OMG the break is finally over!! Good Lord that was a long wait. Thanks a lot, Mr. Commissioner. At one point, I almost put money on hockey and golf. (Honestly, those are two of my favorite sports to watch. I just don’t know the game well enough to put money on them.) Well, since we are back let’s dig into the smaller than small slate as a form or warm up for tomorrow night’s full throttle slate.
Fall in, soldiers!! This process isn’t intended to take long. It’s a skim, if you will. You are starting your research by quickly glancing over the day’s slate and gathering your early intel. Our goal is to give you a head start on today’s action. Keith and I will be back later with our picks and analysis for the slate for our VIP Insiders, as well as provide answers to questions as much as possible in the VIP Slack channels.
Daily Fantasy Players are priced by many factors. Some of the key factors are the teams’ seasonal averages in points scored and the pace at which they play. We can assume if a team is expected to score more points than they usually do, players from that team are in a better than usual spot to succeed. We can also assume if a team is expected to play at a faster pace than usual, their players are in a better than usual spot to succeed. Let’s take a quick look and see if there aren’t any of these spots on today’s slate.
POINTED UP! – The teams with green numbers for +/- PPG (Points Per Game) are expected to outperform their seasonal scoring averages per Vegas. Teams with red are expected to underperform.
| Team Offense | Opponent | Team Total | PPG | Total +/- |
| Utah Jazz | WAS | TBD | 97.8 | TBD |
| Washington Wizards | UTA | TBD | 102.7 | TBD |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | CHI | 109.8 | 102.9 | 6.8 |
| San Antonio Spurs | LAC | 105.3 | 105 | 0.3 |
| Chicago Bulls | CLE | 97.8 | 101.2 | -3.5 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | SA | 102.3 | 104.7 | -2.5 |
PACED UP! – Similar to being pointed up, the teams in green should be playing faster than normal while the teams in red should be playing slower. More possessions might mean more opportunity to score points.
| Team Offense | Opponent | Pace | Proj. Pace | Pace +/- |
| Utah Jazz | WAS | 92.9 | 95.2 | 2.3 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | CHI | 95.2 | 95.9 | 0.7 |
| San Antonio Spurs | LAC | 96.3 | 96.6 | 0.3 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | SA | 98.2 | 96.6 | -1.6 |
| Chicago Bulls | CLE | 98.6 | 95.9 | -2.7 |
| Washington Wizards | UTA | 100.2 | 95.2 | -5 |
We all know to target good matchups. We can often identify a good matchup based on a team going up against another team known for poor defense. We can further look into specific positions for an even better potential matchup against a specific player.
TOTAL FANTASY POINTS ALLOWED & DvP RANKINGS – This graphic provides a quick glance at how strong or weak a defensive team plays overall, as well as against a specific position. We are looking for green numbers and trying to avoid red numbers.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Chicago Bulls | Cleveland | 26 | 28 | 17 | 24 | 16 | 27 |
| Washington Wizards | Utah | 20 | 17 | 26 | 28 | 10 | 11 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | San Antonio | 7 | 4 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 22 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | Chicago | 3 | 15 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| Utah Jazz | Washington | 2 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| San Antonio Spurs | L.A. Clippers | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 4 |
Another easy thing to watch is exhaustion control. Many coaches will rest players on the 2nd half of consecutive games. Basketball can take it’s toll and coaches need to keep their players fresh when they can. Players playing back to back games become prime targets for rest or limited minutes, obviously hurting their fantasy production and value to us. We further watch for situations like 3 games in 4 nights or the dreaded 4 games in 5 nights. We also watch traveling teams with particular interest.
BACK 2 BACKS! – Graphic containing teams we should watch for limited minutes and/or rest days.
| Team | B2B | 2of3 | 3of4 | 4of5 |
| ATL | ||||
| BOS | ||||
| BKN | ||||
| CHA | ||||
| CHI | ||||
| CLE | ||||
| DAL | ||||
| DEN | ||||
| DET | ||||
| GSW | ||||
| HOU | ||||
| IND | ||||
| LAC | ||||
| LAL | ||||
| MEM | ||||
| MIA | ||||
| MIL | ||||
| MIN | ||||
| NOP | ||||
| NY | ||||
| OKC | ||||
| ORL | ||||
| PHI | ||||
| PHX | ||||
| POR | ||||
| SAC | ||||
| SAS | ||||
| TOR | ||||
| UTA | ||||
| WAS |
I have an Ouchie! – Going forward, we plan to highlight any key injury watches in this spot here.
| Player | Team | Status |
| n/a | ||
| n/a | ||
| n/a |
Coming off the break, there’s no real significant injury concerns. However, these will change day to day.
Again, this is not the end-all be-all when it comes to analyzing a slate. This is a first glance to identify targets we may want to dive deeper into. You may, in fact, choose a player in a poor DvP matchup due to other indicators, especially on a short slate night. Don’t overthink this stuff. The concept is to put your players in the best spots to be successful and roll them out. Keith and I will be back later to provide the VIP Insiders with more in-depth player analysis and specific picks for tonight. And, of course, the cheatsheets! (Remembering, of course, cheatsheets come out on slates 5 games and larger.)
Dismissed.
