokic, and Steph. No joke. Shai comes at a slight discount after he put up a dud against Milwaukee two days ago, although that looked more like a fluke than anything else (25% shooting on 12 FGA? wut?). Gotta take advantage of SGA today facing a Cavs team that has the second-worst fantasy defense only behind Atlanta’s.
• Hate: Tobias Harris (PF). I am Tobi’s no. 1 stan and can’t be happier with his current level of play and with how playing for Doc has revitalized his career. Well deserved, all earned. That being said, Tobi’s last three games putting up 58, 58, and 47 DKFP coincided with Ben Simmons missing two of those three matches and Joel Embiid missing the other one. Harris is the third-man-up for the Sixers, so every time one of the two honchos is out it is Tobi’s time to eat. That’s why the usage went from 18% in the three games prior to 25% in the three when one of Ben/JoJo was out. Simmons is only probable today, but odds are he plays. If that’s the case the most reasonable outcome is a middling game by Harris (middling, as in 35-to-40 FP, mind you) considering his top-level salary.
• Love: Al Horford (C). Sneaky play of the day. Horford has played quite nicely recently, and there are rumors out there putting him in the trade market as a target for needy teams, probably the Celtics. The Cavs have a young stud manning the paint in Jarrett Allen as Drummond will stay off the court until he’s moved, but Good Ol’ Al should do enough to return a nice value given his low $6.4K tag. Guaranteed 12-5-3 line with a couple of treys coming his way. Can’t ask for more.

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!