3 Daily Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 4/7/16

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.

Pau Gasol, C, Chicago Bulls

FanDuel Price: $8,400

Pau Gasol nearly triple-doubled just under a month ago against the Heat, but Jimmy Butler and Derrick Rose were out for that game. Rose returned to the Bulls’ lineup two nights ago, and of course, Butler has been dominant recently for Chicago. With a tough matchup awaiting Gasol against Hassan Whiteside, don’t get roped into rostering Gasol tonight.

Whiteside has been nothing short of fantastic this season defensively. He is easily going to lead the league in blocks, and he has the Heat ranked seventh in the league against centers this year, giving up fewer than a fantasy point per minute to the position. Whiteside is holding players he defends to 45.1 percent from the floor and only 48.3 percent from inside six feet. 

Whiteside is also leading the league in Block Percentage this season at 9.9 percent. While Gasol has cut down on the number of his shot attempts that he has blocked, (he got rejected all the time in Memphis) he still has been stuffed on about six percent of his shot attempts this season. Needless to say, Whiteside should have more than a few swats against Gasol tonight. Whiteside is listed as a game-time decision, but as long as he plays, you need to downgrade Gasol. 

Klay Thompson, SG, Golden State Warriors

FanDuel Price: $7,100

With the Warriors’ chances down to slim to break the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls’ single-season wins record, Klay Thompson will likely go under-appreciated even more than he already is. However, tonight is one of the tougher matchups he will have this season against the San Antonio Spurs, and he may end up seeing the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Kawhi Leonard, guarding him some throughout the night.

Thompson has not performed well against the Spurs this season, but not too many shooting guards do. San Antonio ranks first in defending two-guards this season, giving up an incredible 0.67 FanDuel points per minute to the position. Thompson is shooting only 36.6 percent in two games against San Antonio this season, and he is 1-for-10 from beyond the arc in those two games. Even at home, those numbers are not likely to improve against the league’s best defensive team.

Jeff Teague, PG, Atlanta Hawks

FanDuel Price: $6,800

During 2015 -- the Hawks’ and Jeff Teague's great season -- Teague posted some respectable numbers. But now, we know now it was more of an illusion than the truth.

This season, Teague has regressed back to the mean, and he is once again the inconsistent and inefficient point guard that we know, and of course, has occasionally seen his minutes cut in favor of Dennis Schroder. He has been a solid fantasy point guard at times this season, but he is once again falling back into the role of being outstanding one night and underwhelming the next.

After a bad game against Phoenix, a game he should have dominated, Teague runs into a matchup against Kyle Lowry and the Raptors tonight. And no matter where Lowry is, he is consistently good. Lowry’s defense has the Raptors ranked third-best against point guards this year. He is holding players he defends to 43.8 percent from the floor and only 32.3 percent from beyond the arc.

Predictably, Teague has struggled against Lowry in the past. In his last four games against Lowry and the Raptors, Teague is shooting only 37.7 percent from the floor and is averaging fewer than 27 FanDuel points per game. Teague’s Effective Field Goal Percentage is also less than 40 percent in those four games.