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 larger slate of NBA games on tonight, searching for the landmines could mean the difference from winning or losing your contests.
Kevin Durant, SF, Oklahoma City Thunder
FanDuel Price: $10,500
The Thunder are coming off a back-to-back, so it remains to be seen whether or not Billy Donovan will sit any of his stars for this meaningless game. The Thunder are already locked into the 3 seed, so there is very little reason to play some of his stars on the second night of a back-to-back. However, even if he does, Kevin Durant's matchup against the Blazers tonight is not the best.
Portland ranks fourth-best against small forwards this season. They give up 0.72 FanDuel points per minute to the position, and while Durant has had some success against Portland in the past, he has not been great this season. In three games against the Blazers this season, Durant is averaging only 37 FanDuel points per game.
Even if Durant and the rest of the Thunder play in this one, there is always a chance that Donovan starts to limit their minutes some as well. If the playoff matchups stay where they are at in the West, this would be a first-round playoff preview, and Donovan might take a page out of Gregg Popovich’s book and limit some of his starters’ minutes. That may be enough to make Durant (and other Thunder players) a huge landmine tonight.
Thomas Robinson, PF, Brooklyn Nets
FanDuel Price: $6,000
The Washington Wizards are technically still in the playoff race, even though their chances are basically slim and none, but tonight they are going to give it their all against the Nets, who have ruled out their veterans for the season and are playing Thomas Robinson big minutes at both the power forward and center positions.
Robinson has been pretty good too. He has four straight double-doubles coming into tonight, but the Wizards have actually been pretty good against big men this season. Washington ranks seventh against power forwards and ninth against centers this season, and they are giving up 0.91 FanDuel points per minute combined to the two positions this season.
What makes Robinson even more of a landmine tonight is his price increase and his recent games. His ownership will be pretty high tonight with his recent consistency, but taking a deeper look, he has played well against some bad frontcourt defenses, as well as some good ones.
Two of his last four games have been against the Pelicans and Magic, who rank in the bottom third of the league against power forwards this season. While he has played well against two to-10 teams as well, he needs 30 FanDuel points to reach value tonight, so even if he has another double-double, it may not be enough to pay off a price of $6,000.
Toney Douglas, PG, New Orleans Pelicans
FanDuel Price: $5,600
If you’ve taken a few days off from NBA DFS to play some baseball, you might have not noticed that Tim Frazier, not Toney Douglas, is tearing it up as the Pelicans' point guard. In the Pelicans’ last two games, Frazier has dropped more than 80 FanDuel points and played at least 36 minutes in both games, while Douglas has been relegated to second fiddle. Douglas has still played a good amount of minutes, but he has scored an average of fewer than 15 FanDuel points in his last two games.
Now, the Pelicans head into Boston on the second night of a back-to-back, and they have to play a Celtics team desperate to keep winning and keep home-court advantage in the first round. Boston is also the best team against point guards this season. The Celtics give up an average of only 0.79 FanDuel points per minute to the position, and with Frazier playing well, just take the slight discount with him tonight, and leave Douglas off your rosters.