NBA DFS: Paul George and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Saturday, Mar. 20th

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). Morant is sucking big time of late. It’s starting to get legit worrying. The fantasy points since the start of March have gone on a steady decline from 58 to 51, 44, 35, 35, 25, 26, and 18 yesterday. It’s really hard to comprehend because Ja Rules. The only good thing about all of this is that Ja’s salaries are down to ground level, and that’s great because his ROI and upside are sky-high at this point. Mo is still scoring almost 17 PPG after the break in five games, which isn’t bad considering he’s shooting a putrid 40% from the floor and that must and will rebound sooner rather than later. Actually, everything should get back and right itself, maybe starting tonight. The second leg of a back-to-back mini-series against GSW, which has the fifth-worst D in the league and is so random of a team that I wouldn’t rule out an explosion coming Ja’s way.
• Hate: DeMar DeRozan (SF). I don’t really hate DeDe, now or never. DeRozan was great prior to stay his ass home for the break, but after coming back from it he’s got a boom and a bust in his two games played. He went for a monster 56 FP against Dallas with a 30-11 dub-dub on dimes, but then could only hit 30 FP against Cleveland yesterday in a middling 20-1-7 night. The shooting is bonkers at 61% from the floor in those last two, but the outcomes have hugely tied to his usage (boom on 30% usage rate, bust on 20%), and for the high price this looks like too random of a play as to really bank on it today—not to say that game against Cleveland took place yesterday and the Spurs are playing on back-to-back nights. Not liking this, even less considering the Bucks will be at the other end of the court and come in rested after not playing since last Wednesday.
• Love: Paul George (SG). While George has been kinda mediocre of late, the truth is that you’re not going to find PG13 available for $8.3K as he’s today too often. Pandemic P made a comeback to close February with three straight games in between 27 and 35 FP that were honestly too low for someone with his talent. He fixed it before the break, and came back roaring with another 40 FP performance, then proceeded to drop back-to-back below-30 games and finally got it right last Wednesday with a top-notch 49 FP game against Dallas in which he dropped a 28-7-5-1-1 stuffed line, hit 10-of-20 shots from the floor, all 3 freebies, and could have done even more had he not turned the ball over 4 times. This is the PG we want, and the one we expect. On a three-day rest and with the Hornets on the schedule, we should see another great game from Plethoric P.
• Hate: De’Aaron Fox (PG). I saw Foxxy’s salary for today’s game and I almost faint. For real, dawg. $9.5K against the Sixers. And Fox might very well be worth it, because he’s dropped 43 FP or more in his last five and all four after the break, but the trend is going downwards a bit (from 56 to 51, 45, 48, 43) and the Kangz are playing for the second night in a row after facing Boston just yesterday. Not saying Fox won’t go and put on no 40+ FP tonight, of course, because he’s capable of that, but for that monster price, I’d try and snatch more value elsewhere (PG13, Simmons, Tobi, and Kawhi have all similar projections while carrying lower tags).
• Love: Andrew Wiggins (SG/SF). Ultimate sneaky and cheap what-if play of the day. Wiggs comes off dropping a 40-burger, which he doesn’t do very often but definitely has the ability to pull off. This is a back-to-back, mind you, and Drew might put up a dud to composite for the booming outing he just had. But man, at just $6.3K you gotta go for this type of deal, don’t you? We’re not going to watch Wiggins reach 66 FP tonight once more, most probably, but this kid has been yielding good ROIs to his truthers nightly because his salary is always super low. Andrew has dropped 15+ pops in all games after the break, he pulling down 5+ RPG, dishing out almost 2 APG, and somehow he’s stealing near 2 rocks a day. Oh, and the FG% is at a bonkers 55% in the last five after the AS.

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!