NBA DFS: Jimmy Butler and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Tuesday, May 11th

Welcome to your daily NBA DFS digest at Fake Teams, 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: Jimmy Butler (SF). Huge slate of 11 games tonight, which is helping Butler being just the 16th most expensive player of the day. That’s a freaking bargain with Jimmer getting barely above the $9K tag. Oh, and I have him projected to around 46 DKFP, which is delightful as that’s into the top-10 potential scores for Tuesday. Tasty play, this one. Butler and the Heat are facing a C’s squad that is missing Jaylen Brown for the remainder of the year, that they defeated just a few days ago while burying them into the play-in, and against which Jimmy put up his best fantasy score (57 DKFP) since Apr. 16. The line last Sunday? 26-8-11-2 shooting 64% on 14 FGA with 7-of-8 freebies and only 3 TOs. Sublime.
• Hate: Caris LeVert (SG). The Pacers keep fighting to avoid the no. 10—and last—seed into the play-in, and they find themselves 0.5 games ahead of the Wiz entering tonight’s slate. Indy has no easy games left other than the Raps in the season finale, so they’re going to need everything they can get from their players. Are we sure Caris can keep up his scorching hot streak of late? I’m not entirely sure, folks. LeVert has been magnificent in six of his last seven matches, but his salary is starting to get a little bit rich for my blood and while he’s been awesome he will need to put up ridiculous numbers to return any value going forward. Simmons is in for the Sixers, and Simmons is a top-3 candidate for the DPOY award in 2021. Brogdon is out, which means LeVert will probably hand the rock a bit more and raise his chances at turning it over. I don’t know. CLV might hit 40 DKFP, but I’d lean on the lower side of that rather than the higher.
• Love: Devin Booker (SG). Dev is about to bounce back. I mean, he is, right? Two in a row for Book falling below 30 FP are not normal this season for Devin. That’s happened to him against New York and the Lakers in his past two games even though he played 35 minutes in those outings. Book was putting up 40+ DKFP per game prior to that two-game slump, and that’s what I’m expecting tonight. The Suns keep fighting for that no. 1 seed—even though it might mean facing the Lakers in the first round—and against the Warriors tonight they might have it easy to put up points on the scoreboard and for Book to have a get-right performance gearing up to the playoffs. Book an very well get back to his casual 30 pops if the shooting gets back, which it should, and the free-throw attempts can’t get bulkier for him these days.
• Hate: LaMelo Ball (PG). Melo is putting up 37 DKFP per game since coming back from injury and re-debuting back on May 1. Not bad, but kinda low for his current $8.7K tag. There is a legit race for the ROY award between Ball and Ant Edwards, and as much as we have enjoyed the former through the first half of the season, the truth is that Edwards has improved on a nightly basis and is slowly but surely becoming a serial killer. Ball and the Hornets caught a break with Boston losing Jaylen Brown for the year, which might help Charlotte’s chances at snatching an easy postseason berth. LaMelo and his crew are facing a tough-as-nails Nugs squad tonight, and you’ll laugh at this but fellow rookie Facundo Campazo will be tasked with stopping him. Are you sure Melo has enough to make Facu bite the dust? No, seriously.
• Love: Isaiah Stewart (C). Sneaky play of the day with Stewie the Rook. Don’t expect Isaiah to win you the slate, but definitely use him to fill the last slot open in your lineup once you’ve paid the big bucks on nominal superstars before. Stewart is playing 28+ MPG in May, averaging more than 25 DKFP, and comes with huge blocking and rebounding numbers, which means he has the upside to close the day with a dub-dub if all things go well for him. The price makes you laugh and it is so low that even an averagish day would already be a valuable one with a high ROI number attached to it.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 20 (May. 3 to May. 9)

• Is there any point in updating this section every Monday anymore? A month a half, brothers and sisters. A month and a half of weeks—six, that is—with Russ leading all fantasy players in DK daily slates. It’s just insane. Russell Westbrook closed last week averaging a ridiculously high 78 FPG, which is 15 more fantasy points than the second-best player of the week. Say what!? 22-17-18-1 line on the week through 4 GP and 42 MPG. Bananas.
• Domantas Sabonis put up 63 DKFP while Steph Curry wrapped it up at 60 FP, the only two other players reaching that mark. Too bad for them, none hit the trip-dub average on the week as Dom fell 0.2 APG short of it. Cold world.
• Obviously, nobody was going to beat Russ on a per-minute basis even though he logged the highest MPG mark of the week. That’s what happens when you average a freaking 78 FPG... Russ led all players with a 1.88 FP/min with Curry second at 1.78 and Embiid third down with 1.71.
• Only Russ put up a week-long trip-dub. What a surprise. Sabonis Jr. finished close with a 27-13-9 line, followed by Draymond’s 9-9-11. No other player came even remotely close to pulling the feat off.
• Silly cheap values: Kenyon Martin Jr., Diallo, Dwight Powell, Gallinari, Hayes, Brooks, Vanderbilt, Bane, DaQuan Jeffries, Rivers, Mykhailiuk, Campazzo, Kenrich Williams, Hampton, Seth Curry, DiVincenzo, Moe Harkless
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Delon Wright, Kelly Olynyk, Fournier, Mo Bamba, Bledsoe, Hardaway Jr., Hachimura, VanVleet, Tate
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Luka, KAT, AD, Tatum, Randle, LaVine, Paul George, Adebayo, Gobert, Booker, Kawhi, Middleton, Capela, DeRozan, Ingram, KPJr., Dejounte Murray
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played): Brooks, Okoro, Seth, Niang, Rivers, Ariza, Bane, Caruso, Hayes, Payne, Lamb, Forbes, Bertans, Svi, Poole, KCP, Moe, Mulder
• Cheap threes: Brooks, Niang, Mulder, Seth, Rivers, Forbes, Danny Green, Bertans, Lamb, Bane, McLemore
• Cheap boards: Howard, Kanter, Dwight Powell, Clarke, Vanderbilt, Biyombo, Looney, Hayes, Reid, Zeller, Gillespie, Connaughton, Gibson, Cauley-Stein
• Cheap dimes: Rondo, Satoransky, Caruso, Saben Lee, Seth, Dwight Powell, Wanamaker, Aaron Holiday, Maxey, Brooks, Rivers, Monk
• Cheap steals: Vanderbilt, Thybulle, Danny Green, Rivers, Brooks, DaQuan Jeffries, Svi, Bembry, Thornwell, Ariza, CarusoDeck, Moe, Patrick Williams
• Cheap blocks: Hayes, Taj, Dwight Powell, Bitadze, Thybulle, Damian Jones, Gafford, Biyombo, Justin Holiday, Rudy Gay, Robin Lopez, Vanderbilt, Cauley-Stein
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Hayes, Forbes, Seth, Reid, McDermott, Nian, DaQuan, Moe, Rivers, Brooks, 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!