I have a good friend that turns 12 today. She can drive. She can drink (ha….we did just this weekend). Heck, she has kids older than her. On her license, though, I’m sure the gov’t made a mistake and gave her the wrong birthday. This created a bit of a conundrum she gets to deal with because her true birthday only comes but once every four years. No, you can’t have your birthday on the Olympics. That’s not a day. I’m obviously talking about Leap Day. Simple math tells me my friend is……………..29 again. Yeh, like I was going there with a woman. Leap Day is a pretty special day to most of us. Let’s hope the DFS Gods treat us just as special on tonight’s 7-game slate.
Yesterday was full of rest days and key pivots finding the money. Hopefully, you found the money yourself. Personally, I wasn’t around much this weekend. I wasn’t able to pay attention as closely as I usually can. So, I pulled the discipline card from my wallet and slapped that sucker down on the table by refusing to put any money on the Saturday or Sunday slates. Playing when you are subpar, too busy, or just not able to be around when players lock is just as big a key to winning as picking the right players. I will utter the mantra a lot that discipline, or lack thereof, is one of the biggest keys to maintaining your bankroll and kicking off some profit in DFS. Alright…….let’s tackle the slate with your Morning Briefing.
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 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.
VEGAS LINES – It honestly all starts here. 200 is the standard for a game in which we can expect fantasy goodness to appear. But, a lot more factors come into play, too. We don’t try to predict blowouts, but red spreads indicate the possibility. I will also add the NBA is changing. Last season, there may have been one game total over 230. This season, we have already seen 4 or more. 190 totals are becoming more uncommon than common. We may revisit the magical 200 someday and call it 215. Either way, I am targeting the highest few games on any slate, regardless of the totals. I use this graphic as a guide.
| Road Team | Home Team | Favorite | Spread | Total | Tip-Off | |
| Indiana Pacers (31-27) | at | Cleveland Cavaliers (41-16) | CLE | -8 | 208 | 7:00 PM |
| Philadelphia 76ers (8-50) | at | Washington Wizards (27-30) | WAS | -11.5 | 214 | 7:00 PM |
| Utah Jazz (28-30) | at | Boston Celtics (35-25) | BOS | -5.5 | 202.5 | 7:30 PM |
| Houston Rockets (29-30) | at | Milwaukee Bucks (24-35) | HOU | -1.5 | 212.5 | 8:00 PM |
| Memphis Grizzlies (34-24) | at | Denver Nuggets (23-36) | MEM | -2.5 | 207 | 9:00 PM |
| Oklahoma City Thunder (41-18) | at | Sacramento Kings (24-33) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 10:00 PM |
| Brooklyn Nets (17-42) | at | Los Angeles Clippers (38-20) | LAC | -13 | 208.5 | 10:30 PM |
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 under-perform.
| Team Offense | Opponent | Team Total | PPG | Total +/- |
| Sacramento Kings | OKC | TBD | 107.1 | TBD |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | SAC | TBD | 110 | TBD |
| Milwaukee Bucks | HOU | 105.5 | 98.6 | 6.9 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | BKN | 110.8 | 105 | 5.8 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | DEN | 104.8 | 99 | 5.8 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | WAS | 101.3 | 95.8 | 5.5 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | IND | 108 | 103 | 5 |
| Washington Wizards | PHI | 112.8 | 102.6 | 10.2 |
| Houston Rockets | MIL | 107 | 105.4 | 1.6 |
| Denver Nuggets | MEM | 102.3 | 100.8 | 1.5 |
| Brooklyn Nets | LAC | 97.8 | 97 | 0.8 |
| Utah Jazz | BOS | 98.5 | 98.1 | 0.4 |
| Indiana Pacers | CLE | 100 | 102.4 | -2.4 |
| Boston Celtics | UTA | 104 | 106.1 | -2.1 |
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 +/- |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | SAC | 99.3 | 103.7 | 4.4 |
| Utah Jazz | BOS | 93.3 | 96.8 | 3.5 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | WAS | 100 | 102.2 | 2.2 |
| Washington Wizards | PHI | 100.2 | 102.2 | 2 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | HOU | 96.6 | 98.3 | 1.7 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | IND | 95.1 | 96.7 | 1.6 |
| Sacramento Kings | OKC | 102.4 | 103.7 | 1.3 |
| Brooklyn Nets | LAC | 97 | 97.4 | 0.4 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | DEN | 95.4 | 95.6 | 0.2 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | BKN | 98.4 | 97.4 | -1 |
| Houston Rockets | MIL | 99.7 | 98.3 | -1.4 |
| Denver Nuggets | MEM | 98.2 | 95.6 | -2.6 |
| Indiana Pacers | CLE | 99.6 | 96.7 | -2.9 |
| Boston Celtics | UTA | 101.5 | 96.8 | -4.7 |
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, and we are looking to roster a player from the OPPONENT’s team in the 2nd column. Example, the OKC SG is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Sacramento Kings | Oklahoma City | 29 | 25 | 30 | 22 | 29 | 20 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | Washington | 28 | 23 | 16 | 28 | 28 | 30 |
| Houston Rockets | Milwaukee | 27 | 14 | 22 | 29 | 30 | 17 |
| Denver Nuggets | Memphis | 24 | 23 | 27 | 16 | 25 | 21 |
| Brooklyn Nets | L.A. Clippers | 23 | 26 | 19 | 21 | 20 | 23 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | Houston | 22 | 8 | 26 | 25 | 23 | 12 |
| Washington Wizards | Philadelphia | 18 | 15 | 24 | 26 | 10 | 14 |
| Boston Celtics | Utah | 12 | 1 | 8 | 19 | 26 | 27 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | Sacramento | 10 | 21 | 23 | 8 | 9 | 4 |
| Indiana Pacers | Cleveland | 9 | 9 | 17 | 4 | 12 | 15 |
| Los Angeles Clippers | Brooklyn | 7 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 19 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | Denver | 6 | 9 | 5 | 14 | 11 | 2 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | Indiana | 3 | 19 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| Utah Jazz | Boston | 2 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
Wanna see how this thing works and piss Keith off at the same time? Well, it won’t piss him off. He knows. Look at the OKC/SAC matchup. It looks like the OKC back court can be attacked. Now, look at the BOS/UTA game. We know the BOS front court can be attacked. This is a starting point for your research. You still need to double-check these matchups and see if they are quantifiably as good as they look at first. What you may find is that OKC made a trade at the deadline and attempted to shore up that leak at SG. Did it work yet? Your research needs to find out before you blindly go rostering a player like Ben McLemore from SAC. See where I’m going with this page now?…
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. Maybe hard to see the colors, but yellow is caution, orange is a little more caution, and red is just crazy.
| Team | B2B | 2of3 | 3of4 | 4of5 |
| Atlanta | ||||
| Boston | Yes | |||
| Brooklyn | Yes | |||
| Charlotte | ||||
| Chicago | ||||
| Cleveland | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Dallas | ||||
| Denver | ||||
| Detroit | Yes | |||
| Golden State | ||||
| Houston | Yes | |||
| Indiana | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| L.A. Clippers | ||||
| L.A. Lakers | ||||
| Memphis | Yes | Yes | ||
| Miami | Yes | |||
| Milwaukee | Yes | |||
| Minnesota | Yes | |||
| New Orleans | ||||
| New York | ||||
| Oklahoma City | Yes | |||
| Orlando | ||||
| Philadelphia | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Phoenix | ||||
| Portland | Yes | |||
| Sacramento | ||||
| San Antonio | ||||
| Toronto | ||||
| Utah | Yes | |||
| Washington | Yes | Yes | Yes |
CLE, IND, MEM, PHI, and WAS are all on a 2 game in 3 night stretch, including coming off back-to-back nights. To me, that bears a little watching, especially if on the road. That’s all this graphic is pointing out to you. It’s not saying “don’t roster player X.” It’s saying “tread lightly.”
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- Early access to any and all semi-private freerolls on FanDuel or DraftKings offered to the DFS Army.
Bankroll Challenge results for week of Feb 22, 2016…..
I didn’t play last night, so there are no updates to the challenge to be made.
| Date | Score | Money IN | Money Out | Profit/Loss | Adjusted Bankroll |
| Mon – 22 | 316.6 | 5 | 9.5 | 4.5 | 66.3 |
| Tues – 23 | 278.8 | 14 | 17.3 | 3.3 | 69.6 |
| Wed – 24 | 286.3 | 16 | 14 | -2 | 67.6 |
| Thurs – 25 | 328 | 12 | 37.1 | 25.1 | 92.7 |
| Fri – 26 | 298.6 | 10 | 17.9 | 7.9 | 100.6 |
This Morning Briefing article, again, 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……now with Sample Cash LUs! (Remembering, of course, cheatsheets come out on slates 5 games and larger.)
