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Kemba Walker Injury Update Boosts Fantasy Outlook Against Lakers

By Max Staley

Kemba Walker handles the ball against the Milwaukee Bucks.
Kemba Walker handles the ball against the Milwaukee Bucks. / Stacy Revere/Getty Images
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Kemba Walker missed Saturday night's game against the Phoenix Suns due to left knee soreness, but it looks like he's good to go for Monday's clash with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Walker returns to a pretty unfavorable situation, however, as he's gone 0-28 against LeBron James across his nine-year NBA career. While that stat certainly doesn't bode well for the Boston Celtics tonight, Kemba should be in line for his usual workload, making him a nice fantasy option.

However, Kemba's return does hurt Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart's fantasy outlooks tonight. Without Kemba, Tatum has posted a 32.9 percent usage rate, the highest among all qualified Celtics. With Kemba, Tatum's usage drops to 24.0 percent.

Tatum's scoring numbers should dip a bit as well, as he averaged 25.8 points per game (PPG) per 36 minutes without Kemba, compared to 21.4 PPG with him on the floor.

Smart should see a similar decline. He averages 18.1 PPG per 36 minutes with Kemba off the floor, and 14.0 with him on. Smart is also coming off a game that saw him score 37 points, sinking 11 3-pointers, and it's hard to imagine him reaching those highs with Kemba back.

Interestingly, Jaylen Brown and Gordon Hayward's scoring numbers are pretty much the same regardless of whether or not Kemba is playing.

Feel free to fire up Kemba as you normally would, though Tatum and Smart should see a bit of a dip, at least in volume.

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Max Staley is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Max Staley also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username mstaley1212. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.