NBA DFS: Ja Morant and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Tuesday, Mar. 2nd

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: Ja Morant (PG). Has Ja been a little disappointing in his second year as a pro? Sure thing. Is Ja a $7K player, going against the Wizards? No way, Jose. Morant has been down for the last 10 days of February, that’s correct, as he has only had one game in five of 40+ FP and two of 36+. That sucks, obviously, but that doesn’t mean Ja can’t put up 36+ nightly as he did in the middle of February when he averaged more than 40 DKFP from Feb. 8 to Feb. 19 both included. Ja is a 20-8 player with the upside to be a daily dub-dubber, full stop. Last Sunday’s stinker against Houston (6-1-7-3 in 26 minutes) is the lowest of lows he will ever log, and against the fourth-worst defense in the league, all of those numbers should go up to sky-high levels tonight.
• Hate: Paul George (SG). George, simply put, stank on Sunday with just 35 FP even though he logged 38 minutes in a match that saw Milly snatch the W. For his price, that fantasy tally is nothing close to valuable. George needs to rack up numbers and reach the 45s to return some true bread to his owners. What are the odds he does so today? Given what happened a couple of days ago, I’m better off passing on PG13 tonight rather than risking another dud. Plus, George has fallen below 35 DKFP in his last three games, including a couple against Memphis. Boston is not the greatest team out there, but the defense is stiff as hell ranking as the fourth-best halfway through the year.
• Love: Bam Adebayo (C). Not the cheapest of plays, but one of the best ROI-wise. Bam is entering tonight as a big man tagged below $9K, which sounds like music to my ears. This man is putting up an average 19-10-5-1-1 line on the year. Seriously. His 43 DKFP on the season combined with his 34 MPG yield a neat 1.28 FP/min, quite an efficient production on a per-minute basis for a team that is getting better by the day and steadily improving. Atlanta, which is debuting a head coach and has the worst defense in fantasy terms, will be at the other end tonight. It’s been 10 games since Adebayo scored fewer than 40 FP in a single match, so you know what’s about to happen again. Bam’s dub-dubbed five consecutive times and on top of that he trip-dubbed in the game before that five-match span. The shooting is great, the scoring is high, the boards are easy, and the dimes keep coming. Nothing to hate here.
• Hate: Kemba Walker (PG). The Celtics are a little bit sucky-sucky this season. Kemba Walker has been in the spotlight all year long, and not precisely because of performing to wonderful levels. That hasn’t been the case on the last two outings when he excelled against Indy (48 FP) and Washington (43 FP). That, though, isn’t the real Kemba for yall. Walker is averaging a rather more real 32 FP on the year and his 19 games played. Those two last games came out of the left-field, to say the least, and Kemba is a quite bouncy performer who has three games above 40 FP in the second half of February to go with three more below 32 FP in that same span. Jaylen Brown looks like missing tonight’s affair with a Questionable tag, which should boost Kemba’s upside with a larger usage, but I think I need to see him doing it for a longer span of games before truly trusting his ways.
• Love: RJ Barrett (SF). This is definitely not the safest of plays, but for the low price RJ comes at today he’s definitely worth the flyer. Barrett is averaging 30 DKFP on the year and his per-minute averages aren’t great only because his runs are large as hell. The bright side of that is that Barrett’s counting stats are always going to be up, which you gotta love. RJ has scored 20+ pops in four of his last six games, and every time (4-for-4) he’s played more than 28 minutes in that span. Barrett will hand you a customary couple of three-pointers, pull down his five or six boards, and dish out a couple of dimes while at it. Barrett has also been shooting nicely of late, with six of seven games at or above 45% from the floor on a healthy 13 FGA, he’s avoiding turnovers, and he’s even going to the line. Not bad for the discounted price.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 10 (Feb. 22 to Feb. 28)

• We’re back to the good old times of Giannis dominating the L, folks. In a week in which everything went down in the fantasy basketball realm, Giannis Antotekounmpo was the only player with 3+ games played to average more than 59 FP, finishing with 65 DKFP per game in his three matches this past week.
• The numbers were crazy at an average 37-11-6-1-2 line and he even added 1.7 3PG, went to the line almost 10 times per game, and hit 60% of his 24 FGA per game nightly to go with a 75% rate from the charity stripe. Nobody came even remotely close to Giannis’ 1.84 FP/min even though the Greek logged 36 MPG. Jokic was second at 1.66, with Jimmer ranking third at 1.57.
• Not only was Giannis’ average the best among all players, but he reached that mark on a very steady basis with a minimal deviation of 7 DKFP per game. His scores read 66, 58, and 71. Jokic’s deviation was even better (fewer than 3 FP per game), but Butler’s 14 was quite high (he went as low as 37 FP and as high as 62).
• Bradley Beal came back to his scoring ways, ranking second in PPG with 35 per game only behind Giannis (37) and above Devin Booker (33). No other player reached 30, though Zion finished at a close 29.7 PPG.
• No player was able to close the week averaging a trip-dub, with Westbrook (22-11-9), Draymond (9-8-11), Sabonis (20-9-7), Jimmy (25-7-9), Jokic (28-9-8), and Harden (26-9-9) being the closest to it.
• Silly cheap values: Markieff, Krokmaz, Wade, Isaiah Stewart, Thybulle, Scott, Nowell, Windler, Saben Lee, Teague, Saric
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: PJ Washington, Bruce Brown, Monk, Branes, Rose, Dennis Smith Jr., DiVincenzo, Kemba, Steven Adams, Nunn, Bledsoe
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Ben Simmons, LaVine, Tatum, Paul George, Jaylen, Wall, Rozier, Morant, Valanciunas, Oubre.
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played in the past seven days): Saben Lee, Tyus Jones, Windler, Korkmaz, Nowell, Shamet, Teague, Paschall, Reid, Saric, Winslow, Cam Johnson, Forbes, Niang
• Cheap threes: Windler, Shamet, Niang, Korkmaz, Iggy, Tony Snell
• Cheap boards: Isaiah Stewart, Marjanovic, Wade, Gibson, Sterling Brown, Markieff, Saric, Dwight, Iggy, PJ Tucker, Tillman, Windler
• Cheap dimes: Saben Lee, Chasson Randle, Tyus Jones, Teague, James Johnson, Bembry, THT, Rondo, Wanamaker
• Cheap steals: Ntilikina, Okeke, Aminu, Windler, Claxton, Aaron Holiday, Isaiah Stewart.
• Cheap blocks: Patton, McGee, Reid, Len, Claxton, Thybulle, Dwight, Stewart, THT
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Saben Lee, Paschall, Reid, Cam Johnson, Shamet, THT, Winslow, Nowell, Korkmaz

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!