NBA DFS: Jrue Holiday and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Monday, Mar. 15th

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: Jrue Holiday (PG). Jrue was injured and missed every game from Feb. 7 to Feb. 27 before reappearing against the Clippers one day later. That match, along with his next two, saw Holiday played a low 18 (x2) and 22 minutes coming off the bench, and thus the fantasy duds. After the break, though, Holiday is back in the starting lineup of the Bucks and ramping up his conditioning with outings of 26 and lately 32 minutes to the tune of 23 and 38 FP in those couple of games. That is far from great, surely, but Holiday’s salary is ground-level these days yet his upside is still massive. Just in that last match against the Wiz a couple of days ago he put up a nice 18-8-3-2-1 stuffed line even though he shot just 33% from the floor and committed 3 TOs. Jrue will keep polishing those smirks and he could very well explode for the first time since coming back tonight... in the second leg of the Wizards matchup.
• Hate: Kristaps Porzingis (PF/C). Our friend KP comes with the lowest projection for players tagged at $8K on tonight’s slate. That I don’t like. Porzingis has not been that bad, I have to give him that, but it is not that he’s been a slate-breaker either... In 22 games this season, Porz has finished in the top-5 just two times and topped 50 DKFP only three times, the last one coming all the way back on Feb 12. I mean, we’re a month clear of that day and he’s played six games since then, with four of them falling behind 40 FP. Again, Porzingis is not bad, but he’s just not a top-tier player for the salary he carries. He will give you his customary 20 points and 8 boards, but other than that he’s nothing out of this world. His defense stinks, which has no impact on fantasy outcomes (other than steals and blocks, I mean) but could mean a cut in playing time to keep Dallas afloat against the Clips.
• Love: Mason Plumlee (C). If you need to fill the last gap in your lineup for cheap after spending big bucks on other players, Plumlee is your man. See, you’re probably not going to get anything remotely close to 50 FP from him, but Mason has scored 33+ in three of his last four (all in March) and returned great ROI in all of those matches. With a virtual $6K salary tonight, Plumlee would need just around 35 DKFP to become a great value on the slate, and odds are he gets there easily. Mason is, indeed, averaging those 35 FP per game since the start of February, is playing 27 MPG these days, and he’s a perennial dub-dub threat. His line in March: 11-10-6 to go with 1.5 stocks a night.
• Hate: Paul George (SG/SF). The Clippers have lost four of their last seven games, sit 4th in the West, and are only two games clear of no. 5 and no. 6 Nuggets and Blazers entering today’s slate of games. That is, in part, due to the lack of consistency Kawhi highlighted yesterday after the Clips dropped another one to the Pelicans. One of those inconsistent fools? Pandemic P, back on your screens. George sandwiched the break with to great outings of 47 and 40 FP, but other than that he’s been an absolute nightmare for the Clips falling below 35 fantasy points in the other four games he’s played from Feb. 25 on. After averaging 43 DKFP from the start of the year to Feb. 23, George is at a paltry 35 in the past two-weeks-plus and putting up dud after dud. Adding wood to the fire, George’s worst game of the season came against the Mavs when all he could do was finish with 17 FP and a 15-2-4 line in 24 minutes of playing time. Ugh.
• Love: Montrezl Harrell (C). Montrez started for the Lakers back on Mar. 2 and after having a putrid performance he made it clear that he wanted to stay on the bench coming off the pine, no matter AD/Gasol/whoever absence from the squad. So that is what has happened in the last two games the man has played, sandwiching the break, and that is also what has helped Monty to put up a monster 45 and 34 FP performances in those two matches. Harrell is one of the greatest bench-players of the year, full stop. In games in which he’s played at least 22 minutes, MH is averaging a 15-7-1 line with a block to go, he’s shooting a ridiculous 64% from the floor on a more than healthy 10 FGA diet, and he’s barely committing turnovers. Gobert dropped a historic 24-28 dub-dub on GSW’s paint yesterday. Please, play Harrell.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 11-12 (Mar. 1 to Mar. 14)

• Man, was that a long-ass break or what? I’m cooking the weekly recap through the past couple of weeks, but that doesn’t mean the span contained a ton of games due to the AS weekend taking place in the middle of it.
• The last time we checked, if you remember, it was Giannis with 65 FP who led all NBA players on that leaderboard. Well, turns out we have a new leader in James Harden, who put up a ridiculous 67 DKFP on average among players with 4+ games played in the past two weeks. Hard to see Harden getting MVP-love, but this fool has been absolutely insane since moving northeast to Brooklyn.
• As impossible as it sounds, Nikola Jokic also managed to cross the 60-DKFP barrier even though he played 5 games. Jokic closed the last couple of weeks averaging 62 FP himself, an absolutely crazy mark.
• Harden’s dominance also popped in his line through the four games he played: 26-11-12-2-1 was his average performance in those while logging some 41 MPG. Say what!? A ton of players finished that two-week span dub-dubbing, but none other than James trip-dubbed. Jokic was close at 30-12-9, same as Giannis with a 27-10-8 and Sabonis with his 17-10-8.
• The ridiculous MPG number of Harden (40.8) killed his per-minute fantasy production. Giannis kept that no. 1 spot with 1.71 FP/min in 34.3 MPG throughout the span, followed by Jokic, Harden, Westbrook, and Butler.
• Jimmy Butler was the most stable among top-tier performers with a deviation of just 6 DKFP in his 4 games played while averaging 57 FP. His scores read 51, 62, 52, and 62. Not bad.
• Silly cheap values: Kira Lewis, Rodney McGruder, Cameron Payne, Jaxson Hayes, Abdel Nader, Robert Williams, Nicolas Claxton, Jaylen Nowell, Cory Joseph, Reggie Jackson, Isaiah Stewart, Furkan Korkmaz, Dario Saric, Nickeil Alexander-Walker.
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Kelly Olynyk, Rudy Gobert, Carmelo Anthony, Josh Richardson, Buddy Hield, Robert Covington, Danilo Gallinari, Maxi Kleber, Will Barton, Ja Morant
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Bradley Beal, Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, Zach LaVine, Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, Khris Middleton, Jamal Murray, Jarrett Allen, Jaylen Brown, Dejounte Murray
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played): Jordan Poole, Kevin Porter, Nowell, Saric, Korkmaz, Reggie Jackson, Ellington, Pokusevski, Mykhailiuk, Shamet, Brook Lopez, McGruder
• Cheap threes: Ellington, Mykhailiuk, Nowell, Shamet, Poole, Korkmaz, Reggie Jackson, Forbes, Kleber, Pritchard, Poku
• Cheap boards: Poku, Moses Brown, Tristan Thompson, Zubac, Baynes, Stewart, Kleber, Markieff Morris, Connaughton, Winslow, Vanderbilt
• Cheap dimes: Kevin Porter, Mykhailiuk Satoransky, Payne, Saen Lee, Reggie Jackson, Raul Neto, Mannion, Chasson Randle, Rondo
• Cheap steals: Thybulle, Wagner, Patton, Mykhailiuk, Kira, McGruder, Cory Joseph, Kevin Porter, Mannion, Nader
• Cheap blocks: Brook Lopez, Patrick Beverley, Vanderbilt, Nicolas Claxton, McGee, Patton, Jaxson Hayes, Biyombo, Stewart, Naz Reid
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Tristan Thompson, Saric, Poole, McGruder, Cory Joseph, Korkmaz, Shamet, Nowell, Reggie Jackson, Brook Lopez, Ellington

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!