The idea behind my process is simple, “more lineups are better than fewer lineups”. Lower entry fee contests generally have weaker competition and I believe that, over time, with more lineups, we can reduce our variance and actually see very consistent gains while still having opportunities for massive upside nights.
As you can see from my results from last year, “cash games” were not my cash game results were not great. Early on in 2019 I decided to go with a predominantly GPP approach to DFS as I’ve never been a great “cash game grinder” and that decision helped me have the best DFS year of my career.
I like to use 401k investing as an example. You would never put all of your retirement savings on the back of 1 stock, or 1 lineup. You would be much better served to spread out your risk and diversify your portfolio as much as possible. For example, If we’re playing $20 dollars, it’s better to play 20 lineups in the $1.00 dollar 20 max contest rather than playing one entry in a $20 single entry tourney.
Contest Selection is Key
Before we get started, I want you to download the RotoGrinders Chrome Browser Extensions for Fanduel and Draftkings. These extensions will allow you to see the Margain and Payout Percentages for every contest on both sites. Pay attention to the type of Tournaments you’re entering. Most of these tourneys have awful payout structures these days, but, some are much worse than others.
Bankroll Management and Contest Selection are even more important than picking the “right players” each day. Kevin aka “The Geek” has a great article discussing this even further so make sure you check out the Geek’s Bankroll Management and Contest Selection Article here.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s get into the process I use each day.
My MME Process from start to finish
I wrote a more elaborate MME Process Article <— click here, where I explain more and show screenshots of the DS. For each day, I’ll post the cliff notes version below but make sure you read over the other article as well so you understand the process.
Step 1 – Sort the RS or DS by highest-rated AND1 rating
Step 2 – By using the ADORE 😍 feature I Increase the projection for the Top5 players at each Position by 15%
Step 3 – DS Settings
— 150 lineups
— 3 unique players
— 70% global max exposure on all players
— 5% randomness
— Tournament Mode (not optimal mode)
Step 4 – Run and Review
Step 5 – Make final edits to your pool
How am I attacking Today’s Slate?
Today we’ve got a solid 7 game Friday slate with 1 massive late-night hammer island game at 10:30pm between the Lakers and the Blazers. The Pelicans, Rockets, and Lakers are 1,2,3 as far as projected points scored tonight, while the Blazers, Bulls, and Nuggets rank as the bottom three teams on the slate.
At 1st glance, the Pelicans vs Grizzlies game seems like it’s going to be a good game to target with the highest total on the slate (242.5) and some value we can target because of the Grizzlies dealing with a ton of injuries. Solomon Hill will probably get the start tonight, and while he’s not super exciting he’s min price on both sites. In situations like this, try to remember, it’s not always about what the cheap player (in this case Solomon Hill) does for you as far as fantasy points scored, but, it’s more about what rostering him allows you to do elsewhere in your lineup. That being said, I’m not going to go out of my way to make sure I roster someone like Solomon Hill, but, I’m sure he’ll land on a handful of my lineups across my 150 tonight. My favorite Grizzlies to target are Ja Morant, Jonas Valanciunas, Dillon Brooks, Ja Crowder and Kyle Anderson in that order.
The Mavericks are going to provide some value as well with Luka Doncic out of the starting lineup tonight. Jalen Brunson is expected to be the starting point guard tonight and he’s showing up as super-duper chalk across the industry because of his cheap salary and expect role with Luka Doncic out. It really doesn’t make a lot of sense to fade someone like this in Cash games, as he’ll be damn near 100% owned and your consequences of not rostering him, are greater than your benefits of rostering him and just eating the chalk. In GPP’s and large field tournaments however, we can take advantage of knowing what our competition is doing and how they are constructing their lineups.
So how do we get different from the field today?
I touched on this a little already in the paragraph above, about Jalen Brunson. Today Brunson is 3.6k on FD and 3.8k on DK so he is an autoplay in our cash games. However, does he really have GPP winning upside tonight even with Luka Doncic off the floor? The answer is maybe?
If we go back to mid-December, when Brunson was starting for Luka we see that he had a real solid stretch of games where he was crushing his cheap price tag. Between 12/14/19 and 12/22/19 he scored over 31 fantasy points 4 out of 5 games and had 1 monster game of 40 fantasy points (when he had already been priced up).
Knowing (mostly) everyone is going to play Brunson at Point Guard tells us how the roster construction of the field will set up tonight. So if we want to get different, or “silly in the milly” as Kevin likes to say, it shouldn’t be too difficult to do so tonight.
The first thing we can do is simply lower our Max Ownership % on Jalen Brunson to the 15-20% range, or, if you’ve got the stones, fade him outright. Doing this will cause your lineups to be very unique from the field. Now, can you play Brunson and try to get “different” elsewhere in your lineups? Sure, that’s a strategy we can use too, however, for me, that strategy is a little more difficult than simply eliminating the most obvious play in Brunson.
Some of my favorite Pivots today
My general strategy when attacking GPP’s is to try and construct my lineups differently than the field. Sounds easy right? I usually accomplish this by simply Paying Up where others are paying down and vise versa.
The hard part about playing this way is that I’m taking a “sub-optimal” approach to my builds. Meaning, I have to force the optimizer to something other than creating the “optimal” build(s) for the night. In a sport like NBA this doesn’t always “feel good” but I believe it’s a must in these super top-heavy large field tournaments these days.
Below are a few individual targets that I like tonight, but, this slate is full of great GPP plays so make sure you’re checking out the Coach Notes and make sure you’re in the Slack Chat leading up to lock tonight!
JJ Barea, Seth Curry or Delon Wright
NOTE – we don’t know who is starting yet, I’m assuming Jalen Brunson is starting. If news breaks Curry or Wright is starting, just flip them in this article as the starter would likely be the highest owned.
If we’re fading Brunson we can target one of his teammates in JJ Barea, Delon Wright or Seth Curry. They should come in at about 1/10th the ownership tonight and they possess just as much upside as Brunson. In this matchup, vs Houston, I actually think Curry’s game works better as he’ll be looking to chuck up a bunch of 3’s in this one.
Russell Westbrook or Damian Lillard
Paying up at point guard while everyone else is paying down will naturally make your lineup construction different from the field. Westbrook has gone for 60+ in 5 of his last 6 games and he should be able to do whatever he wants tonight vs whoever the Mavs roll out at point guard. We’ve got Westbrook pegged for sub 5% ownership and he could very well be the top fantasy point scorer on this slate.
If you don’t wanna go all the way up to Westbrook, you can drop down a little and take Damian Lillard who has been absolutely on FIRE recently. Over his last 3 games, he has scored 59.50, 78.70, 64.20 and 84.50 fantasy points. Tonight he gets a tougher matchup against the Lakers, but, you know he’s the type of dude that steps up big in big games like this. A matchup vs LeBron and AD should bring out the best in Lillard tonight and sub 10% ownership.
Ja Morant $7,000 / $6,900
This might be my favorite Point Guard play on the slate, as the Grizzlies are dealing with a ton of injuries tonight vs the Pelicans. Morant has gone for 40+ in 3 straight games and I expect that streak to continue tonight. We’ve got him right around 10% ownership which is great to see in a great matchup vs the Pelicans. I’m expecting Ja to go out of his way to put on a show here vs Zion Williamson and the Pelicans.
Wrap it up
Alex “Awesemo” Baker (the #1 DFS player in the world) had a great quote in a recent article he wrote.
Hopefully that all makes sense. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me in the VIP Chat at any time. I’ll leave you with the Top3 And1 players below at each position. Be sure to check on these closer to lock as well, as these change when news breaks later in the day.
AND 1 Top 3’s today
The AND 1 rating was developed by Ben Jammin @xBenJamminx and is apart of our NBA Research Station.The rating is an all-encompassing metric that will lead you to the best plays on each slate each day. One of my favorite things to do is use the ADORE 😍 feature in the Domination Station on all of these players so that I’m sure to get heavy exposure to them across my lineups.
Anthony Davis leads the slate today with a 22.6 AND1 Rating in his matchups against the Blazers. Check out the Rest of the Top 3 at each position below.
PG – Russell Westbrook
Ja Morant
Damian Lillard
SG – Jrue Holiday
James Harden
Zach LaVine
SF – LeBron James
Giannis Antetokounmpo
Brandon Ingram
PF – Anthony Davis
Serge Ibaka
Kristaps Porzingis
C – Andre Drummond
Nikola Jokic
Jonas Valanciunas