Lots of landmines to dodge last night. I hope you made it past them all. I saw some good scores, but there’s no way we all made it. Casualties are a part of the variance and numbers game we are playing, so we simply overwhelm those numbers with volume, experience, and time. Keep plugging and we will eventually conquer this beach-head of DFS NBA we enjoy.
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” -Benjamin Franklin
I will attach the weekly Bankroll Challenge results at the end for those that read that far. Also, there will be information on joining the VIP Insider content group towards the end. VIP Insiders receive a private Slack Channel, access to Keith Hall (noted DFS NBA pro), player picks, strategy articles, and cheatsheets with cash optimized LUs for the day’s slate. Let’s get on with the 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.
8 games today. I’m not concerned with the early game. We won’t have news on anything in the Main Slate before the FanDuel LUs lock up for the early game. I believe waiting for the information to break means much more than trying to capture a matchup between MIA and BOS. I’m fading the Early Slate entirely.
| Road Team | Home Team | Favorite | Spread | Total | Tip-Off | |
| Miami Heat (32-25) | at | Boston Celtics (34-25) | BOS | -6 | 211 | 3:00 PM |
| Minnesota Timberwolves (18-40) | at | New Orleans Pelicans (23-34) | NO | -4 | 217 | 7:00 PM |
| Portland Trail Blazers (30-28) | at | Chicago Bulls (30-26) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 8:00 PM |
| San Antonio Spurs (49-9) | at | Houston Rockets (29-29) | SA | -5.5 | 213 | 8:00 PM |
| Golden State Warriors (52-5) | at | Oklahoma City Thunder (41-17) | GS | -3 | 234 | 8:30 PM |
| Detroit Pistons (29-29) | at | Milwaukee Bucks (24-34) | MIL | -2 | 203 | 8:30 PM |
| Brooklyn Nets (16-42) | at | Utah Jazz (28-29) | UTA | -11 | 195 | 9:30 PM |
| Memphis Grizzlies (33-23) | at | Phoenix Suns (14-44) | MEM | -6.5 | 208 | 9:30 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 +/- |
| Portland Trail Blazers | CHI | TBD | 103.5 | TBD |
| Chicago Bulls | POR | TBD | 101.9 | TBD |
| Memphis Grizzlies | PHO | 107.3 | 98.6 | 8.7 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | MIN | 110.5 | 102.7 | 7.8 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | GS | 115.5 | 109.8 | 5.7 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | NO | 106.5 | 100.9 | 5.6 |
| Miami Heat | BOS | 102.5 | 97.1 | 5.4 |
| Utah Jazz | BKN | 103 | 98.1 | 4.9 |
| San Antonio Spurs | HOU | 109.3 | 105.1 | 4.2 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | DET | 102.5 | 98.7 | 3.8 |
| Golden State Warriors | OKC | 118.5 | 115.3 | 3.2 |
| Boston Celtics | MIA | 108.5 | 106.2 | 2.3 |
| Phoenix Suns | MEM | 100.8 | 100.5 | 0.3 |
| Brooklyn Nets | UTA | 92 | 97 | -5 |
| Houston Rockets | SA | 103.8 | 105.6 | -1.8 |
| Detroit Pistons | MIL | 100.5 | 101.6 | -1.1 |
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 | GS | 99.2 | 103.5 | 4.3 |
| Miami Heat | BOS | 95.2 | 98.6 | 3.4 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | PHO | 95.3 | 97.7 | 2.4 |
| San Antonio Spurs | HOU | 96.5 | 98.2 | 1.7 |
| Golden State Warriors | OKC | 102.3 | 103.5 | 1.2 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | CHI | 97.6 | 98.3 | 0.7 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | NO | 97 | 97.5 | 0.5 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | DET | 96.5 | 96.4 | -0.1 |
| Chicago Bulls | POR | 98.7 | 98.3 | -0.4 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | MIN | 98.5 | 97.5 | -1 |
| Utah Jazz | BKN | 93.2 | 91.9 | -1.3 |
| Houston Rockets | SA | 99.7 | 98.2 | -1.5 |
| Detroit Pistons | MIL | 97.9 | 96.4 | -1.5 |
| Phoenix Suns | MEM | 100.4 | 97.7 | -2.7 |
| Boston Celtics | MIA | 101.4 | 98.6 | -2.8 |
| Brooklyn Nets | UTA | 96.7 | 91.9 | -4.8 |
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 MEM SF is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Houston Rockets | San Antonio | 27 | 15 | 21 | 28 | 30 | 17 |
| Phoenix Suns | Memphis | 26 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 14 | 7 |
| Chicago Bulls | Portland | 25 | 28 | 14 | 24 | 18 | 23 |
| Brooklyn Nets | Utah | 23 | 27 | 19 | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | Detroit | 22 | 6 | 26 | 25 | 23 | 9 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | Minnesota | 21 | 17 | 25 | 13 | 15 | 29 |
| Golden State Warriors | Oklahoma City | 16 | 25 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 27 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | New Orleans | 14 | 23 | 17 | 16 | 7 | 8 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | Chicago | 13 | 16 | 20 | 6 | 20 | 20 |
| Boston Celtics | Miami | 12 | 1 | 8 | 19 | 26 | 26 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | Golden State | 9 | 20 | 23 | 8 | 8 | 5 |
| Detroit Pistons | Milwaukee | 8 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 16 | 10 |
| Memphis Grizzlies | Phoenix | 6 | 9 | 5 | 14 | 11 | 1 |
| Miami Heat | Boston | 4 | 2 | 3 | 17 | 3 | 6 |
| Utah Jazz | Brooklyn | 2 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| San Antonio Spurs | Houston | 1 | 5 | 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. 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 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Cleveland | ||||
| Dallas | ||||
| Denver | ||||
| Detroit | ||||
| Golden State | Yes | Yes | ||
| Houston | Yes | |||
| Indiana | ||||
| L.A. Clippers | ||||
| L.A. Lakers | ||||
| Memphis | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Miami | ||||
| Milwaukee | Yes | |||
| Minnesota | ||||
| New Orleans | Yes | |||
| New York | ||||
| Oklahoma City | Yes | Yes | ||
| Orlando | Yes | |||
| Philadelphia | ||||
| Phoenix | Yes | |||
| Portland | Yes | |||
| Sacramento | ||||
| San Antonio | Yes | Yes | ||
| Toronto | ||||
| Utah | Yes | |||
| Washington |
If you made it this far, you might want to see/learn more. For information on joining the VIP Insiders, click HERE! You will gain access to:
- Private Slack channel exclusively for VIP Insiders, where you find DFS NBA pro Keith Hall actively answering questions and offering strategy advice.
- Daily player picks on slates with 5 or more games, only excluding Sundays.
- Daily cheatsheets for both FanDuel and DraftKings to help build your lineups.
- 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…..
| 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 |
I will explain the jump in money/volume played this week in another post at some point. I am testing a different cash game strategy that comes back closer to my Ladder Strategy. This new concept allows you to safely put more money in play each night without adding a lot of risk towards losing everything. If you have very little experience, I would suggest staying very small in your volume. Most people make the mistake of thinking their growth curve is farther ahead than it really is and their judgment becomes clouded by action and excitement. Discipline, above all else, is your key to success and your reason for failure. It took me 2/3 of the NBA season to finally open up my volume a bit. Call me a chicken, but I don’t redeposit……ever. Nor should you.
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.)
