3 Daily Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 2/8/16

You can find a ton of great information and research on guys you might want to include in your DFS NBA lineups tonight, but what about some 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 each night. After all, it takes only one player to sink a lineup.

With a large slate of NBA games on tonight, searching for the landmines could mean the difference from winning or losing your contests.

Matt Barnes, SF, Memphis Grizzlies

FanDuel Price: $4,900

In NBA DFS, you have to be very skeptical of a guy who recently well exceeded his averages for a huge game. There can be a lot of factors involved in it. Is it a young player breaking out or even flashing signs of things to come? Was it a good player taking advantage of a plus matchup? All these can influence a player’s performance in one particular game, and this can surely be said about Matt Barnes.

In the Grizzlies' last game, Barnes went nuts. He made 5 three-pointers, grabbed 11 rebounds, and handed out 5 assists, all pretty much doubling his season averages in the loss against Dallas. However, while the Mavs aren’t a great matchup for small forwards, Barnes tends to play power forward as well. The Mavs are the 27th ranked defense against power forwards this season in terms of fantasy points allowed.

Tonight, Barnes will face off against another good defense in the Blazers and Al-Farouq Aminu. Coming off the big game, DFS players will surely take notice of Barnes’ most recent 40-point game, but is it sustainable tonight? In three games against the Blazers this season, Barnes is averaging only 15.6 FanDuel points per game, and going up against Aminu might be enough to slow him down again and make him a prime landmine candidate.

According to NBA Stats, Aminu is allowing players he defends to shoot only 45 percent from the floor this season, so the likelihood of Barnes repeating his performance from the Mavs game is very unlikely.

Jahlil Okafor, C, Philadelphia 76ers

FanDuel Price: $6,300

Normally you would look at the matchup the Sixers and Clippers have tonight and think it could hold a lot of fantasy goodness. However, one guy who may appear like a good play but who could end up costing you tonight is Jahlil Okafor. The Sixers’ rookie is coming off another huge game where he likely won someone a tournament. However, tonight he is faced with a much tougher matchup than the Nets, and other factors could lead to him being a landmine tonight.

For starters, the Sixers have been playing Okafor some at the four instead of the five, which has turned into a much tougher matchup against a team like the Clippers. While the Clippers are the 24th ranked defense against centers, LA is the 6th best team defending against power forwards in the NBA.

On top of that, the status of Ish Smith is still up in the air, which could be another big factor in Okafor’s potential output tonight. While he had a huge game against a substandard opponent without Smith, according to NBA Wowy, that is not sustainable. Okafor’s Usage Rate actually goes down when Smith is off the court, and Okafor’s Effective Field Goal Percentage drops from 64.4 percent with Smith playing to only 44 percent when Smith is not on the court.

Enes Kanter, C, Oklahoma City Thunder

FanDuel Price: $5,200

It’s hard to label Enes Kanter a landmine considering how good he has been recently on a fantasy point per minute basis. However, his role is starting to change with the Thunder, and it could affect both his minutes and production tonight against the Suns. The Thunder play only two games this week, and their next game isn’t until Thursday. Then, of course, the All-Star Break hits. Kanter’s role has started to reduce some recently now that Steven Adams has been logging heavy minutes, and Kanter’s minutes have not touched 30 since the game against the Nets on January 24. Adams, on the other hand, has logged at least 28 minutes in six of the Thunder’s last eight games,

Kanter has still been huge for the Thunder and most recently he put up 32 FanDuel points in only 20 minutes against the Warriors. However, if you look at the Thunder’s games recently, Kanter has only played heavy minutes when they need his scoring. They needed it against the Warriors. And in the two straight games Kanter went for a combined 75 FanDuel points, the Thunder were trailing and coming off the back-to-back against the Wolves and then again got into a shootout with the Rockets two nights later, a game they were trailing at halftime.

Needless to say, with a spread favoring the Thunder at -13 tonight, Kanter may not see more than 20 minutes. The Suns are already one of the better teams defending centers this season, ranking sixth, and if there is no need for Kanter’s offense tonight, he may end up falling back down to earth like in the recent games against Washington and Orlando.