NBA

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

Jordan Sharp  —  @TehSharp Mar 7th, 2016
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 big slate of NBA games on tonight, searching for the landmines could mean the difference from winning or losing your contests.

Paul George, SF, Indiana Pacers

FanDuel Price: $9,000

When the Spurs come to town, you can bet that most players on the opposing team are going to have landmine potential. However, no landmine is bigger than Paul George tonight, who has been dominant over his last two games, but now runs into the defending Defensive Player of the Year in a very tough matchup here on Monday night. 

George has scored over 110 FanDuel points over his last two games, and he has done so with great efficiency, scoring 73 points in his last two games with an Effective Field Goal Percentage of 62.2 percent and a True Shooting Percentage of 69 percent.

This will likely draw in more novice players to George, who don’t realize how tough of a matchup he has here on Monday night. Kawhi Leonard has the Spurs as the number-one ranked team against small forwards this season, giving up only 0.63 FanDuel points per minute to the position. On top of that, Leonard is limiting players he defends to only 39.8 percent from the floor, which is nearly five percentage points lower than the average field goal percentage of the small forwards he has faced off against this season.

George has also has some pretty impressive numbers from the free throw line over his last two games, attempting 18 free throws in his last two games. Now, against the Spurs who rank as the second best team in the league in allowing less than 20 free throws per game on average, George will likely not be living at the line like he has over the last two games. 

In their first meeting this season, Leonard limited George to seven points on 1-14 from the floor with six turnovers. While he might not have that bad of a game tonight, it’s best to avoid the Pacers star for this game.

Chandler Parsons, SF, Dallas Mavericks

FanDuel Price: $6,900

This will be the first time the Mavericks have played the Clippers since very early this season, but while it will be their third matchup of the year, it will be the first one that Dallas will have Chandler Parsons available to play. Though that may help the Mavs in their attempt to get a win tonight, Parsons’ prospects of being a good DFS play might not be as good. Los Angeles now has two very capable wing defenders in Paul Pierce and Jeff Green, and no matter who is checking Parsons tonight, it might not be a great night to roster the Mavs’ small forward on FanDuel this evening.

For his price of just under $7,000, you are going to need close to 35 points from Parsons to pay off his salary. While that’s not out of the question, the Clippers rank 10th in defending small forwards this season, giving up only 0.75 FanDuel points per minute to the position. On top of that, while Pierce is nowhere near the elite defender he once was, the crafty veteran has proven that he is still a decent defender on the perimeter.

Pierce is allowing his opponents to shoot 44.7 percent from the floor, which is above average for the players he has defended. And, along with that, he has been pretty good against Parsons in some of their recent meetings. 

The last three times Pierce and Parsons have played one another -- twice when Pierce was with Washington, and their final meeting against one another when Pierce as a member of the Nets -- Parsons has averaged only 22.86 FanDuel points in those three games. With Parsons’ price tag rising after scoring an average of nearly 36 FanDuel points per game over his last five games, tonight may be a night to lay off of him against a Clippers’ team with the sixth best Defensive Rating of any team this season at 103.3.

Zach Randolph, PF, Memphis Grizzlies

FanDuel Price: $6,700

The Grizzlies played last night and lost to the Suns, and now they head on the road tonight for a much tougher game against the Cavaliers. Zach Randolph has been very good since Marc Gasol went down last month, but tonight he's faced with one of the toughest matchups any big man could ask for in the Cavaliers. 

Cleveland is allowing only 0.8 FanDuel points per minute to the power forward position, and even if Randolph plays some at center tonight, the Cavs are allowing only 0.86 FanDuel points to centers this season as well.

What’s even more concerning for Randolph tonight is playing on no rest. If you take away one outlier game against the Mavericks where Randolph jumped into the hot tub time machine before the game for 20 points and 14 rebounds, in five of his last six games off the back to back, Randolph is averaging less than 18 FanDuel points per contest.

Tonight, our projections have Randolph slated for 15.2 points and 8.1 rebounds, which adds up to about 27.5 FanDuel points. While that’s not a bad total for Randolph, especially on no rest, it’s not enough to win any tournaments, and it might not even be enough to finish in the top half of your cash games tonight. There are better options with better matchups on this seven-game slate tonight at power forward.