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?
Jonathon Simmons, SF, Orlando Magic
FanDuel Price: $7,000
Jonathon Simmons has seen a big increase in price over his last few games, and coming off a game where he scored 41.3 FanDuel points, he could be a popular option on Friday's smaller DFS slate.
Despite all of their current injuries, though, the Boston Celtics have still been pretty good defensively against small forwards, holding them to 0.78 FanDuel points per minute. Simmons might also be matched up against Jayson Tatum most of the evening, who is holding players he defends to just 43.9% shooting from the floor this year.
D.J. Augustin, PG, Orlando Magic
FanDuel Price: $5,500
On a similar note, Simmons' teammate D.J. Augustin is coming off a monster game -- he scored 32 points in a win over the Milwaukee Bucks. But tonight, Augustin runs into a very tough matchup with the C's.
The injury to Marcus Smart hurts Boston's defense against point guards, but Terry Rozier has also been strong defensively this season, limiting players he defends to 40.9% shooting from the floor. The Celtics also rank atop our DvP Matchup Chart against point guards, so Augustin is not a guy to chase on Friday.
Dwight Powell, PF, Dallas Mavericks
FanDuel Price: $5,100
Dwight Powell ended up as a huge landmine Tuesday night, after coming in red-hot. He played only 9 minutes in that game, and with Powell's minutes far from safe on Friday, he could once again fall well below value for his $5,100 price tag.
Powell's matchup against the Toronto Raptors is also not ideal. Toronto is limiting power forwards to 0.88 FanDuel points per minute this season, and right now our models project Powell for 18.3 FanDuel points in just under 20 minutes of action.
Jordan Sharp is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jordan Sharp also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username TEHSHARP. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.