3 Daily Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 3/10/16

Finding players you want to roster is a lot easier than finding players to avoid. Here are three players based on their price and matchups that could be landmines for your rosters tonight.

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

Derrick Rose, PG, Chicago Bulls

FanDuei Price: $7,000

Thursday is a shorter slate of NBA DFS, and with only four games, there aren’t many locks for your lineups. However, there are still players who could easily sink your lineups, and one of them is Derrick Rose. The Bulls’ point guard has not been having a horrible season by just looking at his raw statistics, but according to our nERD metric, Rose has been one of the most inefficient players in the entire league this season, with a nERD of -7.2.

He also runs into a tough matchup tonight against the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs rank as the fourth-best team against point guards this year, giving up only 0.83 FanDuel points per minute to the position. While it really has more to do with their team defense, the Spurs have been able to limit point guards this season, and with Rose coming off two games where he turned the ball over a total of 12 times, it may be a good night to roster another point guard.

Another factor limiting Rose tonight is the lack of Jimmy Butler. Even though Rose’s Usage Rate jumps up to 31.7 percent when Butler is off the court, the Spurs are going to key in on Rose tonight and probably put one of their tougher defenders on him with Butler being out. Plus, even though Rose shoots better from the floor without Butler, according to NBA Wowy, in his last three games without Butler, Rose has averaged only 26.6 FanDuel points. Don’t expect too much from the Bulls' point guard tonight.

DeMar DeRozan, SG, Toronto Raptors

FanDuel Price: $8,000

The Raptors and Hawks hook up tonight in what could be a nice Eastern Conference playoff matchup preview, and tonight the Raptors face the tough test of going up against a Hawks team that has been stellar on defense recently. The Hawks have turned on the defensive afterburners over their last 24 games, and over the last six weeks or so, they rank first in Defensive Rating, opponent field goal percentage, and opponent Effective Field Goal Percentage.

While DeMar DeRozan doesn’t necessarily have the toughest matchup in the world tonight, according to our Defensive Versus Position (DvP) rankings, if the Hawks are playing like they have recently, DeRozan falls into landmine territory. Atlanta ranks around the middle of the league in defense against shooting guards this season, giving up 0.75 FanDuel points per minutes to the position, but if Kent Bazemore is tracking DeRozan tonight, that really hurts the Raptors’ star.

In their first and only meeting this season, DeRozan was limited to only 24.8 FanDuel points. Bazemore is holding players he defends to only 41.6 percent from the floor, which is nearly three percentage points lower than the averages of the players he has defended. At a price tag of $8,000, DeRozan would need to get to 40 FanDuel points to pay off value, and with the Hawks giving up only 86.5 points per game during regulation of their last six games, there might not be enough points to go around for DeRozan tonight.

Tony Parker, PG, San Antonio Spurs

FanDuel Price: $4,700

Tony Parker is coming off a rest day that he needed -- because the Spurs’ point guard has really been struggling from a daily fantasy perspective recently. Before his day off earlier this week, Parker was averaging only 15.7 FanDuel points per game in his last five games. However, while some will look at the time off and his DvP matchup tonight and go all in with the cheap Spurs point guard, it might be wise to limit your exposure to Parker until he shows that his minutes and shots are on the up again.

Parker has been having a great season from an efficiency standpoint, but he is also taking fewer than 10 shots per game this season, which is the lowest total since his rookie season. On top of that, while the Bulls do rank as the fourth-worst team against point guards this season, Rose has not been bad defensively, as he is allowing players he defends to shoot only 43.6 percent from the floor and only 33.3 percent from three-point land. Both of those are above average for the players he has defended, and on top of all this, while our projections have Parker as a good play tonight, he might be a mirage if the minutes aren't there.

Parker has played more than 30 minutes just once this month, and so far in March, he is shooting 33 percent from the floor and taking only six shots per game. Parker’s seemingly good matchup could blow up in our faces this evening, so while I’m not fading him altogether, I’m limiting my exposure tonight.