NBA DFS: Devin Booker and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Thursday, Apr. 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: Devin Booker (SG). Get-right game for Book, this one. Just a couple of days ago, against a wildly underperforming Miami squad, all Booker could do was finish with a paltry 22 FP in 23 minutes of playing time. Not that Phoenix needed him, as Miami couldn’t even reach 90 pops, but it truly hurt to watch. It just feels impossible to have Dev putting up back-to-back duds, even more considering the Kangz will be at the other end of the floor tonight. Prior to that Heat stinker, Book had finished with 50 and 43 FP in the couple of games before that one, and getting back to the start of the month and including Mar. 31, Book has six outings of 43+ FP compared to just two below that mark. The dud also lowered his salary for today’s slate, which makes me love Book even more.
• Hate: Jrue Holiday (PG/SG). The Bucks are playing a weird game. Giannis has been out since Apr. 2 and although he’s questionable we’ll see whether he comes back or not tonight—or soon, at all—and how he does. In the meantime, Milly has stayed on a .500 winning percentage over the past 10 games played, and has a couple of Ws in a row entering the Hawks matchup. The Bucks are resting bodies a lot, which is reasonable considering they’re pretty much locked into the no. 3 EC seed no matter what happens ROS. In the last six games (spanning two weeks), Middleton and Jrue lead the team in minutes with 193 and 191 respectively averaging just 32 MPG., but Jrue has played just 27 and 26 in his last two, including one just yesterday. Are the Bucks going to put him on the court for long stretches on the second leg of a back-to-back, against the absolute-worst D in the league? Let me doubt it. Holiday is as efficient as they get, but for DFS that’s not truly where the mojo is to be found. The FP will probably reach the 35+, but in short playing time the total numbers will be low no matter what. Not worth the price.
• Love: Clint Capela (C). Trae hasn’t played since Apr. 9 (last Friday, that is) and John Collins has been out since getting injured on Mar. 30 too. No problem for Atlanta, though, which has won its last three games mostly thanks to Captain Cap’s efforts. Capela’s been improving his performance on a nightly basis going back to Apr. 6, going from 35 to 41, 43, and lastly 50 FP in his last match against Toronto a couple of days ago. He’s posting up 18-14 dub-dubs to go with 1.5 APG and 1.5 BPG on top of that. Obviously, as Capela doesn’t have any clue what “three-point shot” means, his shooting percentages are always sky-high sitting at a massive 67% in April. All of that for the sweet price of $8.9K, against a Milwaukee’s D that is giving up an average 31 FPG to starting centers (tied for fifth-most), and with Collins and Trae out once more putting Cap in a big-eating position.
• Hate: Draymond Green (PF). What are the odds Dray put on another life-changing game tonight, for the second—almost third—time in a row in the span of four days? I mean, it can happen, but it won’t happen, honestly. Dray logged one of his ridiculous trip-dubs against OKC in a trouncing yesterday in which he finished the game with a 12-10-16-3-2 stuffed line in 30 minutes. That’s freaking bonkers and a true outlier, which translated to 61 FP on DK. If you’re not keeping track, those 61 FP tied Green’s season-high mark, which he got all the way back on Feb. 26. Other than that, it’s been five games of 14 played in the last month in whcih Green has reached 40+ DKFP while he’s fallen below the 35-FP line in eight of those... The salary isn’t super high, which lowers the risks a bit, but even then there is a higher probability of Green getting back to his stinking ways rather than putting on his third consecutive 45-FP game.
• Love: Andrew Wiggins (SG/SF). Wiggins is and will always be a Wiggins. He will give you 50 pops one day, and then he will go and give you 20. Shaking my head... Anyway. The good thing about that is that it can’t get worse than it was yesterday for Wiggins, who put up a sound dud of 22 FP in which was the worst game he’s played since Mar. 23 when Philly limited him to a silly 17 FP. Contrary to Green, who comes from the best game of his life against OKC on Wednesday, Wigg was horrid and is bound to rebound as high as you can imagine. Wiggins should get back to his nightly 35 minutes, hit shots at least on his season-average 47+ field-goal percentage, and rack up some goodies against a depleted Cavs squad that can’t catch a break these days. The discount is absolute, so you know what to do.

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!