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

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

Carmelo Anthony, SF, New York Knicks

FanDuel Price: $8,900

The Knicks are the next team up to try and slow down the red hot Blazers, and if the Knicks want to stay in this game, Carmelo Anthony is going to have to have a big game. However, as we have talked about before, Al-Farouq Aminu has been very good on the defensive end at small forward this season, and he matches up well with Anthony in this one. Aminu has the Blazers ranked fifth against small forwards this season, giving up only 0.7 FanDuel points per minutes to the position this season.

On top of that, Anthony is in the midst of a deep shooting slump, and if it carries over into tonight, it may be wise to steer clear of Anthony until his shot starts to fall again. Anthony shot only 38 percent in the month of February, and over his last three games, he is shooting just under 32 percent from the floor. If Anthony’s shots aren’t falling again tonight, he is landmine waiting to happen.

Aminu got burned by Anthony in the Blazers’ and Knicks’ first meeting earlier this season, but on the season, Aminu is holding his opponents to only 43.8 percent from the floor and 32 percent from three-point range. For his price of just under $9,000, Anthony would need to exceed the 40 FanDuel point mark to get anywhere close to value, and his recent slump and matchup are making me look elsewhere for small forwards tonight.

Paul Millsap, PF, Atlanta Hawks

FanDuel Price: $7,700

Paul Millsap was one of the best cash game options on any slate earlier in the season, but as we reach the stretch run of this regular season, Millsap has seen his production slide some. Since the start of the season, Millsap has seen his points per game averages go down with every passing month, and after shooting close to 50 percent from the floor for the first three months of the season, Millsap shot barely above the 40 percent mark in February, and his free throw shooting plummeted to only 64 percent.

Now he has to match up with the runner-up to the Defensive Player of the Year Award in Draymond Green, which did not go well last week when these two teams met for the first time. Millsap was held to only 4-of-13 shooting in that game for only 21.9 FanDuel points, and while his price is fair tonight, the matchup won’t do Millsap any favors.

In his five games against Green since joining the Hawks, Millsap is averaging fewer than 30 FanDuel points and nearly 4 turnovers per game. Combine that with his shooting slump and the fact that the Warriors are only giving up about 0.9 FanDuel points per minute to the position, and Millsap might fall under the 30-point mark again tonight.

Wesley Matthews, SG, Dallas Mavericks

FanDuel Price: $4,300

Wesley Matthews has had a tough time coming back from his Achilles surgery from last season, and while the Mavs have played pretty well regardless, Matthews has actually started to turn things on recently. Matthews has scored at least 22 FanDuel points in his last four straight games, but tonight against the Magic might be the game where Matthews turns into a landmine after several straight games of meetings or exceeding value. 

Orlando ranks as the fifth best team in the league at defending shooting guards, and if you look at Matthews’ game log, his most recent game where he failed to reach value was against these same Magic, where he had only five points and three rebounds in 37 minutes. Victor Oladipo has become one of the more underrated defenders in the league this season, holding his opponents to less than 43 percent from the floor, and he has the Magic giving up only 0.7 FanDuel points per minute against shooting guards.

Part of spotting landmines is looking at recent games and comparing them to the matchup that a certain player has that night. For Matthews, his last three games have come against teams that rank in the bottom third of the league at defending shooting guards, and now that he has a tougher matchup this evening, it might be time to jump off the Matthews value train before it blows up in our faces.