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?
Quinn Cook, PG, Golden State Warriors
FanDuel Price: $6,200
Quinn Cook is coming off yet another nice game, but with Kevin Durant and Klay Thompson both probable for Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Cook's usage rate might fall far enough to where his price tag is risky on this giant slate.
Plus, the Thunder have been great against point guards this season, limiting them to 0.88 FanDuel points per minute. Considering Cook has to go against Russell Westbrook on both ends of the court, he might struggle to collect the 31 FanDuel points -- 5 points per every $1,000 in salary -- he needs to pay off his price tag.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, SG, Los Angeles Lakers
FanDuel Price: $6,100
Playing in Salt Lake City against the Utah Jazz is almost a DFS death sentence. There are a few Los Angeles Lakers who could still have big games, but Kentavious Caldwell-Pope looks like he could suffer from the stiff defense of the Jazz.
The Jazz are holding shooting guards to 0.77 FanDuel points per minute this season. With Caldwell-Pope shooting only 39.2% from the floor over his last six road games, it's probably not going to get any better on the road in Utah as the Lakers own a 98.5-point implied total, the lowest on the slate. KCP is likely to see good minutes with LA short-handed, so there is some appeal in cash games, but the matchup caps his upside.
Kelly Oubre, SF, Washington Wizards
FanDuel Price: $5,500
Kelly Oubre is in the midst of a pretty bad shooting slump, and the odds of it continuing on Tuesday look pretty good. Oubre and the Washington Wizards are on the road against the Houston Rockets, and while Houston isn't playing for anything before the playoffs, their wing defense could still limit the WIzards.
Oubre is shooting only 19 for 57 (33.3%) over his last five games, and the Rockets rank 10th against small forwards this season, per our numbers, holding them to 0.80 FanDuel points per minute.
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.