NBA

3 Daily Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 3/22/16

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.

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

Jrue Holiday, SG, New Orleans Pelicans

FanDuel Price: $7,700

FanDuel has changed Jrue Holiday's position eligibility from a point guard to a shooting guard, which does make him slightly more valuable considering the wing positions are usually tougher to fill than the point guard spots. However, whichever way you look at the Pelicans tonight, while Holiday is going to have to have a huge Usage Rate with all of their injuries, he also is running up against one of the better defensive backcourts in the NBA.

The Heat rank second- and third-best, respectfully, against point guards and shooting guards this season, and to both positions, they are giving up an average of 0.75 FanDuel points per minute. While most will flock to Holiday because of how much he is going to shoot the ball, you also have to think that the Heat are going to double-team and throw as much at Holiday tonight as possible.

In Holiday’s only matchup against the Heat this season on Christmas Day, he was limited to nine points and two assists in just 25 minutes of action. While he will surely see more than 25 minutes in this game tonight, he will also see a host of different defenders, including both Goran Dragic and Dwyane Wade. He has played Miami only twice in his tenure in New Orleans, but combined in both games, Holiday was 6-of-15 from the floor with six turnovers.

Trevor Ariza, SF, Houston Rockets

FanDuel Price: $5,800

Trevor Ariza doesn’t necessarily have the worst matchup going against Kevin Durant tonight, but he does have to defend against an elite offensive player. Ariza has beaten up on Durant’s defense before, but it’s getting to the point in the 30-year-old Ariza’s career where he struggles at times from a fantasy perspective when he has to defend high-profile talent.

In two games this season against the Thunder and Durant, Ariza has struggled to shoot the ball. That could very well be a byproduct of expending a ton of energy chasing Durant around screens and in transition. In those two games, Ariza shot a combined 30 percent from the floor, and even though he still wasn’t bad in the most recent one from a fantasy points angle, he also had five steals in that last game, something that will be very hard for him to duplicate.

Though you can’t really tell some nights, Durant is a solid defender, but he doesn’t get too much credit for his numbers on that end of the court. He is holding players he defends to only 38.6 percent from the floor and 27.6 percent from beyond the arc. It’s debatable as to whether that means he is an above-average defender or if he is just a really tough cover, but Ariza’s fantasy prospects tonight don’t look as good as they do on the surface.

D’Angelo Russell, PG, Los Angeles Lakers

FanDuel Price: $6,600

D'Angelo Russell has seen his ups-and-downs in his rookie season, and while the discussion on whether or not he was drafted too highly by the Lakers has subsided, his inconsistency is going to be an issue for the Lakers for the foreseeable future. That being said, Russell has already reached landmine status a few times over the last three games, and a big reason for that has not only been his struggling but also the play of Marcelo Huertas

The Brazilian point guard has been playing solidly from a fantasy standpoint over the Lakers’ last three games, and he is slowly eating into the second overall pick’s minutes. In his last three games, Russell is averaging only 22.6 minutes per game, while Huertas is averaging 22.3. Timeshares may be nice for vacation purposes for those who don’t want to commit to buying and maintaining a condo, but for fantasy purposes in football and basketball especially, timeshares are extremely frustrating.

Not only is Russell losing minutes, but also the Grizzlies pose a pretty tough matchup. While Mike Conley is still out and is one of the bigger reasons the Grizzlies are solid defensively against point guards, Memphis has plenty of good defenders to throw at Russell tonight when he is on the court. Lance Stephenson and Tony Allen could spend a few possessions locked in on Russell, (especially if Kobe Bryant is out tonight), which downgrades him even more. Tonight, we have Russell projected for 13.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 28 minutes, which is nowhere near reaching value.