NBA DFS: Chris Paul and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Thursday, Mar. 4th

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: Paul George (SG). We had a very real three-day scare starting on Feb. 25 and ending on Feb. 28 in which we thought Pandemic P was back, but far from it. Turned out George was just kind of resting his way to his real self, who showed up against Boston a couple of days ago in a 48-FP performance to the tune of a 32-5-4-1 line in 39 minutes that included 5 treys on Kawhi’s absence. The usage rate was bonkers at 36% and he kept turnovers at bay with just two on the day. Kawhi is still tagged as Questionable for tonight’s matchup, and with the break just around the corner, it makes sense for the Clips to load-manage the Klaw. Even if that doesn't happen, well, it’s the Wiz at the other end, and the Wiz plain suck on D and get scored on a bunch of points nightly. The lone time PG13 faced Washington (Feb. 23) he had a sweet 30-6-3-1 day and reached 46 DKFP. Not bad.
• Hate: Dejounte Murray (PG). Dejounte hasn’t been bad at all. He’s on a five-game streak of hitting at least 38 FP. That’s no joke. The problem with Jounte is that his price is sky-rocketing, cutting his potential ROI a lot. Under-the-radar Murray? Cool. Top-dollar Murray? Not so much. Before the Spurs went off the schedule due to COVID-related issues on Feb. 15, Murray had put together back-to-back games below 34 FP and then had a 55-FP explosion. He followed that with another 51-FP game, but after that, he’s gone down to 45, 40, and 38. That, I don’t really like. The points have stayed pretty much the same as all year long, and Murray does it on boards and dimes nightly, but he’s seen his scores bulked up by stealing rocks at an unsustainable pace, and his near-50 percent shooting from the floor should drop at least a bit, even more considering he’s shot 18 FGA per on his last five games. Oklahoma, believe it or not, has the fifth-best fantasy D, so I’m not entirely buying into another 50-FP game from DM.
• Love: De’Aaron Fox (PG). Foxxy dropped below 40 DKFP for the first time in five games yesterday against the Lake Show, although it must be said that he also played the fewer minutes (36) in that span of games. Even then, though, he put up 38 FP to close that five-game run from Feb. 23 on with a 44 FP per game average. Fox has logged dub-dubs every other day, and he missed on it yesterday, so you know what’s coming tonight, folks. Last five games line: 22-2-9-1 shooting 47 percent from the floor while attempting a ridiculous 19 FGA per game. The only thing that has killed Fox of late are the turnovers, with 4 TO per in his last eight, but one can live with that given the rest of the stats and his steep discount for the ROI he projects to.
• Hate: Deandre Ayton (C). For all the crap folks are throwing toward Marvin Bagley III, the truth is that Ayton is starting to look like the worst pick of the two. If you remember, Ayton is the actual no. 1 pick of his class above MB3. Sure, the two of them were picked before Luka, and Sacramento has been bashed to death for its decision, but about them Suns? Ayton started the season slow, ramped up to above-average levels putting together a set of performances in which he averaged a nice 15-14 from mid-January to mid-February, but since then he’s been bad as hell. He’s shooting monster percentages because he just doesn’t exit the paint, but other than that he’s just had a 15-8 line-average in his past 10 games for a measly 31 FP per game, which sucks as hell. The price isn’t going down enough to consider Ayton a good play, so I’m fading him all the way.
• Love: Chris Paul (PG). Chris is so great that he could even afford to take a day off against the Lakers a couple of nights ago. I don’t mean that literally because he was out there on the court, but even though he played 33 minutes all he did was shot the rock four times, log a stupid 11% usage rate, and finish with an 8-5-10-1 line. That wasn’t bad and still put him at 31 FP on the day, but it was clear he wasn’t giving a damn. LOL. Before that, and on the year, CP3 has been quite a performer for this incredibly good and unexpected Suns. Prior to that affair with the Lakers, Paul had played above-average in 9 of 10 games putting up almost 1.4 FP/min. That’s insane. Paul is dropping 15-5-10 lines nightly, pairing that with almost a couple of stocks per game, and leading a team that—and this is true—sits second in the NBA standings. Jeez.

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!