Greetings! As most of you know, one of the things I preach is creating a routine and trusting your process. Today, I’m going to basically give you my process on breaking down an NBA Slate. Minus of course, the writing of the article. For my DFS NBA advice, I’m going to try to KISS it for everyone and not get into too many confusing parts since I know that some of our NFL people are trying out NBA for the first time.
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- Vegas Lines
- This is the start of my day. Every day. Before I look at news, or matchups or anything. The first thing I do is write down the Vegas Lines. You can find these at a lot of different places, but I like to use Pinnaclesports.com. I have found that they have the most accurate lines and are used by a lot of DFS Pros around the industry. They aren’t swayed by larger bets that come in that could change the line to get more action on the other side.
- Initial Projections
- This is something that took me a long time to get the hang of. When I first started NBA DFS, I knew the guys we would see on ESPN and that was about it. Of course, I knew the OKC Thunder roster and would load up with Westbrook, KD, Ibaka. Knowing who was going to be the SG tonight for the Celtics since Avery Bradley was out was not even possible back then. I approached NBA DFS as a time filler between MLB and NFL. I don’t do anything half-ass though, so once I started reading and doing research on how to be successful in the NBA, I was hooked. My initial projections are something that helped me start to construct better rosters. Before I look at anyone else’s projections, I built my own. I’m not saying that I did this with any science or math backed up, but once I started to get the hang of the scoring, it helped tremendously. I would go through every team, and write down everyone I thought was to be fantasy worthy in a game. Next, I would write down the number I thought was pretty attainable for that player given the nights matchup. Not what they I could get, but something that they would get.
- Go over injury reports and possible news.
- In the NBA, unlike any other sport, the teams are not required to give out any information regarding starting lineups or who is resting, in a timely fashion….that relies strictly on the beat writers. So as DFS Players, we must rely on other sources. I have touched on this before, but if you follow me on twitter @boomersdfsdaddy and subscribe to my lists, I have one labeled NBA Beat Writers. I also read over rotoworld.com and look to see if there is anything that I have missed.
- Reserving my contests.
- This is probably one of the hardest things to stay consistent on a daily basis. Due to the nature of the DFS Industry, and my confidence that I have in my ability, even at this stage in my career I want to sway from proper bankroll management. Using my projections I have made, I put in placeholder lineups in all of my contests. This takes usually about 20 minutes or so.
- Looking over previous nights results.
- I look over the previous night. I watch the games as much as possible. If someone struggled the previous night, I try to find out why. Was it the matchup, or was their shot just not falling? Being mostly a tournament player, recency bias is HUGE. If a player was perceived as the “Chalk” the night before and struggled, I bet his ownership is going to be vastly lower that night. One of the hardest things to do as a newer player in DFS, especially learning to deal with a day-to-day sport like the NBA, was to not worry about the results as much. I have kept going back to Paul George after he was struggling and he kept burning us, and his price kept dropping. So what did we do? We continued to buy the same talent and the lower ownership. It paid off. Emotions are fickle, and people generally don’t like to roster guys that have burned them.
- Between Step 5 and Step 7, I write my article, go over my top plays, and create the first draft of my Cheat Sheet.
- Reseach, Research, Research.
- This is where the most time-consuming part comes into play. I start reading and taking notes. I have a list of credible sources that I go through and I read all of their material. I am also listening to various industry pod-casts through the day as well. This helps me get an idea of who everyone is looking towards for the night. For cash games, I don’t worry about ownership percentage, but being my background is a tournament player, I need to know who the chalk might be and move in the directions that could put me in position to place high in them.
- Roster Building
- My goal is to always have all of my rosters done about 15 minutes before lock that night. The reason is that I feel last-minute tinkering can hurt you. So unless there is last minute breaking news, I try to have them done at this time and only watching twitter to make sure I don’t miss anything.
- Sit back and enjoy the sweat!
- I give myself a couple nights a week where I can sit and enjoy the games. Typically it’s Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I try to watch as much as possible and notice things. You can learn a lot quicker about players and how they fit within the teams by just watching the games and not looking at the numbers. Although numbers help tell the story, they don’t tell the whole story.
One more thing. As we go through the night, you should generally try to seek out the bigger names in DFS in your contests. Look at their lineups and try to reverse engineer. They aren’t the best in the game just because they got lucky. They are the best because they are good. Learn from them.
Here are your updated NBA Projections / NBA Cheat Sheet
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