Fantasy Basketball Top Plays and Fades, Tuesday February 12

Welcome into the Tuesday edition of Fantasy Basketball Top Plays and Fades! We have a small five game slate tonight but it’s not short on big names to sort through!

At least at the first glance, this slate might be a little tough to get a hold of. Perhaps the biggest question is Anthony Davis. Yes, he’s going to be in the lineup barring any hijinks from the Pelicans and it strikes me as a bit odd the NBA has stepped into the middle of this mess. While it’s better for the fans who get to see Davis play, the NBA had no qualms when teams like the Rockets and Cavaliers shoved Carmelo Anthony and J.R. Smith to the side. Anyways, neither of those guys are in our Fantasy Basketball Top Plays!

Obviously, there is a large gap in talent between those players but the whole situation seems like a steer clear for me for DFS. Rostering Davis wasn’t the most comfortable proposition on a normal night, because you just felt you were due for the dreaded “Anthony Davis to the locker room” tweet from FantasyLabs. At this point, he’s basically a fade for me the rest of the way. His minutes have seen a slight cap and it’s harder than ever to get a ceiling game from him. Let’s see who we do want to play tonight.

Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Point Guard

Top Play – DJ Augustin, Magic 

Point guard is really kind of gross tonight. Sure, you can just play Steph Curry and nobody would blame you and I’m not going to talk you out of it. Having said that, I don’t know which Warrior is going to get the big game from night to night so paying for Curry is likely just paying for safety. Since the position is a little tougher than some nights, I’m going to side with a trusty standby and play Augustin a good bit tonight.

The 18.3 percent usage rate and 0.83 FPPM Augustin sports is certainly nothing special, but he logs about 30 minutes every night. Since he never breaks a slate, the price tag is always going to be reasonable and the spot doesn’t get much better. The Pelicans play a t a very high pace and can’t guard the position, giving up the fourth most DraftKings points on the season. Even a 35 DK point game would be a big win for Augustin and that’s certainly in sight tonight.

Honorable Mention – Terry Rozier, Celtics(safety, if you don’t want to pay up for Curry)

Fade – None 

As I mentioned, the position looks a little tough tonight. I’m not sure there’s a particular player that’s going to warrant a fade tonight. Curry is fine if maybe not a plug and play. I don’t normally like paying this for Ben Simmons, but he should bounce back after a pretty subpar game this past time out against the Lakers. Even Mike Conley is sneaky because Marc Gasol was heavily involved in the offense and the Spurs have been one of the bottom five teams against point guards in the past month or so.

If you move on down the salary scale, Trae Young could be in line for a few more minutes since Jeremy Lin was bought out and Atlanta has every reason to get him as much court time as possible. I guess you could say to fade Rajon Rondo if he doesn’t start again, but that seemed to be a poor decision for the Lakers. He should be back with the starters tonight. Even Ricky Rubio is worth a look in a game that should get up and down in Golden State.

Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Shooting Guard

Top Play – Jaylen Brown, Celtics

I’m not entirely sure the shooting guard position is all that much better than the point guard position, so this is another spot I’m willing to spend down tonight. With Kyrie Irving already ruled out for the Celtics, I’m looking to turn to Brown tonight to hopefully exploit the weakness of the Sixers bench. It’s not really the deepest unit and Brown should see some of his run against that unit, which is going to mesh well with his 25.5 usage rate and 0.98 FPPM.

I do have to point out that the Sixers are the fifth best team against shooting guards on the season, but that’s not something I’m going to sweat with the Celtics being shorthanded. I would think that Brown should be closer to his high end on minutes tonight, while the Sixers are kind of still learning how to play defense as a unit with all the new faces around. Brown is still at a very solid price, barely over $5,000 on either site.

Honorable Mention – Evan Fournier, Magic

Fade – Klay Thompson, Warriors 

I could just cite that in two games against the Jazz this season, Thompson has averaged 12 points, five rebounds and two assists. That’s not the fairest thing ever because it’s only a two game sample size but it is something to note. When we combine that with the Jazz giving up the fewest DK points to the shooting guard position and the drop in usage with DeMarcus Cousins, I think it’s easier to get other pieces of this game than Thompson.

The other facet to this game is the Jazz allow the fewest three-point attempts of any team in basketball. With the Warriors on the other side, that doesn’t mean a whole lot because this team will shoot three pointers from the parking lot. Still, it is a slight knock against Thompson who needs to be smoking the three ball to hit value with how things are going with that team. I’m passing and would take my chances with Boogie or even Draymond Green.

Honorable Mention – Jrue Holiday, Pelicans

Fantasy Basketball – Small Forward

Top Play – JJ Redick, Sixers 

One of the biggest winners of the Tobias Harris trade so far has been…JJ Reddick? If he hasn’t been putting up 30+ points in one game and hitting highlight reel three pointers, he’s been doing some other little things that have made him suddenly pretty fantasy relevant. When he scored the 30+ points, I kind of brushed it off as the outlier that it was but he followed it up with another very solid performance.

With the way the Sixers are now, Redick is going to be one of the last players to touch the ball but that sword cuts both ways. The opposing defense can be so worried about all the other options that Philly has that Redick is going to constantly get good looks. On top of that, his assist rate could go up because every player he passes the ball to could hit a shot at any moment. This Philly offense is dangerous and Redick is playing a good role in it. We all saw what happened to Boston the other night without Kyrie when the Clippers erased a 25+ point deficit.

Honorable Mention – LeBron James, Lakers

Fade – Rudy Gay, Spurs

This game might turn out to be hideously ugly, as both teams are on the lower end as pace goes and the Grizzlies are at home. Gay missed the last game with an ankle injury, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in his output tonight. Unless DeMar DeRozan or LaMarcus Aldridge get ruled out, I can’t see any reason to take the risk with Gay in a pace down spot with a poor over/under of 209. In this version of the NBA, it’s getting rarer by the day to see an O/U of under 210.

On the season, Gay is a pretty solid player with DeRozan and Aldridge on the floor with a usage rate of over 20 percent and a FPPM over 1.0. The flip side is the Grizzlies have been the second stingiest team against small forwards on the season. Once you factor in all the negatives and the fact that Rudy Gay really doesn’t have much of a ceiling, there are better options out there even if you ignore this game and treat it as a four game slate.

Honorable Mention – Joe Ingles, Jazz

Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Power Forward

Top Play – Kyle Kuzma, Lakers 

This game has to be one of the more attractive on the slate despite a potential for the hawks to get beat up. I want some pieces from it and I think Kuzma is a very strong place to start. He’s coming off a really big game against the Sixers and should be set up well for another one tonight. He draws the putrid Atlanta Hawks defense, which currently is giving up the most DK points to power forwards and that’s matched by the most real points at just a bit under 24 a game.

The outside factor is these are the types of games that the Lakers absolutely have to win the rest of the way. They’re on the outside looking in for the postseason and it would be pretty embarrassing to miss the playoffs with LeBron, injury notwithstanding. After getting a sneaky win in Boston and getting smacked by Indiana and Philly, Los Angeles must take care of business in this game. Kuzma has been the second best option on the team when LeBron has been playing so he needs a big game tonight. Count me in.

Honorable Mention – John Collins, Hawks

Fade – Julius Randle, Pelicans 

We’ve already talked about Anthony Davis Saga in New Orleans, but it has also had an unintended consequence and its name is Kenrich Williams. With him being productive, it has turned the four and five positions in New Orleans into a bit of a mess. The minutes are similar for Randle, but he’s been losing minutes with Davis. That actually hasn’t helped him because Davis obviously draws the most attention when he’s on the court.

There’s a reason that the ceiling has been lower than normal with Randle and I think he’s still kind of an easy fade at his price point. He’s still priced with the ceiling of the earlier portion of the season in mind, but Williams is sucking up the valuable minutes. Orlando also plays at one of the slower paces in the league, so this isn’t exactly the best way to use some of the New Orleans players. To top everything off, the Magic are the fifth best team against power forwards.

Honorable Mention – Jayson Tatum, Celtics(as always)

Fantasy Basketball Top Plays – Center

Top Play – Rudy Gobert, Jazz 

A lot of folks might be on this play tonight for no other reason than the revenge factor after Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala made fun of Gobert for getting emotional after not making the All-Star team. Apparently, being upset that your mom is upset about not making it is supposed to be a bad thing. Anyways, there are other reasons than just strictly Gobert is out for retribution tonight.

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For one thing, teams need a big on the floor almost constantly now that the Warriors can put out DeMarcus Cousins and Kevon Looney on the floor for basically the whole game if they desire. Cousins is such a different facet from the other versions of the Warriors team that their rivals are still learning to deal with it. In addition, Gobert has recorded a double double in 15 of his last 17 games and we saw that centers can get theirs against the Warrior these past few weeks. Just ask Hassan Whiteside before he was benched for no real reason in the fourth quarter of the last game.

Honorable Mention – Joel Embiid, Sixers

Fade – Javale McGee, Lakers 

This is a somewhat uneasy fade and I still might have some McGee if I’m playing multi-entry, but there is a scenario where McGee disappoints. First, the Hawks are only 12th worst in the league against centers. That isn’t good, but we’re talking about a team that is either worst or second to worst against every other position on the court. When you look at it through that prism, 12th doesn’t sound so bad.

The other facet that really sticks out to me is McGee has to be wildly efficient to hit value. McGee is at 1.18 FPPM on the season, and yet remains under 30 minutes a night. That truly makes little sense to me when the Lakers are trotting out whatever is left of Tyson Chandler for minutes, which makes no sense. For anyone that wants to talk about his defense, Chandler was a -23 when he was on the court while McGee was a +9. There is ceiling here to be sure but the floor is lower than it may appear coming off the big game.

Honorable Mention – Dewayne Dedmon, Hawks

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