NBA DFS: De’Aaron Fox and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Monday, Apr. 12th

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: Rudy Gobert (C). Gob is coming off his second-worst game of the season in terms of per-minute efficiency. That’s all I need to know today to make sure I put him in my lineup. I mean, Gobert has played exactly five games below league-average level. Five of 53, that is. What I mean is that there is no chance he put up another dud, and on top of that he comes rested and on a two-day rest to face the no-bigs Wiz today. You know how it goes with the Gob: 15 pops, 15 boards, a couple of dimes, and a few swats for the customary 40-FP and an excellent ROI. Nothing to lose by playing him, folks.
• Hate: Kevin Durant (SF/PF). Never in my life would I had thought I’d be hating on KD, but here we are. While there is nothing to hate about Durant, the truth is that Brooklyn doesn’t have any need to risk the shaky health of any of its Big-3 members, let alone Durant’s in his comeback season and his third game since actually coming back from an early-season scare. KD has played a couple of outings on Apr. 7 and Apr. 10 already, but he’s been limited to 19 ticks off the bench, and 24 minutes in his last one starting at SF. That bodes well for him going forward, and he will most probably end the regular season starting and playing 35 MPG while gearing up for the postseason, but again, there is too much fantasy-risk involved in this play for me to truly like it. His high $9K salary can turn into 50 DKFP as much as it can flop to 35 FP, killing your squad. Look another way to fill that forward spot.
• Love: De’Aaron Fox (PG). It’s been a while since the last time I preached the Fox Word, but it’s time to getting back at it. Fox last four games: 43, 55, 47, and 50 FP against Milly, Minny, Detroit, and Utah. He’s doing it against all sorts of opponents, averaging a stupid 28-5-7-2 line, shooting 47% on 20 FGA per game, and staying on the court for 37+ minute runs nightly. Even though his salary has often been inside the top-10 most expensive of the slates he’s been part of, Foxxy has always found a way to return value to his fantasy truthers. That’s De’Aaron these days. On top of everything the Pelicans might be without staring PG Lonzo tonight, which would add wood to a fire comprised of the seventh-worst fantasy-D in the Association.
• Hate: Ben Simmons (PG). Philly looked like a true contender... until it didn’t. Sure, the Sixers are still the no. 1 seed in the East, and I probably sound stupid saying that, but do we really trust Philly coming out of a seven-game series against Milwaukee or Brooklyn? Seriously? Embiid has gone through injury trouble not long ago and although he’s back he’s definitely not the MVP-candidate player he was earlier on the season. Tobi has lowered is level quite a while too, topping 40 FP just once in the past two weeks. And Simmons. Oh, boy, Simmons. He better be packing his bags because if Philly drops the ball, flops this postseason, and Daryl Morey wakes up on the proper mood, Benny could very well be traded in a hurry come the offseason. This fool is down to a putrid 33 FP/G since the break, posting an average 12-7-6-1 line, shooting up and down, attempting a measly 10 FGA, and boasting a bad 1.7 AST:TO ratio... It’s been 11 games in a row without reaching 40 FP and 14-of-16 since the start of March. Boomer.
• Love: Jonas Valanciunas (C). JoVa is starting to become so obvious a must-play that it is almost dumb to include his name in the column. Just yesterday, Valanciunas has his second no. 1 fantasy finish this season thanks to an impressive 70-FP game against Indy. He was the best fantasy play back on Mar. 10 too when he dropped 67 FP on Washington. And the best of all is that Jonas has not had a salary above $7.8K attached to his forehead since Jan. 3! The ROI can’t get higher daily, his efficiency is insane in the brain (1.34 FP/min on the season), and the dub-dubs are game-by-game event for this man (14 in a row and counting). Just play Valanciunas every single game he’s eligible. Seriously. As simple as that.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 15 (Apr. 5 to Apr. 11)

• Back-to-back Fantasy Crowns for Russell Westbrook, who just doesn’t know how to stop putting up numbers. If you’re a fan of the Wiz, you might not like Russ that much because he’s all about himself and the team still sucks, but you gotta acknowledge greatness when you watch it. Not only did Westbrook lead the week with 62 FP/G on 4 games played, but he also edged no. 2 Jokic by 4 FP while at it. Bonkers.
• Russ, Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Steph Curry were the only four players to break for more than 55 FP this past week, though Curry only played three games compared to the others’ four.
• Jokic was able to beat Russ when it came to efficiency as The Joker put up 1.81 FP/min compared to Russ’ 1.67 mark. Makes sense, considering Jokic logged just 32 MPG to Westbrook’s monster 37.
• The two of Russ and Jokic closed the week with trip-dub lines: it was a 20-13-13 week for Russ, and a 24-10-11 one for Jokic. Not bad, indeed. The only other player that came close to doing it was Julius Randle, putting up an average 20-10-8 line for the Knicks in four games.
• Silly cheap values: Jalen McDaniels, Korkmaz, Cory Joseph, Bembry, Bitadze, Wanamaker, Bazemore, KCP, Tony Bradley, Theis, Rondo, Hayes, Nwora, Dozier
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Malachi Flynn, Bamba, Hartenstein, Zeller, Reggie Jackson, LaVine, Valanciunas, Miles Bridges, Kyle Anderson, Boucher, Garland, Bobby Portis, Paul George, Kanter, Olynyk, Ayton, Porzingis
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Kyrie, Lillard, Embiid, Wood, Simmons, Rozier, Jrue, McCollum
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played): KCP, Mo Bamba, Jalen McDaniels, Bertans, Taurean, Korkmaz, McDermott, Reid, Cory Joseph, Coby White, Aaron Holiday, Frank Jackson, Okoro, Nwora, Markkanen, Ty Jerome
• Cheap threes: Bertans, KCP, Mo Bamba, Korkmaz, Aaron Holiday, Cam Johnson, Sterling Brown, Georges Niang, Jalen McDaniels, Markkanen, Bane, Forbes
• Cheap boards: Zeller, Bradley, O’Neale, Noel, Stewart, Favors, Theis, Bamba, Tristan Thompson, Solomon Hill, Willy Hernangomez
• Cheap dimes: Cory Joseph, Wanamaker, Dellavedova, Saben Lee, Rondo, Augustin, Ty Jerome, Brandon Goodwin, Campazzo, Jeff Teague
• Cheap steals: Patrick Williams, Bembry, Korkmaz, Okogie, Jeremy Lamb, Solomon Hill, Taj Gibson, Caruso, Killian Hayes, Bazemore, Watanabe
• Cheap blocks: Noel, Bitazde, Bamba, Bradley, Hayes, Tristan Thompson, Jeremy Lamb, Favors, Len, Stewart
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): KCP, Jalen McDaniels, Bamba, Batum, McDermott, Cory Joseph, Bertans, Okoro, Elfrid Payton, RJ Hampton

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!