Not much to say here, as I didn’t follow the slate yesterday. Simply no time to put into research, and sometimes the best thing is to simply avoid chucking an unresearched LU up like a ZBo 3-pointer. So, on with Sunday’s 7-game slate. I haven’t looked at how the slate breaks down with early, mid, and late afternoon starts. I will cover them all and just let you decide….
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.
**Being a Sunday, I don’t believe we will see a player pick or cheatsheet write-up today. This is the one day off Keith and I take routinely. Lots of family time and honey-do’s.**
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 | |
| Cleveland Cavaliers (41-15) | at | Washington Wizards (26-30) | CLE | -5 | 211 | 1:00 PM |
| Charlotte Hornets (29-27) | at | Atlanta Hawks (31-27) | ATL | -3.5 | 202 | 3:30 PM |
| Portland Trail Blazers (30-28) | at | Indiana Pacers (31-26) | IND | -4.5 | 211.5 | 6:00 PM |
| Toronto Raptors (38-18) | at | Detroit Pistons (29-29) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 6:00 PM |
| Philadelphia 76ers (8-49) | at | Orlando Magic (25-31) | ORL | -10.5 | 211 | 6:00 PM |
| Minnesota Timberwolves (18-40) | at | Dallas Mavericks (30-28) | DAL | -6.5 | 214 | 7:00 PM |
| Miami Heat (32-25) | at | New York Knicks (24-35) | NY | -2.5 | 205 | 7:30 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 +/- |
| Toronto Raptors | DET | TBD | 102.4 | TBD |
| Detroit Pistons | TOR | TBD | 101.6 | TBD |
| Dallas Mavericks | MIN | 110.3 | 101.4 | 8.8 |
| Indiana Pacers | POR | 108 | 102.5 | 5.5 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | WAS | 108 | 103.1 | 4.9 |
| New York Knicks | MIA | 103.8 | 99.2 | 4.6 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | ORL | 100.3 | 95.9 | 4.3 |
| Miami Heat | NY | 101.3 | 97.1 | 4.2 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | DAL | 103.8 | 100.9 | 2.8 |
| Orlando Magic | PHI | 110.8 | 100.4 | 10.4 |
| Washington Wizards | CLE | 103 | 102.6 | 0.4 |
| Atlanta Hawks | CHA | 102.8 | 102.5 | 0.3 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | IND | 103.5 | 103.5 | 0 |
| Charlotte Hornets | ATL | 99.3 | 102 | -2.8 |
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 +/- |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | WAS | 95.2 | 97.5 | 2.3 |
| Orlando Magic | PHI | 96.9 | 98.9 | 2 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | IND | 97.6 | 99.1 | 1.5 |
| Charlotte Hornets | ATL | 97.7 | 99.1 | 1.4 |
| Toronto Raptors | DET | 95.7 | 95.6 | -0.1 |
| Atlanta Hawks | CHA | 99.4 | 99.1 | -0.3 |
| Indiana Pacers | POR | 99.5 | 99.1 | -0.4 |
| Dallas Mavericks | MIN | 96.4 | 95.4 | -1 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | ORL | 100 | 98.9 | -1.1 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | DAL | 97 | 95.4 | -1.6 |
| Miami Heat | NY | 95.2 | 93.1 | -2.1 |
| Detroit Pistons | TOR | 97.9 | 95.6 | -2.3 |
| New York Knicks | MIA | 95.9 | 93.1 | -2.8 |
| Washington Wizards | CLE | 100.3 | 97.5 | -2.8 |
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 PHI C is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Philadelphia 76ers | Orlando | 28 | 22 | 16 | 27 | 28 | 30 |
| Charlotte Hornets | Atlanta | 20 | 13 | 15 | 22 | 25 | 14 |
| Orlando Magic | Philadelphia | 19 | 24 | 4 | 20 | 19 | 11 |
| Atlanta Hawks | Charlotte | 18 | 9 | 22 | 18 | 17 | 24 |
| Washington Wizards | Cleveland | 17 | 14 | 24 | 26 | 10 | 13 |
| Dallas Mavericks | Minnesota | 15 | 11 | 7 | 10 | 27 | 12 |
| Minnesota Timberwolves | Dallas | 14 | 23 | 17 | 16 | 7 | 8 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | Indiana | 13 | 16 | 20 | 6 | 20 | 20 |
| New York Knicks | Miami | 11 | 19 | 13 | 11 | 5 | 16 |
| Indiana Pacers | Portland | 10 | 6 | 17 | 5 | 12 | 15 |
| Detroit Pistons | Toronto | 8 | 11 | 8 | 2 | 16 | 10 |
| Toronto Raptors | Detroit | 5 | 4 | 12 | 4 | 4 | 18 |
| Miami Heat | New York | 4 | 2 | 3 | 17 | 3 | 6 |
| Cleveland Cavaliers | Washington | 3 | 18 | 6 | 7 | 2 | 2 |
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 | Yes | |||
| Boston | ||||
| Brooklyn | ||||
| Charlotte | Yes | |||
| Chicago | Yes | |||
| Cleveland | Yes | |||
| Dallas | Yes | |||
| Denver | ||||
| Detroit | Yes | |||
| Golden State | ||||
| Houston | ||||
| Indiana | Yes | |||
| L.A. Clippers | ||||
| L.A. Lakers | ||||
| Memphis | Yes | |||
| Miami | Yes | |||
| Milwaukee | ||||
| Minnesota | Yes | |||
| New Orleans | ||||
| New York | Yes | |||
| Oklahoma City | ||||
| Orlando | Yes | Yes | ||
| Philadelphia | Yes | |||
| Phoenix | ||||
| Portland | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Sacramento | ||||
| San Antonio | ||||
| Toronto | Yes | |||
| Utah | ||||
| Washington | Yes |
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…..
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.)
