NBA DFS: Kevin Durant and best/worst DraftKings daily fantasy basketball plays for Thursday, Apr. 29th

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: Kevin Durant (SF). Now we’re talking. KD played his first game since Feb. 13 back on Apr. 7. He went back to DFS slates tagged at a stupid $9.2K, which never made sense even though he was super efficient on his low minutes. Now, the algorithm has come to its senses and is lowering the salary bar, which I love. Durant at $8.5K is much more palatable, even more considering he’s played 28 and 33 minutes in his last two for 53 and 45 FP on those two against Phoenix and Toronto. Brooklyn is going against Indy tonight, with should make for a tough outing out there. But Durant is as good as ever, is playing more and more ramping up for the postseason, Harden is still out not taking possessions off KD/Kyrie, and Durant is basically a lock to reach 40+ FP with upside for a 50+ bounty if all things click. Must-play today.
• Hate: Pascal Siakam (PF). What’s up with Pasky? Back-to-back bad games for him considering his price and looking at the ROI he’s provided to his truthers. Siakam wasn’t horrid against Cleveland putting up 39 FP, sure, but his last outing against Brooklyn was horrid even though he played all of 35 minutes on the day. The tally ended at a putrid 22 DKFP with a 10-7-2-1 line and a paltry 12% shooting from the floor on a healthy 16 FGA and a high 26% usage rate. Siakam could obviously rebound tonight against Denver, but if you know something about the league these days that is actually that Denver doesn’t know how to lose a game and, most importantly, is fighting with the Clips for the no. 3 seed and avoiding a first-round meeting with the Lakers. Not saying it can’t happen for Siakam today, but I’m not trusting his chances as to go and pony up $8.4K for him.
• Love: Anthony Edwards (SG). As much as I’d like LaMelo Ball to get that ROY Award, and as much as I think he's going to—deservedly—get it, it’d be freaking dope to have Edwards pulling off the upset and snatching it from Melo’s hands. And hey, that’s not that crazy to think about, folks. Edwards has been amazing since the AS break and he’s shown more than enough to make fools realize he was the no. 1 pick of the last draft for some reason. Ant is averaging almost 40 FPG since Mar. 11 in the 27 games he’s played from that day on. He’s fallen below the 30-FP mark just four times and has topped 40 FP in 11 of them. That’s pretty insane for a rook. In the last three, from Saturday through Tuesday, Ant has dropped 42 FPG translating from a sound 19-9-3-3. That’s great to see because Edwards is known for his scoring but he’s now doing it on the boards too and comes with assisting/stealing upside on top of that. And all of it at a sweet discount. NOthing to hate here.
• Hate: Lonzo Ball (PG). Lonzo! What you doing dawg!? Peep yesterday’s line by Zo if you want to see a career night: 16-12-12-4-2 trip-dub against the Nugs, no less! My lord. Actually, Zo put up another 16-12-12 night when he was a Laker back in 2017 in another loss (to Milly that time) but that’s it for Lonzo and those monster numbers. Ball can do it all, and I love him above probably 99% of the folks out there who keep undervaluing and overlooking him. Here’s to hope he fills his bag big time this summer when he enters free agency. But man, it’s truly hard to bank on a guy coming off his best pro-game ever. The minute he doesn’t get those bonus dub-dub/trip-dub bonus FP, or drops in even the slightest of ways in the assists/boards cats, he’s going to turn into a 30-FP dud. He’s turned the ball over four times in each of his last four games and he’s played way above his true level. Second night of a back-to-back against the Mega-Tanking Thunder which might see Zo gets his minutes cut in half too. Nah, I’m passing.
• Love: D’Angelo Russell (PG/SG). Keeping it in Minny, with about D’Lo’s rebirth? Now an off-the-pine player after coming back from injury, Russell is thriving. The minutes are around 30 these days for D’Lo, and the per-minute efficiency he’s showing is impressive putting up 1.36 FP/min in his last five and 1.24 overall since his return on Apr. 5. In that five-game span of late Russell has averaged a tasty 21-3-7-1 and he’s hitting 3.8 3PG in those. He sucked a bit his last time out two days ago against Houston shooting a stupid 29% from the floor, but prior to that he had hit 38%+ in six straight and is averaging 54 FG% on 13 FGA going back a couple of weeks. Bargain for the price if you need someone to fill your last lineup hole.

What’s cooking? Statistical trends from Week 15 (Apr. 19 to Apr. 25)

• A month. A full month. That’s the span of Russell Westbrook’s fantasy domination playing for a new team in Washington this season. And if it wasn’t for Russ’ exploits, odds are those Wizards would be not fighting for a spot in the play-in mini-tournament as they currently are. Russ played 4 games this past week and even with the likes of Giannis (57 FP) and Irving (56) pressing him, Russ was still able to top all fantasy players with an average of 58 DKFP and a monster 19-12-12-2 line.
• As you already know, Russ plays a ton of minutes (almost 39 MPG this week). That’s why Westbrook missed on being the most efficient player in the league with a 1.49 FP/min mark. That award went to Giannis, who put up 1.80 FP/min on average in his four games played.
• Russ was also the only player to average a triple-double this week. Luka Doncic (26-9-10) was the closest to it, with all of Kyrie (27-7-10), Ja Morant (30-7-8-2), Jokic (30-11-5) falling a bit shorter.
• Mentioning it because he made history on Sunday: Steph Curry closed the week averaging 5.8 3PG, and has scored 85 triples this month alone. That’s the highest amount of treys scored in a single calendar month in the history of the Association, so there’s that.
• Silly cheap values: Oshae Brissett, DJ Wilson, Sumner, Dozier, Neto, Gafford, Iggy, Craig, Metu, Dwight Powell, Maxey, DeAndre Jordan, Cauley-Stein, Millsap
• A little more expensive but still with massive ROI: Nurkic, Ja, Tillman, Nunn, Bullock, Derrick White, Bazley, Rose, D’Lo, Sexton, Schroder, Garland, Brogdon
• Some very expensive players not doing enough: Vucevic, Lillard, Middleton, Jarrett Allen, Dejounte Murray, Lonzo, Butler, Tatum, Booker
• Cheap points (min. 3 games played): Bertans, Lou Williams, Brissett, Sumner, Quickley, Melo, Dwight Powell, Kennard, Neto, Seth Curry, Bacon, Reid, McDermott, Maxey, Mykhailiuk, Dozier, Melton, Pritchard
• Cheap threes: Bertans, Quickley, Melo, Melton, Markkanen, Kennard, Seth Curry, Pritchard, Armoni Brooks, Justin Holiday
• Cheap boards: DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, Looney, Noel, Brissett, Tillman, Cousins, Craig, Biyombo, Gafford, Eubanks, Armoni Brooks
• Cheap dimes: Killian Hayes, Dellavedova, Ty Jerome, Dozier, Ish Smith, Neto, Lou Williams, Temple, Saben Lee, Iggy, Teague, Melton
• Cheap steals: Thybulle, Neto, Wanamaker, Harkless, Dozier, Shaq Harrison, Iggy, Caruso, Metu, Melton, Tillman, Gafford, Kenyon Martin Jr., Dedmon
• Cheap blocks: Noel, Gafford, Iggy, Metu, Millsap, Thybulle, Kenyon, DeAndre Jordan
• Cheap FG% (min. 8 FGA): Neto, Harkless, McDermott, Sumner, Quickley, Reid, Markkanen, Seth Curry

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!