NBA DFS: Bam Adebayo and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Friday, Mar. 26th

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: Bam Adebayo (C). I just can’t find a single negative in Bam’s case for today. Seriously. The Heat just traded for Victor Oladipo, which will obviously have to wait a bit to make his debut. Kelly Olynyk went the other way, so he won’t be part of the Heat squad tonight. Jimmy Butler is aching with stomach problems and has been tagged as questionable for today’s game. And the Heat are facing a big-man-less Hornets who are allowing the second-most FP to biggies this season. Just can’t get better. If you want to get even more pumped up, check Bam’s last outing: 60 FP, a no. 2 finish in Thursday’s slate, and a 29-9-7 line to go with 5 swats and a near-season-high 81% shooting from the floor on 16 FGA. Tasty, tasty play this one.
• Hate: Damian Lillard (PG). You don’t bet against Dame. That’s it, that’s the take. That being said, I don’t think today’s game is the best to find value in Lillard. Dame has the fifth-highest salary of all eligible players, yet he projects to “only” 46 FP. That’s great, but that also means he projects to fewer fantasy points than six other players, three of them cheaper (KAT, Jokic, and Mitchell). On top of that, Portland is facing a depleted Orlando squad tonight, which means they might be up 65 points by halftime and sit Dame’s ass to preserve him a bit as this will be the second leg of a back-to-back stint in Florida (vs. Miami yesterday). Dame has been on the low through the past three games (28, 39, and 41 FP), hasn’t returned too much of a high ROI, and C.J. is ramping up which could mean a larger run going his way so he keeps getting in shape for the home stretch.
• Love: John Wall (PG). The Rockets are mediocre at best. Oladipo is out and heading to Miami. Other than Wall and Christian Wood, this team just plain sucks. If those two start racking up usage rates above 40% daily I wouldn’t even get surprised in the very least, honestly. Starting tonight, of course, against an even-worse Minnesota Timberwolves. LOL. The salary is high and it is not that Wall is a lock to put up impressive fantasy performances nightly, but he’s good enough and the matchup is a great one. Wall is averaging 38 FP on the year, yet he projects to reach 45 tonight by my numbers. He’s at 42 per night since the break, playing 32+ MPG, and logging that bonkers 35+ usage rate percentage of late. If Wall doesn’t shoot and drop the buckets, none will do for the Rockets. You know what to do.
• Hate: Domantas Sabonis (PF/C). Dom has truly been a two-face man this season. From tipoff to March he was putting up 48 FP per game, but that tally has gone down a bit to 44 in the last month. Not a substantial change, I know, but Sab Jr. has only reached 40 FP in five of his last 12 games. What I’m saying is that even though Sabonis is putting up 44 nightly, the deviation is at a massive 15 FP, which means he’s as bouncy a play as they get. Look at his games in the past 10 days, and you’ll get a very good idea of how’s it going for the biggie: 36, 61, 39, 37, 45, 37 FP are the scores. The dub-dubbing and trip-dubbing is kind of saving his performances, with borderline games reaching those multiple double digits in the past month, but other than that his scoring has dropped a lot, his dimes have vanished, and the shooting percentages are also down at just 44% from the floor and zero percent from three in the past week and four games.
• Love: Montrezl Harrell (C). Speaking on good players on sucky teams, what about Monty? The Lakers are coming off a demolition derby against Philly in which they got mollywhopped for good. Nothing to fear, though, with Cleveland on tonight’s schedule in what looks to be a much more favorable matchup for the Lake Show to pop back up. Harrell keeps playing off the bench, logging his good 33+ MPG a night, and dropping near-dub-dubs on a daily basis. Barring his Mar. 2 start (the lone one this season), Harrell has played 9 other games in March to the tune of a sweet 20-8-1 line and some of them were with LBJ still active. Without either AD and LBJ, Monty’s just poised to eat. The shooting can’t get better (64 FG%), the freebies are coming in bunches (6+ FTA), and the dub-dub is always at reach. Sneaky play of the day with the algorithm slowly-but-surely catching up.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 11-12 (Mar. 15 to Mar. 21)

• For some with so strong stat-sheet-stuffing tendencies as Russell Westbrook, it is surprising that he doesn’t top the weekly fantasy leaderboard more often. He finally did during the past seven days and four games he’s played. Russ put up an average of 68 FP while keeping up a 28-12-13-1 line in that span. Not bad, even more considering he dropped the most efficient per-minute mark of the week at 1.75 FP/min.
• Luka Doncic is the only other player to break the 65-FP barrier, though his contributions were lower all-around with a 35-8-9-1 line. Giannis, Jokic, and Harden all reached 60+ FP on the week.
• Nikola Jokic tied Russ for the most FP/min (1.75), but he reached that mark averaging four fewer minutes per game, making Russ’ feat more impressive all things considered.
• Among the 60-FP group of players, Luka was the most “stable” one as he logged a deviation of just 9 FP per game. A little less explosive on the total FP leaderboard, yet virtually a lock to hit 48 FP nightly was Jaylen Brown, who logged a stupidly low 2.2 FP deviation in the past four games.
• Only Russ and Giannis were able to close the week averaging trip-dubs, although Anteto did so in just three games compared to Westbrook’s four. James Harden and Trae Young dub-dubbed on dimes, while 11 other players did so on points and boards (Jokic and Julius Randle both came just 1.5 APG short of trip-dubbing).
• Silly cheap values: Moses Brown, Poole, Bullock, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Theis, Len, Lonnie, Satoransky, Danny Green, Grayson Allen, Marcus Morris, Claxton, Looney.
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Joe Ingles, DiVincenzo, Keldon Johnson, Wiggins, Ricky Rubio, Anthony Edwards, Jaylen Brown, Holmes, Aaron Gordon, Thad Young, Buddy, Mason Plumlee, Fournier
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Trae, LeBron, Sabnois, Tatum, Lowry, Porzingis, Morant, Jarrett Allen, C.J. McCollum
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played): Poole, Loonie, NAW, THT, Bullock, Patty Mills, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Frank Jackson, Marcus Morris, Moses Brown, Alex Len, Isaiah Stewart, Grayson Allen
• Cheap threes: Bullock, NAW, Mills, Poole, Devonte’ Graham, BogBog, Jerome, Kleber, Marcus Morris, Otto Porter
• Cheap boards: Moses Brown, Daniel Theis, Len, Tony Bradley, Markieff Morris, Connaughton, Stewart, Aminu, McGee, Whiteside
• Cheap dimes: Satoransky, Campazzo, Rondo, THT, Osman, Cam Payne, Theis, Saben Lee, Kenrich Williams, Jerome, Caruso, Cory Joseph, BogBog, Mills
• Cheap steals: Campazzo, Bullock, Satoransky, Osman, Neto, Jaden McDaniels, Grayson Allen
• Cheap blocks: Claxton, Moses Brown, Thybulle, Bitadze, Whiteside, Biyombo, NAW, Derrick Jones
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Poole, Frank Jackson, THT, Bullock, Loonie, Moses Brow, Marcus Morris, BogBog

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!