This week’s ‘Numbers Game’ breaks from tradition, discussing key resources for building Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) hoops teams. I’ll return next week with the conclusion of my team-lineup series.
Bear in mind that there is no ‘correct’ way to craft a DFS lineup. It depends upon the site you’re using, the type of competition you’ve entered (e.g. a tournament vs. a 50/50 league), your risk tolerance, and much more. There are, however, certain tools which can help no matter how you approach the DFS-building process.
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The most basic and important resource when building your DFS lineup is up-to-date information. The best sources for breaking news and updates are Twitter and Rotoworld’s player news blurbs. The next few paragraphs cover basic information geared toward new DFS players -- experienced players should feel free to skip ahead.
Injuries are the most glaring example of the need for timely updates. We’ve all held our breath while leaving a ‘probable’ player in our roster as the 7pm deadline passes on FanDuel, been burned by an unexpected late scratch, or rolled the dice on a ‘game-time decision’ in tournaments. The majority of the time, however, we know (or have a very good idea) in advance who will play and who won’t.
Deron Williams (hamstring) provided a case study on Monday. The oft-injured veteran went through shootaround and was ‘questionable’ to play, but in my ‘Bargain Bin’ column I went ahead and recommended both J.J. Barea and Chandler Parsons as DFS plays under the assumption that he’d be held out another game -- Dallas would be playing with fire by risking an aggravation, and D-Will clearly wasn’t 100 percent. Sure enough, D-Will stayed out and Barea got another start at PG.
Injuries are one of many factors affecting starting lineups, which can make or break a player’s night. Occasionally, coaches will make frustrating last-minute changes that leave fantasy owners dangling in the wind, but by and large we know ahead of time who will be starting. When Tim Duncan is announced as a DNP-CD on a five-game Thursday, David West suddenly becomes a viable punt-PF option. When Lavoy Allen starts in the Pacers’ big lineup, C.J. Miles loses some value as he shifts to a backup role.
Even when a team’s starting lineup remains the same, you must be keenly aware of shifting roles and playing time. For example, Meyers Leonard continues to come off Portland’s bench but his minutes have increased after a four-game lull in mid-December, during which he averaged a mere 17.3 minutes per game. He had settled into the mid-20s since then, but that number spiked to 30 minutes with Ed Davis out due to injury on Sunday. If Davis does return as a backup big man on Wednesday, Leonard’s DFS appeal takes a significant hit. Examples abound: is Markieff Morris in the rotation, or isn’t he? Even if Nikola Mirotic continues to start at SF, will he be perpetually threatened by Doug McDermott and Tony Snell? We routinely discuss these situations in Rotoworld’s blurbs, applying all relevant information to offer recommendations, so I highly recommend bookmarking this page.
Those are the most basic considerations -- who will play, how much will they play, etc. But to really succeed in the competitive world of DFS, you’ll need to dig deeper. Here are some key factors to consider when evaluating a player’s fantasy appeal on any given night.
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Matchups (on both team and individual level): Last night the Hawks took on the Rockets in Houston. I showed in a column earlier this year that Houston was easily the most lenient team vs. opposing PFs, which is still the case according to this excellent tool available on RotoGrinders. That information turned Paul Millsap from a solid option at PF into a near must-play, and sure enough he racked up 22 points, 13 rebounds, four assists, one steal and a career-high-tying five blocks. Even a great defense can be lenient at a given position, and vice versa -- ignore matchups at your own peril.
Recent Performance: Recent performance is not always a good indicator of future production. Coming into Tuesday’s game, LeBron James was averaging 18.8 points on 38.0% shooting in his previous four games, typically indicative of a ‘cold streak’. Then he met the Nuggets’ defense on Tuesday and dropped 34 points on 13-of-24 shooting, even though it was his fourth game in five days (again we see the primary importance of matchups). I’m more inclined to weight recent performance as it reflects a players’ role and minutes, or lack thereof. Rotoworld’s Season Pass has a terrific ‘Playing Time Report’ that tracks minutes on a week-by-week basis for every player. It’s an invaluable resource. Recent performance can also be gauged via a players’ usage rate: Enes Kanter has a usage rate of 24.0% in his past four games, up from 22.9% on the season, and his minutes are up from 20.6 to 23.6. With his typically excellent efficiency and per-minute production, that adds up to some ‘recent performance’ I can believe in.
Home/Away: Most players perform better at their home arena for a variety of reasons: they are spared the rigors of travel, sleep in their own bed, have the comfort of being around family and friends, practice at their own gym, and play the game on a familiar court with the crowd roaring in their favor. As one example, here are DeMarcus Cousins’ home/away splits this year:
Home: 28.5 points on 43.8% shooting, 1.8 threes, 10.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 0.8 steals and 1.2 blocks
Away: 19.6 points on 39.4% shooting, 0.5 threes, 10.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.7 steals and 1.6 blocks
There are plenty of exceptions to this rule, however, including reigning MVP Stephen Curry. He does a bit more facilitating in Oracle arena, but is taking and making more shots in hostile environments. Here are Curry’s home/away splits this season:
Home: 27.1 points, 4.0 threes, 5.5 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 2.3 steals
Away: 33.9 points, 5.3 threes, 5.9 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.1 steals
If you’re on the fence about a certain player, it never hurts to factor their home/away performance into your decision-making.
Days Rest: As with home/away splits, the amount of rest a player has had is often an important factor. Across the league, players are averaging 44.6% shooting while playing on zero or one day of rest. That increases when they get two days (45.4%), three days (44.9%) and four days (47.5%). Looking at individual players is the key, of course, so for instance we find the following for Al Horford:
Zero days rest: 15.2 points on 45.3% FGs, 7.0 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 0.3 steals, 1.0 blocks
One days rest: 16.0 points on 51.1% FGs, 7.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 0.9 steals, 1.5 blocks
Interestingly, many players are flipping the script and performing better offensively on zero days of rest rather than one day of rest. That includes DeMar DeRozan, Isaiah Thomas, James Harden, Blake Griffin, Damian Lillard, Brandon Knight, Michael Carter-Williams, Andrew Wiggins, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Nikola Vucevic. Lest you think it’s limited to young players, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki have all been substantially better offensively on zero days rest. Dirk is a good example:
Zero days rest (six games): 22.5 points on 53.3% FGs, 2.2 threes, 8.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists
One days rest (15 games): 15.0 points on 43.9% FGs, 1.2 threes, 6.1 rebounds, 1.8 assists
As with home/away, it’s a good idea to factor in a player’s performance relative to their ‘days of rest’ situation.
Weather: Unless we’re talking about a rare outdoors preseason game, this is only relevant if a storm threatens to postpone a game, as happened to the Knicks and Nets last January.
Vegas Spreads and Over/Under: I’ll take Tuesday’s game between the Bucks and Thunder as an example. Milwaukee visited OKC and the game was given a relatively high over/under of 205, which is the expected combined scoring total for both teams. More possessions and scoring means more opportunities for fantasy value, so the over/under is always good thing to keep in mind. This particular game also had a large spread, at -13.5 for OKC, which means the Thunder were favored by 13.5 points. That was by far the largest spread of the night, making the Bucks vs. Thunder game the most prone to a blowout -- and a blowout means fewer minutes for starters and other key players who are most likely to be on your DFS team. (In the end, the Thunder only won by eight so no starters suffered due to a blowout, and they soared past the over/under with a combined total of 254 points.)
In general, a high over/under is universally positive for DFS, and a high spread is bad for starters but can be good for reserves (who may soak up minutes in garbage time). Yahoo! provides daily Vegas lines here.
Positional scarcity/abundance: The scarcity or abundance of value-added options at each position changes on a nightly basis, so it’ll take some digging to decide how to build you lineups. If the DFS league you’re playing in requires two PFs, and that position drops off quickly with no clear-cut bargains and only a handful of elite options, you may need to pay up to ensure value at PF. On such a night, it might be wise to instead seek promising bargains at (for instance) PG while passing up the elite John Wall-Russell Westbrook combo which looks so tempting.
Fantasy Points per Minute: This is one of my new favorites. If you determine that a player’s minutes will increase on a given night, for whatever reason, you’ll be more inclined to deploy them. But certain players are borderline useless no matter how many minutes they’re getting -- P.J. Tucker, for instance, is averaging just 18.0 DFS points per 30 minutes played. On the other hand, we find that Bobby Portis is averaging 30.0 DFS points per 30 minutes (free him and all that). It would be somewhat laborious to figure that out on your own, at least when you move beyond a handful of players, but fortunately StatMuse spits out the answer with a simple query. It’s a great way to evaluate just how high a player’s upside is when more minutes land in their lap.
I haven’t discussed every relevant factor that can help project a player’s performance, but as you can see there are a ton of variables in play. The ideal way to tackle all of this information is to create a sophisticated spreadsheet to crunch the numbers for you, but that’s not feasible for the vast majority of DFS players. A good approach, then, is to start with a rough list of guys you think ‘should’ do well for basic reasons (starting for an injured teammate, seeing increased minutes/usage, facing a weak defense, etc.). Then factor in the opinions from in a variety of DFS columns, including those found in Rotoworld’s Daily Fantasy section, and run your preferred options through some or all of the performance-predicting filters listed above. There’s always an element of randomness involved, but a consistent and studied approach should pay off in the long run. Good luck!
