3 Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 1/29/19
In daily fantasy basketball, finding players you want to roster is a lot easier than finding players to avoid.
You can find a ton of great information and research on guys you might want to include in your DFS NBA lineups, but what about guys you may want to lessen your exposure to, or even fade altogether?
Avoiding players whose matchups or situations aren't as great as they seem can often be just as important as finding the best targets. After all, it takes only one player to sink a lineup. Searching for the landmines could mean the difference between winning and losing your contests. Which players should we avoid tonight?
Jerami Grant, PF, Oklahoma City Thunder
FanDuel Price: $6,200
Jerami Grant is enjoying a nice run of offensive production, stringing together nine consecutive games of double-digit scoring. Even with the boost in buckets, the Oklahoma City Thunder forward has reached optimal value (5.0 points per $1,000 salary) just once in his last four games. His decline in rebounding, with six or fewer boards in seven of his previous eight games, has limited his ceiling in DFS despite averaging 2.3 blocks per game over the last three weeks.
Facing the Orlando Magic on Tuesday would appear to be a favorable matchup, but Orlando has quietly become the place where power forwards come to flop in fantasy.
Over their last 10 games, the Magic own a top-10 rebound percentage (50.8%). Combine that with one of the slowest paces in the NBA and Orlando is limiting opponents to just 42.8 boards per game, a bottom-10 total. Also hampering Grant’s chances have been the Magic’s ability to avoid blocks. During their last 10 games, they have had just 36 shots swatted, the second-fewest in the league during the stretch.
Add it all up, and the Magic hold power forwards to the third-fewest FanDuel points per minute this season, making Grant a hard player to trust in DFS tonight.
Brook Lopez, C, Milwaukee Bucks
FanDuel Price: $5,700
Brook Lopez experiences some of the wildest swings in DFS. He has collected between 11.9 and 42.0 FanDuel points in the last two weeks. Over those last seven games, the Milwaukee Bucks' center has posted 32.3 or more FanDuel points three times while dropping 20.3 or fewer three times as well. With four or fewer rebounds in six of seven games, Lopez’s fantasy fortunes rely heavily on threes. He has collected at least 30 FanDuel points in six of the last eight games in which he hit at least 3 shots from deep. Facing the Detroit Pistons, who excel at defending the perimeter, Lopez is likely in for a long night.
We already know rebounds will be hard to come by against NBA rebounding leader Andre Drummond, but surprisingly he is one of the better three-point defending big men in the league as well. On an average of 3.4 three-point attempts per game, Drummond is limiting those he defends to 29.7% shooting from beyond the arc, a 6.2 percentage point drop from what is expected. The Pistons as whole excel at stopping threes, holding opponents to a league-low 32.8% accuracy.
Jordan Clarkson, SG, Cleveland Cavaliers
FanDuel Price: $5,000
Facing the lowly Chicago Bulls on Sunday helped Jordan Clarkson post his best game in nearly two weeks. He dropped 18 points on 8-for-11 shooting against the Bulls. Before that performance, the Cleveland Cavaliers' guard scored 14 or fewer points in seven of his previous eight games, shooting a collective 38.1% from the field and 28.9% from three. In those eight games, he reached 23 FanDuel points just one time, averaging only 19.8 FanDuel points per night.
Since he contributes virtually no stats in other categories, Clarkson’s fantasy fortune is tied to his scoring. Playing on the 28th-ranked offense the NBA -- for points per game -- the guard is bound to struggle, especially against one of the hotter defense in the NBA.
The Washington Wizards own a top-seven defensive rating (108.1) over their last 10 games while holding opponents to 106 or fewer points in six of those games. The Wiz also hold opposing shooting guards to 0.84 FanDuel points per minute, the 12th-fewest in the NBA this season.
Dale Redman is not a FanDuel employee. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
