Hump Day it was! Insert sexual metaphor here. Or, you could just say it was the kind of day where a lot of us just couldn’t get over the hump. Whatever your pleasure, it was an interesting sweat from my side. I can insert my results here. I was in with $16 last night and out with $14. I will try and track Keith here, too, in a short blurb. Comments here or in Slack would also be great to hear/see how your own sweat went.
I had 3 guys in the late games. Jamal Crawford, JJ Redick, and DeAndre Jordan. I was set to start rocketing up some leaderboards……….and DeAndre decided to take the first half off. Thanks, putz. I still cashed in a lot of places (including my 5050s) and avoided a total loss. I will get into how someday (contest selection), but sheesh it was a hard row to hoe. I even went so far as to tweet DeAndre’s twitter account to ask him to do something. I’m sure he listened, too, because he did have a better second half. Regression to the mean, my azz. He saw my tweet at halftime and felt guilty. We’re tight like that now. Anyway, on to the 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.
| Road Team | Home Team | Favorite | Spread | Total | Tip-Off | |
| Golden State Warriors (50-5) | at | Orlando Magic (25-30) | GS | -8 | 222 | 7:00 PM |
| Milwaukee Bucks (24-33) | at | Boston Celtics (33-25) | BOS | -8 | 217.5 | 7:30 PM |
| Oklahoma City Thunder (40-16) | at | New Orleans Pelicans (22-34) | OKC | -5 | 222 | 8:00 PM |
| Brooklyn Nets (15-42) | at | Phoenix Suns (14-43) | BKN | -1.5 | 208.5 | 9:00 PM |
| Houston Rockets (28-29) | at | Portland Trail Blazers (30-27) | POR | -4.5 | 222 | 10:00 PM |
| San Antonio Spurs (47-9) | at | Utah Jazz (28-28) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 10:30 PM |
Third night in a row we are treated to a slate with every game over the magical 200 total we look for. When 208.5 is your lowest total on board…..wow.
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 +/- |
| Utah Jazz | SA | TBD | 98.4 | TBD |
| San Antonio Spurs | UTA | TBD | 105.2 | TBD |
| Portland Trail Blazers | HOU | 113.3 | 103.5 | 9.8 |
| Brooklyn Nets | PHO | 105 | 96.6 | 8.4 |
| Orlando Magic | GS | 107 | 100.1 | 6.9 |
| Boston Celtics | MIL | 112.8 | 106.1 | 6.7 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | BOS | 104.8 | 98.6 | 6.2 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | OKC | 108.5 | 102.4 | 6.1 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | NO | 113.5 | 109.6 | 3.9 |
| Houston Rockets | POR | 108.8 | 105.4 | 3.3 |
| Phoenix Suns | BKN | 103.5 | 100.4 | 3.1 |
| Golden State Warriors | ORL | 115 | 115 | 0 |
Just remember, this is opportunity, not gospel. I’m not fading Golden State based on this table…..nor should you w/o looking deeper before deciding.
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 +/- |
| Orlando Magic | GS | 96.9 | 101.2 | 4.3 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | BOS | 96.5 | 99.9 | 3.4 |
| Brooklyn Nets | PHO | 96.7 | 99.1 | 2.4 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | HOU | 97.6 | 99.3 | 1.7 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | OKC | 98.5 | 99.8 | 1.3 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | NO | 99.3 | 99.8 | 0.5 |
| Houston Rockets | POR | 99.7 | 99.3 | -0.4 |
| Golden State Warriors | ORL | 102.3 | 101.2 | -1.1 |
| Phoenix Suns | BKN | 100.4 | 99.1 | -1.3 |
| Boston Celtics | MIL | 101.4 | 99.9 | -1.5 |
| Utah Jazz | SA | 93.2 | 91.6 | -1.6 |
| San Antonio Spurs | UTA | 96.4 | 91.6 | -4.8 |
There is no line on the SAS/UTA game. But, I shouldn’t have spoken about all the games being over 200. This one would surprise me if it was when the line finally comes out……not that this stat means much standing alone. You use this information in conjunction with other things you see during your research.
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 POR PF is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Houston Rockets | Portland | 27 | 16 | 22 | 29 | 30 | 17 |
| Phoenix Suns | Brooklyn | 26 | 29 | 29 | 30 | 12 | 7 |
| Brooklyn Nets | Phoenix | 23 | 28 | 20 | 22 | 20 | 21 |
| Milwaukee Bucks | Boston | 22 | 8 | 26 | 24 | 23 | 11 |
| New Orleans Pelicans | Oklahoma City | 21 | 14 | 25 | 12 | 16 | 29 |
| Orlando Magic | Golden State | 17 | 21 | 5 | 21 | 17 | 9 |
| Golden State Warriors | Orlando | 16 | 26 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 23 |
| Boston Celtics | Milwaukee | 13 | 1 | 7 | 19 | 26 | 26 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | Houston | 12 | 17 | 18 | 5 | 21 | 20 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | New Orleans | 9 | 19 | 23 | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| Utah Jazz | San Antonio | 2 | 9 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| San Antonio Spurs | Utah | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 |
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 | ||||
| Brooklyn | Yes | |||
| Charlotte | ||||
| Chicago | ||||
| Cleveland | ||||
| Dallas | ||||
| Denver | Yes | |||
| Detroit | ||||
| Golden State | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Houston | Yes | |||
| Indiana | ||||
| L.A. Clippers | ||||
| L.A. Lakers | ||||
| Memphis | ||||
| Miami | ||||
| Milwaukee | ||||
| Minnesota | ||||
| New Orleans | Yes | |||
| New York | ||||
| Oklahoma City | Yes | |||
| Orlando | Yes | |||
| Philadelphia | Yes | |||
| Phoenix | ||||
| Portland | Yes | |||
| Sacramento | Yes | |||
| San Antonio | Yes | |||
| Toronto | ||||
| Utah | Yes | |||
| 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.
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……now with Sample Cash LUs! (Remembering, of course, cheatsheets come out on slates 5 games and larger.)
And, as always, comments, retweets, and Slack opinions are welcome! Head to the Mess Hall……Soldiers dismissed!
