Good Afternoon! There are a couple things that I would like to touch on before we get to the fantasy goodness for tonight. First, we are currently working on a Beginner’s Guide to NBA DFS for everyone that will be transitioning over from NFL. It will have a lot of great advice for those to refresh upon as well. Second. This should have been stated with my first article and I apologize for not letting it be known. NBA DFS is a different animal than NFL. You don’t have all week to prepare and analyze data, you have that day. NBA teams are also NOT required to release who is starting or active and inactive for that night’s game. They are also NOT required to release an “injury” report to let us know who might be sick or banged up. We rely on beat writers to get that information for us. One thing I pride myself on is doing the best I can to pass on any news that I come across that I believe is relevant. Make sure, before diving into this, that you understand, there will be nights where a game in Denver we hear nothing about until 2 minutes before their game tips off. Of course, on FanDuel, it’s too late. Roster’s have locked. Understand, this is the nature of the beast and the only thing we can do is do the best we can to prevent it when possible. I don’t say this to scare anyone, I say this to give you the real expectations that even myself, with the amount of volume that I play, still get bit from time to time by late breaking news or late scratches. It doesn’t make it any more or less painful me knowing that information. It does however give me an expectation that there will be nights like that where your night is over before it gets started.
Next. I release an NBA Cheat Sheet Monday through Friday. This will be in the day’s article. This is the EXACT same sheet I use. Keep in mind, late injury news can change a lot in the NBA and as soon as I know something I post it in the Slack Channel on who and how it effects players. I break it down into three colors. Green=Elite which are my favorite plays of the night. Orange (which used to be pink but my pink highlighter ran out) are my secondary plays. These are the next step down. These are the Core Players. The ones that are going to be mixed into my lineups. The last will be Yellow which is GPP ONLY plays. These are players that I feel have a wide range of outcomes. These are guys that could give you 7x or give you 1x. I do not go “All-In” on players because of the nature of the NBA and getting into early foul trouble, or being a late scratch. If I make 10 lineups for that night, an elite player might be in 6. A secondary player might be in 4.
I am working on a roster construction article that I’m planning to have out Monday.
Here are your NBA Projections for Friday
Below are the Optimal Lineups for both FanDuel and DraftKings for tonight. AGAIN, THESE ARE NOT DESIGNED FOR PLUG AND PLAY. These are example lineups and with the news from the NBA, things can change very quickly. These are designed to give you an idea of how I’m looking at roster construction for cash games.
Grab today’s NBA Cheat Sheet 12-4-2015
Tonights Cheat Sheet will be available shortly.