Create a Routine: Trust Your Process
As most of you know, I believe that creating a routine and trusting your process is such an important catalyst to being successful in NBA DFS. Today, I’m going to give you my DFS NBA research process on breaking down an NBA slate. 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. If you haven’t read the first part, then you can check that out here.
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Vegas Lines
This is the start of my day. Every day. Before I look at the news, matchups or anything else. 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 – they have the best lines from a lot of DFS pros around the industry. They aren’t swayed by the public quite as much and are one of the only online sites that accept bets up to $20k. This allows us to get a better read through the day on where the “sharp money” is. In Boomer’s Ballers, you will see a sheet that is similar to what I do for the NFL, where I update the Vegas lines through the day. These will be posted in the morning, and updated throughout the day according to what is on Pinnaclesports.com. One thing I try not to do with the NBA is predict blowouts- I pay more attention to the game total than the spread. I can’t tell you how many times Golden State players were lower-owned in tournaments and, because they were a part of a double-digit spread, and they were in winning lineups at the end of the night.
Initial Projections
The is something that took me a long time to get the hang of. When I first started NBA DFS, I was familiar with the guys on ESPN and that was it. Of course, I knew the OKC Thunder roster and would load up with Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and Serge Ibaka. But knowing who the SG for the Celtics was that night after Avery Bradley was ruled out? Not even possible at that time.
I used to think of NBA DFS as a way to kill time between MLB and NFL. I don’t do anything half-ass, though. Once I started reading and doing research on how to be successful in the NBA, I was hooked. My initial projections, though, are something that helped me start to construct better rosters. Before I look at anyone else’s projections, I built my own, which I have worked on with Mr. Sconnie to make them better and bring to the DFS Army. My first round wasn’t done with any science or math to back them up, just simple guesses based on my knowledge on what I thought was a realistic score for them that night based on the given matchup. Once I started getting the hang of the scoring on each site, this helped tremendously. I would go through every team and write down everyone I thought was going to be fantasy-worthy in a game.
Go over injury reports and possible news
In the NBA unlike any other sport, the teams are not required to give out any information. 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 Sources.” I also read over Rotoworld.com and look to see if there is anything that I have missed or anything we need to pay attention to. It’s extremely important that we keep up to date on this information due to the ever-changing landscape on a daily basis. Knowing and researching every possible scenario isn’t something the normal DFS player can do. Luckily for you, I have that ability, and it is reflected in our VIP Slack Chat for the DFS Army. There, you will get the news as soon as I know, and you will also be notified how to adjust to the situation so you can pivot fast. Understand, that this year with no “late swap” on DraftKings, there will be a handful of nights through the season where we get burned by one of our players sitting in the West Coast games. THIS HAPPENS TO EVERYONE AT SOME POINT! It’s the nature of the beast in the NBA, the only thing we can do is our best to make sure it happens as little as possible. Also, understand that there will be times that not only are you burned by the late inactive player, but times where you benefit from it as well.
Reserving 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 the projections I have made, I put in placeholder lineups for all my contests. Even more now than last year, since I now have a son, it’s important that I don’t just “randomly click” on players for these lineups. If an emergency suddenly happens to where we don’t can get to adjusting our lineups, we at least want to give ourselves the best shot to recoup some of our money that we have played that night. This takes usually about 20 minutes or so.
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Look over previous night’s results
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, his ownership is going to be vastly lower the next 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. For those of you that were around last season, you know I will keep going to good players if they are struggling. Why? We continued to buy the same talent, and the lower ownership. It paid off. Emotions are fickle, and people are generally don’t like to roster guys that have burned them. (I’m looking at you Greg!)
Between Steps 5 and 7, I write my article, go over my top plays and create a first draft of my Cheat Sheet.
Research, Research, Research
The NBA DFS research process is the most time-consuming part. I start reading. 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 podcasts 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 since my background is that of 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 have all of my rosters done about 15 minutes before lock that night; I feel like last minute tinkering can hurt you. 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 in the beginning of the season by just watching the games and not looking at the numbers. Although numbers help the story, they are just a piece of the puzzle we’re trying to solve daily.
One more thing. As we go through the night, you should generally try to seek out the bigger names in DFS throughout your contests. Look at their lineups and try to reverse engineer. Do this before the results of the games and tournaments are final. Why? Because then you aren’t focused as much on the results as you are the reasoning behind the play and the way they build their rosters. They aren’t the best in the game just because they got lucky; they are the best because they are good. Learn from them. But make sure you are looking at the right type of players. Don’t look towards a max entry player to try to learn unless you are looking to become better at that type of game style.
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Finding and Applying Value
If this is your first year in NBA DFS then understand that you are dealing with a different animal; players can rest at a moment’s notice. When players rest or get injured, we get players that are normal backups stepping into starting roles. One of the biggest things that we have to figure out is exactly how to apply this value when constructing our lineups. Sometimes, coaches will stick a guy into the starting lineup with the intention that they are only going to play a slight increase in minutes. The main reason they do this is because as athletes, they are creatures of habit and they don’t want to disrupt the chemistry of the second unit. In some cases, they don’t care and it’s the “next man up” philosophy. There are different scenarios that can happen but the main thing we want to know is HOW to handle them.
The first thing we must know is what kind of matchup the player has and how that will affect his play. This is where learning the strengths of players can come into play. I’m a firm believer in WATCHING the games and analyzing the numbers. I run projections based on projected minutes, but knowing how certain player’s matchup is vital. You will hear me preach about process, and that’s one of the first things I look at daily is the minutes that players will play. We won’t always be right with our adjustments, especially early on this season, but we learn and adapt and continue to apply the information we have.
Value is the glue to fitting your roster together. Applying that value that opens up so much, but that can be misread very easily though. I’m a GPP player at heart and when it comes to value, I believe that there are certain times when it pays to go after those overlooked value plays to fill your roster. Other times, the value is so obvious that the best way to look at it is using it as a block. The player is so cheap, and has the ability to not only get 5x, but 8x because of his new role, that it really doesn’t pay to fade that player. In the NBA, you don’t need to have all lower-owned players in order to push up to the top. I have seen plenty of winning rosters that have players over 40%. Where they end up winning is what the roster looks like with the remaining salary after the value. On nights when there is so much value we don’t know what to do, it sometimes is best to build a roster with ALL the value we can find first, then start looking at where we can upgrade. You hear me talk about building a roster from the ground up. Building and adjusting rosters through the day as we get more news can help get an understanding. One little tidbit that helps in tournaments is not always using all your salary. There is a running joke in the NBA DFS Army that if you don’t have at least $500 dollars left in your lineup you’re just not doing it right. While this is funny to think about, there are times, when the value plays are screaming at us, or so glaringly obvious, that spending all your salary will cap not only the upside in your lineup, but the upside you are able to achieve in tournaments that night.
Conclusion
Learning NBA DFS is not something that can happen overnight. I feel it is something to start out slow, and build upon. It takes time to learn team rotations, player skills and how your lineup should work together. Take it slow, and as we get deeper into the season, you will begin to know certain things before looking at them.
There are a ton of major differences between DFS in the NBA and NFL. Besides the obvious, the biggest is how incredibly difficult it is to project ownership percentages. In the NBA, we don’t get the opportunity to have an idea of where the “crowd” will go or what they are thinking before rosters are locked for the night. We can however, get a close idea of how much a player is going to be owned by listening to the “chatter”. By listening to podcasts, reading articles, and depending how the matchups are looking, we can use this to our advantage. As I’ve said before, the first thing I do is write down the spreads and the players in those games. The main reason I do this to make sure I look at things before being influenced. I have found that this not only helps me find value, but to also find lower ownership players, which is extremely important in tournaments.
There are certain situations where I don’t even look at ownership percentage or take it into consideration when building my lineups. In years, past, Russell Westbrook without Kevin Durant was never a question for me. Now, with Durant going to Golden State, Russell Westbrook will be an automatic at any price no matter what the matchup. I pay a lot of attention to what the chatter is saying about where the crowd may be leaning too. Typically, whenever you pay up for one of the elite players, human nature is to save at the other position. In this situation, I like to pay up for another elite player. My favorite move is always paying for Russell Westbrook and another higher end PG in tournaments. My reasoning behind this is because even though Westbrook might be one of the higher owned players of the night, I’m looking at the combined ownership percentage of PG in the tournament. Even if I get one at 34% and another at 26%, the odds of both being in the same lineup are considerably lower. This accomplishes two goals. One, I’m getting two very good players with at a lower combined ownership that typically have a higher usage rate, higher floor, and higher ceiling, and two, it forces me to have a different roster construction than most of the field in the tournament. This one move, no matter how small, gives me a huge advantage over the field and usually gives me two or three more positions with lower ownership. This is the kind of move, that if you hit on the rest of your positions, will allow you to move up the leader board a lot quicker than if you roster the same type of players that everyone is talking about and hoping you nail one or two lower ownership players by reaching or trying to get too cute.
We can accomplish this in a couple of different ways. The most common is by trying to pair a couple elite players together and hoping you hit on the right combo. The other is when there is a lot of value at a position, I like to pay up if possible. So keeping an eye out on what the value of the day is and not always falling into the crowd pool is a perfect way to achieve the different roster construction. When it comes to value in the NBA, the later the news comes out in the day, the higher that value play will be owned. Meaning, that’s who people are going to looking at the most. By writing down my value plays early, it allows me not to still get great value options at lower ownership than the new shiny toy. Does it mean that the value that was earlier in the day still isn’t a great option at saving money? No, but people forget about it since it’s not the last thing on their mind. Capitalizing off human nature is a great way to have success in NBA DFS.
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