NBA

3 Daily Fantasy Basketball Players to Avoid on 2/1/16

Finding players you want to roster is a lot easier than finding players to avoid. Here are three players who 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 each night, 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 huge slate of NBA games on tonight, searching for these landmines could mean the difference from winning or losing your contests.

Emmanuel Mudiay, PG, Denver Nuggets

FanDuel Price: $5,200
DraftKings Price: $5,500

A general rule in DFS is that if a player is lower priced on FanDuel than he is on DraftKings, he’s a value. This stems from the roster and salary restrictions on the two sites. However, that rule may have to be thrown out tonight with Emmanuel Mudiay going up against the Raptors.

The Raptors are riding high with an 11-game winning streak, and the rookie has already been turnover prone this season with a Turnover Percentage of 21.3 percent. While Toronto ranks only 18th in the league at forcing turnovers at 13.7 per game, with Mudiay having to go up against Kyle Lowry tonight, the young lottery pick may struggle this evening.

In Mudiay’s first game this season against Lowry’s tough defense, he shot just 2-for-9 from the field for 5 points. While he did have nine assists in that game, he also turned the ball over three times to finish with fewer than 20 FanDuel points. On top of that, the Raptors rank third in the league in defending opposing point guards, and the Raptors' pace of 95.8 possessions per 48 minutes won’t do Mudiay any favors tonight either.

Even with Jameer Nelson back in the lineup over the last two games, Mudiay has still been pretty consistent, putting up 30 and 25 FanDuel points in his last two games. However, this could lead to his ownership percentage being higher than normal even though he does not have a great matchup tonight. Mudiay put up a dud against the league’s number-one point guard defense in the Celtics last Wednesday with 13 points and 5 turnovers, and with the Raptors giving up only 92 points per game in their last five games, it might be a night to avoid the Nuggets' point guard.

Tobias Harris, SF, Orlando Magic

FanDuel Price: $5,700
DraftKings Price: $6,100

Once again, another landmine seems like a good value in price, but looking deeper can lead you to find that Tobias Harris might also have blow-up potential. Just take a look at our heat map for tonight’s matchups and you’ll find that you’re asking for trouble rostering too many -- or possibly any -- Magic players tonight.

Recency could lead people to trust Harris tonight considering he has turned into a rather consistent middle tiered price option at small forward on most DFS sites. However, he has the toughest matchup any small forward could ask for in Kawhi Leonard, who has the Spurs as the number-one ranked defense against small forwards this season.

While looking for cash game options tonight, consistency is always key, and Harris has been having a lot of that recently. Outside of a dud in their first home and home game against the Celtics recently, Harris has put up at least 20 FanDuel points in his last 10 games. In those 10 games, he is averaging more than 27 FanDuel points per game. The "five times" value threshold that you look for is there in Harris’ box score results, but when you look at how he is coming off a back-to-back and going up against the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, it should make you think twice about rostering him in cash games.

Usually, back-to-backs don’t mean as much in the early part of the season, but now that the season has reached its halfway point, in his last two games off the back-to-back, Harris is averaging only 7.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 13.4 FanDuel points on no rest. For the season, it’s not much better: he has averaged fewer than 20 FanDuel points on games on the second night of a back-to-back.

Taj Gibson, PF, Chicago Bulls

FanDuel Price: $5,000
DraftKings Price: $5,600

The Chicago Bulls have been pretty difficult to figure out, but with Nikola Mirotic out until after the All-Star Break and with the injury to Joakim Noah as well, Taj Gibson went from trade bait to crucial starting power forward in a span of about two weeks. He has started to be a reliable DFS option when he gets the start, and in his last two games, Gibson has scored more than 56 FanDuel points and is still in the $5,000 range tonight.

A big reason for Gibson’s success over the last two games has been his rebounding. However, the Bulls played both Los Angeles teams over the weekend who rank 28th and 29th in rebounding differential. Now, Gibson has the Jazz, who rank ninth in rebounding differential right behind Chicago, and they did that while missing Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert for long and mostly separate stretches.

Utah is still ranked as the second toughest team against power forwards. With all five of the current Jazz starters healthy, Utah out-rebounds their opponents at both ends and averages 4.8 more steals per 100 possessions. If the rebounds aren’t there for Gibson tonight, his value will certainly suffer.