Well, I just have to say I had more fun in the Slack Channels of the DFS Army yesterday than I have had in quite some time. A lot of the regulars, and a few newer guys/gals, were around close to FanDuel lock last evening when all the news was breaking right and left like NBA can do. I’m relatively inexperienced and that was, by far, the craziest I’ve seen a Monday. It was our free day for the inside peek into the VIP Insider membership and I honestly hope a lot of people took something away from how crazy the NBA can be at times. Keith was blasting away at pivot after pivot and rearranging his cheatsheet like I’ve never seen on the fly. People were asking questions. I was getting dizzy. I want to mention two things: 1- Thank you to all the regulars that pitched in to help. I’m sure it was appreciated by us lesser experienced players. 2- That kind of comradarie is bar-none what sets the DFS Army apart from any other online community you will ever find.
We had some players post some nice scores, too. Sure, the money line was a little higher than normal by the time the night was through…..or at least it felt that way to me. But, we took some big swings at some nice tourneys and we also saw a handful of people simply crush it in cash games. Take a look at this LU from our own efunk42, he said the 348 was his best score ever and he went in with $36 overall on the night and came out with $69. None too shabby. (Don’t forget to check the Bankroll Challenge update at the very bottom.) I think a few of us wish Leap Day came more than every fourth year…
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 | |
| Phoenix Suns (15-44) | at | Charlotte Hornets (30-28) | CHA | -13 | 205.5 | 7:00 PM |
| Chicago Bulls (30-28) | at | Miami Heat (33-26) | TBD | TBD | TBD | 7:30 PM |
| Portland Trail Blazers (32-28) | at | New York Knicks (25-36) | POR | -5 | 207.5 | 7:30 PM |
| Orlando Magic (26-32) | at | Dallas Mavericks (32-28) | DAL | -5 | 213 | 8:30 PM |
| Atlanta Hawks (33-27) | at | Golden State Warriors (53-5) | GS | -11.5 | 225 | 10:30 PM |
| Brooklyn Nets (17-42) | at | Los Angeles Lakers (11-49) | LAL | -2 | 212.5 | 10:30 PM |
Again, a lot of games are receiving totals over 200 now……my green games are 210+. Wait until you see the other numbers for that BKN/LAL game…..
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 | Team +/- |
| Chicago Bulls | MIA | TBD | 101.6 | TBD |
| Miami Heat | CHI | TBD | 96.9 | TBD |
| Los Angeles Lakers | BKN | 107.3 | 97.5 | 9.8 |
| Brooklyn Nets | LAL | 105.3 | 97 | 8.3 |
| Charlotte Hornets | PHO | 109.3 | 101.5 | 7.8 |
| Dallas Mavericks | ORL | 109 | 102.2 | 6.8 |
| Atlanta Hawks | GS | 106.8 | 102.2 | 4.6 |
| Orlando Magic | DAL | 104 | 100.8 | 3.2 |
| Golden State Warriors | ATL | 118.3 | 115.4 | 2.8 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | NY | 106.3 | 103.6 | 2.7 |
| New York Knicks | POR | 101.3 | 99.1 | 2.2 |
| Phoenix Suns | CHA | 96.3 | 100.7 | -4.5 |
BKN and LAL both green……..just sayin’.
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 +/- |
| Atlanta Hawks | GS | 99.2 | 103.6 | 4.4 |
| Charlotte Hornets | PHO | 97.6 | 100 | 2.4 |
| Golden State Warriors | ATL | 102.4 | 103.6 | 1.2 |
| Miami Heat | CHI | 95.3 | 96 | 0.7 |
| Brooklyn Nets | LAL | 97 | 97.2 | 0.2 |
| New York Knicks | POR | 95.9 | 95.6 | -0.3 |
| Phoenix Suns | CHA | 100.4 | 100 | -0.4 |
| Dallas Mavericks | ORL | 96.4 | 95.7 | -0.7 |
| Los Angeles Lakers | BKN | 98.2 | 97.2 | -1 |
| Orlando Magic | DAL | 97.3 | 95.7 | -1.6 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | NY | 97.7 | 95.6 | -2.1 |
| Chicago Bulls | MIA | 98.7 | 96 | -2.7 |
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 CHA PG is, theoretically, in great spot.
| Team Defense | Opponent | TotalFPA | vs. PG | vs. SG | vs. SF | vs. PF | vs. C |
| Los Angeles Lakers | Brooklyn | 30 | 30 | 28 | 30 | 22 | 28 |
| Chicago Bulls | Miami | 26 | 28 | 14 | 24 | 21 | 25 |
| Phoenix Suns | Charlotte | 25 | 29 | 29 | 27 | 16 | 7 |
| Brooklyn Nets | L.A. Lakers | 23 | 26 | 19 | 21 | 20 | 23 |
| Orlando Magic | Dallas | 20 | 19 | 4 | 20 | 18 | 10 |
| Charlotte Hornets | Phoenix | 19 | 13 | 13 | 22 | 24 | 15 |
| Golden State Warriors | Atlanta | 17 | 27 | 10 | 13 | 14 | 24 |
| Atlanta Hawks | Golden State | 16 | 6 | 18 | 16 | 17 | 22 |
| Dallas Mavericks | Orlando | 14 | 12 | 7 | 10 | 27 | 12 |
| Portland Trail Blazers | New York | 13 | 17 | 20 | 6 | 19 | 26 |
| New York Knicks | Portland | 11 | 18 | 15 | 11 | 6 | 17 |
| Miami Heat | Chicago | 4 | 2 | 3 | 17 | 4 | 6 |
Remember the BKN/LAL game? Look at all the green! Do your research, but this looks like a fun game tonight.
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 | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Charlotte | Yes | |||
| Chicago | ||||
| Cleveland | Yes | |||
| Dallas | Yes | |||
| Denver | ||||
| Detroit | ||||
| Golden State | ||||
| Houston | ||||
| Indiana | Yes | |||
| L.A. Clippers | ||||
| L.A. Lakers | ||||
| Memphis | ||||
| Miami | Yes | Yes | ||
| Milwaukee | ||||
| Minnesota | ||||
| New Orleans | ||||
| New York | Yes | |||
| Oklahoma City | ||||
| Orlando | Yes | |||
| Philadelphia | Yes | |||
| Phoenix | ||||
| Portland | Yes | Yes | ||
| Sacramento | ||||
| San Antonio | ||||
| Toronto | ||||
| Utah | ||||
| Washington | Yes |
I am probably like most of you myself in that I don’t often go back and check how yesterday predicted, or failed to predict, what actually happened. This might be a good spot to do so. If you remember, we saw a few teams in orange. Let’s see who they were again and how they did. This is what was said yesterday, “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.'”
I’m looking at the CLE/IND game from last night and the IND side looks a bit lackluster. Monta Ellis was solid. Paul George was ok, too. Myles Turner, Ian Mahinmi, and George Hill……not so much. Kyrie didn’t kill you but didn’t overperform. JR Smith helped no one. LBJ barely paid off his price tag. On the surface, things look like they are ok.
One great thing I can do now for you is pull a load of back-tested statistics from Fantasy Labs. You’ve heard Keith mention we are getting most of our most trusted stats from the site currently, and it’s been pretty darned good. What it allowed me to do here is create a trend and take a look at how often this situation has arisen and what the results “overall” have been. Take a look at this screenshot….
You can look at the parameters I set if you like. But, you really only need look at the green numbers and the “count.” This is backtested 16k times….going back to November of 2014. Players on back-to-back games have been projected to score an average of 18.71 pts. And, when you look at them all from the bench guy to Steph Curry, you see they have only outperformed their expected production by less than half a fantasy point (0.44). On top of that, they have only outperformed expectations 48.7% of the time…….less than half the time.
What does this mean to you? It means players on back-to-back nights, and certainly 2of3 nights like I am showing you above are likely to be tired. Tired enough they don’t often give you huge nights that win your GPPs. Again, I’m not saying to avoid them at all costs. You can see from the IND/CLE game last night that guys will still put up numbers. I am saying, like I did yesterday, to proceed with caution and dig a little deeper when you see the situation pop up. Tonight, BKN, MIA, and even POR are on my “tired radar.” And, I will be looking at them deeper before just plugging them in due to Vegas numbers or even DvP.
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 |
| Mon-29 | 332.6 | 19 | 45 | 26 | 126.6 |
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.)
