NBA

3 Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 1/7/19

Dale Redman  —  @DTRedman Jan 7th, 2019
Kevin Knox has not been lighting it up in DFS and may see reduced minutes on Monday. Who else makes our 'do not play' list tonight?

In daily fantasy basketball, finding players you want to roster is a lot easier than finding players to avoid.

You can find a ton of great information and research on guys you might want to include in your DFS NBA lineups, but what about 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. After all, it takes only one player to sink a lineup. Searching for the landmines could mean the difference between winning and losing your contests. Which players should we avoid tonight?

Elfrid Payton, PG, New Orleans Pelicans

FanDuel Price: $6,000

In Elfrid Payton’s three games played since returning from a lengthy absence due to a finger injury, the New Orleans Pelicans' guard has been pretty bland in DFS, posting two sub-22 FanDuel point performances. He averaged just 11.0 points and 4.5 assists in the two duds. While his presence provides a boost for the Pelicans’ offense as a whole, Payton himself has been underwhelming in fantasy this year. In his 9 games played, the point guard has eclipsed 30.0 FanDuel points (5.0 points per $1,000 of salary on Monday) just 3 times. He is averaging less than 25 FanDuel points per game for the year. Monday night, Payton will have a hard time changing that trend against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Memphis has been one of the worst fantasy matchups for opposing point guards, limiting the position to 0.87 FanDuel points per minute, the fourth-lowest rate in the NBA this season. Their defense overall has been elite too, holding opponents to 102.6 points per game and 44.5% shooting, both top-five defensive marks. Thanks to the Grizzlies’ stout D, the New Orleans-Memphis matchup carries the second-lowest over/under of the day.

Kevin Knox, PF, New York Knicks

FanDuel Price: $5,900

Kevin Knox has been logging heavy minutes for the New York Knicks, but still has not broken out in DFS.

Over his last 11 games, the Knicks rookie is averaging a hefty 37.6 minutes per night but has managed to collect just 27.1 FanDuel points per night for a dismal rate of 0.72 FanDuel points per minute. Over his last four games, Knox has hit a wall, putting up just 23.6 FanDuel points per night on 34.5% shooting from the floor. Rightly so, coach David Fizdale has talked about reducing the minutes workload for Knox, which in turn would limit his fantasy appeal. Facing a tough opponent (Portland Trail Blazers), coupled with the possible reduced court time makes Knox a non-starter for us in DFS on Monday.

Scoring will be hard to come by for the Knicks -- who own the second-lowest implied point total of the day (105.0) -- as the Blazers rank eighth in defensive rating (105.7) while limiting opponents to 44.5% shooting from the field over their last 10 games. Further limiting Knox’s fantasy appeal, is that opposing power forwards have scored below average (11th-fewest) FanDuel points per minute (0.94) against Portland this season.

Malcolm Brogdon, SG, Milwaukee Bucks

FanDuel Price: $5,900

Over the last 10 games, The Utah Jazz have been one of the best defenses in the NBA. During the stretch, they are allowing the third-fewest points (102.7), the fourth-lowest shooting percentage (44.2%), and the fewest assists per game (18.8). For fantasy purposes, they are the best in the league against shooting guards, allowing just 0.76 FanDuel points per minute. That all spells trouble for Malcolm Brogdon of the Milwaukee Bucks on Monday night.

Brogdon has not been at his best recently anyways, posting sub-25 FanDuel points in two of his last three games and four of his last seven. As the third, sometimes fourth scoring option on Milwaukee, the guard is not seeing enough touches to overcome the difficult matchup with Utah. He has two or fewer assists in three of his last five games while taking no more than 11 shots in four of those games as well. Brogdon has a sub-20% usage rate and a 15.7% assist rate since December 27. Add it all up and Brogdon is best left out of your lineups on Monday.

Dale Redman is not a FanDuel employee. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.