NBA DFS: Kevin Durant and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Saturday, June 5th

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: Kevin Durant (SF/PF). Even in a fairly easy first-round series for the Nets, Durant excelled. That’s important because the Celtics posed no threat for Brooklyn but KD was still an absolute killer playing 38 MPG on average with a marvelous 1.44 FP/min mark. Durant knew no rest in those series, and that bodes well for his condition entering the showdown against the Bucks. KD’s scored at least 24 pops in every game, is hitting triples, and the shooting overall has been sublime at a mighty 56% even while attempting 19+ FGA a game. The boards went down a bit in the past couple of games, but the dimes and the blocks were up and the fantasy points never dropped from 40, with four into the 52+ realm and two at 61+ DKFP. If healthy Kev is not the best player around the Association, he definitely must be close to it.
• Hate: Nets Bigs. Sorry about that one, but not until we see how this goes for at least one or two games would I play any sort of Brooklyn big man. All of Griffin, Claxton, DeAndre Jordan, and Jeff Green when he returns (already confirmed out of G1) could very well start any given day in this matchup and who knows what the hell they are going to do. Brook Lopez is not the guy who was hitting triples with gusto not long ago and is now more of an interior, non-stretching biggie, but that doesn’t mean he can dominate against a pretty barren Brooklyn’s paint. If only because of all of the questions surrounding this unit and the presence of Lopez/Tucker on the other side, I’d pass at least for now on all of these folks.
• Love: Jrue Holiday (PG). This series is going to be a deathmatch. No favorites here, folks, it is what it is. So that might take a bit of the appeal from Holiday, who was great each and every game of the four Milly used to send Miami packing, even in those which went on to become blowouts. Not a problem, though, as Jrue will play to those levels—and higher—against a very tough Nets offense. Holiday averaged near 43 FP in those four games in 37 MPG, quite a nice outcome, and he did so with huge numbers in rebounds—for a point guard—reaching 6+ boards three times, and also on dimes closing the series on a 15/12/9 run in the last three games. The seals were also super high and he only missed on committing theft in G3 with a combined 9 in the other three matches.
• Hate: Kyrie Irving (PG). I don’t love to hate on Kyrie, because, I mean, it’s Kyrie at the end of the day and that means he’s a top-15 player in the league and top-5 player in this series at the very least. That being said, though, Irving has been the one having the worst performances in the first round among the top dogs in this Milly-Brooklyn affair. He exploded against Boston to send them home with a silly 64-FP performance in which he reached a masterful 39-11-2-2 line with 6 treys. Other than that, though, he kinda struggled with an average of 34 FP in the other four games even though he still played at least 28 minutes in all of those and an actual average of 36 MPG. Facing Jrue is not going to make things easier for Kyrie, so among both Big 3s he’s the one I’m more hesitant about rostering.
• Love: Joe Harris (SG/SF). Not what you’d call a clear under-the-radar play, but definitely not one on the Big 3 level of any of the two squads. As if the KD/Kyrie/Harden trio didn’t bring enough fireworks to the table already, Harris just popped up against the Beantown Boyz dropping a combined 17 treys in five games. Not bad. The total fantasy points were rather low, I know, but what happened in G2 is what we’re paying for here: monster ceiling-reaching performance by Joey in which he put up a 25-4-3-2-1 stuffed line hitting 7 triples on the day and shooting 64% overall on 14 FGA. The usage is obviously super-low every day because Harris starts and shares the floor with the three-headed monster, but he makes the most of his opportunities on a daily basis and could be a true maker-or-breaker for BKN against the Bucks.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from the Regular Season

• Nikola Jokic is about to become the reigning MVP... in the NBA, but not in the fantasy world! Russell Westbrook, who has been on a tear for the last month-and-change, is the one on that front, folks. Westbrook closed the season averaging 58.2 FP per game, good enough to edge Nikola Jokic by a measly 0.6 FPPG!
• On a pure counting basis, though, Jokic gets the edge as he played seven more games than Russ. The final tally is Jokic 3,914 FP, Russ 3,548 FP. No other player crossed the 3,400-FP mark on the year.
• The most efficient player of the season was Giannis Antetokounmpo, who posted 1.72 FP/min in 57 games averaging 33.5 MPG. Both biggies Jokic and Joel Embiid rounded up the top-3 with similar scores of 1.62 FP/min.
• It is reasonable to expect centers to top the Points Per Shot leaderboard as they operate in the paint most of the time. The top-3 players were Rudy Gobert (1.84 Pts/Shot), Jarrett Allen (1.78), and Dwight Howard (1.76). But there is a clear outlier among the top scorers: Kevin Durant with 1.70 Points Per Shot. That’s absolutely bonkers for a non-center player. If we don’t count Zion as a wing (he’s a biggie to me given his shooting profile), then Durant is the only qualified non-center in the top-20, with Jimmy Butler at no. 21 but already down at 1.51 Pts/Shot.
• As stupid as it sounds even if nobody wants to acknowledge the feat anymore: Russ has just wrapped up his fourth season averaging a triple-double. What the hell, dude? Russ closed it on a 22-11-11 average line. Bonkers.
• Silly cheap values (min. 30 games played): Kenyon Martin Jr., Ty Jerome, JaVale, Stewart, Brunson, Melton, Hart, Rudy Gay, Portis, Nunn, Robert Williams, Reiz, Cody Zeller, Whiteside, Diallo
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Olynyk, Garland, Thad Young, Plumlee, McConnell, Dray, Harrison Barnes, Derrick White, Lonzo, Holmes, Rose, Anunoby, Nurkic, Ant Edwards, Haliburton, Bobby Portis, Kemba
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Anthony Davis, Simmons, Booker, Ingram, Porzingis, Drummond, John Collins, Nance, Aaron Gordon, Kuzma, Harrell
• Cheap points: McDermott, Monk, Quickley, Lonnie, Bacon, Reid, Poole, Bullock, Mills, Jerome, Grayson Allen, NAW, Monte Morris, Lamb, Forbes, Gary Harris
• Cheap threes: Danny Green, Ellington, Bullock, Mills, Forbes, Monk, Jerome, Grayson, Shamet, Cam Johnson
• Cheap boards: Willy Hernangomez, Stewart, Noel, Mo Bamba, Whiteside, Tony Bradley, Birch, Vanderbilt, Favors, Taj Gibson, Biyombo, Kleber, Bruce Brown, Kenyon, Baynes, McGee
• Cheap dimes: Satoransky, Rondo, McLaughlin, Ish Smith, Tyus, Jerome, Saben Lee, Campazzo, Cam Payne, Cory Joseph, DJ Augustin, Monte Morris
• Cheap steals: Thybulle, Danny Green, Campazzo, Neto, Caruso, Melton, Okeke, Noel, McLaughlin, Bazemore, Vanderbilt, Nwaba, NAW, Okoro, Cory Joseph, Iggy
• Cheap blocks: Noel, Gafford, Mo Bamba, Bitadze, Stewart, Whiteside, Biyombo, McGee, Gasol, Thybulle, Taj Gibson, Reiz, Favors, Len, Pokusevski, Derrick Jones, Eubanks
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): McDermott, Reid, Monte Morris, Bullock, Jerome, NAW, Cam Johnson, Jaylen Nowell

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!