Hello everyone and welcome to my “Trust The Process” article where we will be taking an in-depth look at the Research Station to help find plays on tonight’s 5-game slate! The goal is to help make a solidified process everyone can follow to crush cash games and tournaments alike. You can find me on Twitter @AUFan30 or in Slack throughout most of the day if you have any questions!
Point Guards
The first thing I do when looking for players to build around is sort by And1 rating. The And1 rating is an all-encompassing metric unique to the DFSArmy that factors in several different columns, including aDVP, Ceiling, Floor, USG%, etc. I like to keep track of the Top 5 players from each position. Take note of these guys and see if they stay high on the list of the other metrics we will look at.
Next, we will sort by Floor for cash games. When we do this, we see that Rubio takes the #1 spot and Elfrid completely falls out of the list, a drastic drop from the top spot. This is telling me Elf may be a good GPP target, but let’s see what our other numbers say. Our other PG’s remain relatively the same.
For GPP’s we will sort by Ceiling. The Ceiling is the number we can expect these guys to hit 15 – 20% of the time if everything goes right for them. Doing this, we see that Kemba takes the top spot against one of the worst 3-Point defending teams in the league, the Milwaukee Bucks. If we scroll over to the Opponents Stats per game section, we see that Milwaukee allows 38.3 3PA (3-Point Attempts) per game while allowing 14.0 3PM (3-Pointers Made). Kemba also shoots at a 38.9% rate with 8.9 3PA/game. This is something we should definitely take note of!
We will then sort by FP/Min. The FP/Min column is very useful in telling us who produces when they are on the court. Doing this shows us our Top 5 really doesn’t change much: Bledsoe, Payton, Walker, Rubio, and Monte Morris making the list.
The next step is to sort by USG%. If we’re looking for what studs to build around, we want a guy who is heavily involved in his offense. Note that we still have Kemba and Rubio in every column we’ve looked at so far.
When we have what guys we want to target selected, we then want to look at two columns in particular: Who’s Hot? and Clock Watch. These two columns are very important for GPP plays in particular. Every player goes through a cold stretch as well as hot streaks. When we sort by Ascending order, we don’t see much of a drastic change in production at all, which is a great thing! Kemba does only have a 4.4X value rating over his last 3 games and that is something we’ll have to look into further.
When I sorted Clock Watch by Descending order, I was very surprised to find how much Lonzo Ball has been playing lately. This is largely due to the Pelicans being very banged up lately, and Ingram and Favors should return tonight meaning a lot of that production Lonzo has been putting up should fall a tad down.
Finally, for guards, in particular, we look for guys in Pace Up matchups. This leads to more transition opportunities as well as steal opportunities. For cash games, we don’t necessarily worry too much about the Pace, but it is a very good metric for GPP guards. For guards, we sort by Descending under Pace (+/-). When we do this, we see Kemba is already in a smash spot and will have a massive Pace Up matchup to sweeten the deal for us.
Shooting Guards and Small Forwards
SG’s and SF’s follow the exact same process as the PG’s do.
Power Forwards
For Power Forwards, we will follow the exact same process for these guys, however, we will change one thing. For PF’s, we want a slow-paced matchup. This is due to PF’s getting more steal and block opportunities, as well as rebound opportunities from set offenses. To find these guys, we will go to Pace of Play and sort Pace (+/-) by Ascending order. Again, take note of any PF’s noticed from the other metrics we’ve already looked at.
Centers
Centers follow the exact same process as PF’s.
***NEW RS FEATURES***
Today, our very own CeeGee added two new features to the Research Station: C Val and F Val. I am beyond excited to have these features added and will show you guys how I plan to use them!
C Val Feature
C Val = Ceiling Value. I plan to use this feature primarily to target my studs. The first thing I will do is look at the average salaries of players on the slate. Today on FanDuel, most of our higher ceiling studs start at $7,400. Therefore, I will make a rule on the RS under FDSalary –> Number Filters –> Custom Filter… I will then select “greater than or equal to” from the drop-down box and input 7400 into the input box.
We want our lineups to pay off and exceed as much salary as they possibly can. When we sort the C Val section by Descending order, we see who will pay off or exceed value if they hit their projected ceiling tonight. Tonight DLo and Tatum would both well exceed value if they have that Ceiling game we would expect 15 – 20% of the time. They need to be on our GPP radar.
F Val Feature
F Val = Floor Value. I plan to use this feature to target my value guys. We want our value guys to at least hit floor value, as we don’t expect a Markelle Fultz type of performance out of them often. The first thing I will do is sort Value by Descending order. This will show us who preliminarily should be good value plays for the night. Be sure to watch the news at #nba-breaking-news and #nba-coaches-notes to be sure you stay up to date with news and potential value opening up!
I will then take note of how our value salary is shaping up to be. It appears that most of our value plays on tonight’s slate should be under $5,700 as the DEN guys should be decent value for us to target tonight. I will then make the rule of salary “less than or equal to” 5700 just as I did with the ceiling guys. Once I have this setup, I will sort by F Val Descending. This tells me if any of the chalky value plays dud, this is how much we should return value-wise off of them. *NOTE* sorting by $5,700 is not a concrete step. You can sort by whatever value you would like. Ask me any questions you may have about this new feature!!
Tier List
You will want to make a Tier List of the players you’ve found based on your research. Treat this list as an “in case they’re scratched” list. I would always recommend making the highest priced guy the first on your list, therefore if he is scratched then you have nothing to worry about salary-wise with your edits in case he is scratched just before lock. Here is an example of the Tier List I made a few nights ago. As we can see, Kawhi was my #1 guy among PF’s. Collins was $1,500 cheaper than Kawhi, so I noted that next to his name. Randle was $2,100 cheaper, etc.
Minutes
For cash games, I do make a rule on the RS to include only players who will play over 24 minutes. This is something that needs to be monitored, as the closer we get to lock the RS may not be updated and may require a manual adjustment to a player’s minutes. To add this setting, simply select the down arrow under EDIT Mins under the TODAYS – Projections tab, hover over Number Filters, select Custom Filter.
We will then select “Is greater than or equal to” from the drop-down box and 24 in the input box.
Domination Station Fpts/$ and Ownership %
Once we have our list of guys to target, we want to check out who is popping on the DS. The first section we want to pull up is the Fpts/$. Players hitting value is crucial to taking down any cash contest or tourney and we want to be sure we’re getting the best bang for our buck. We do this by sorting by Fpts/$.
We also want to check out projected ownerships. This is very useful when trying to decide what value to play, or deciding what studs to fade in tournaments. This can also help bring a player to your attention you may not have noticed in the Research Station! The industry is usually very spot on about what players are in good spots, so this ownership tab is very important to watch. *NOTE* Ownerships for today’s slate are still being worked on. Therefore, the below example is from last night’s slate!
Top Plays for Today!!
These are my personal Top 5 Plays at each position based on the RS numbers. These will likely change when news comes out closer to lock, so make sure you’re in the #nba-breaking-news and #nba-coaches-notes channels and turn notifications on! (Salaries sorted by FD/DK)
PG
- Kemba Walker $6,700/$7,300
- Ricky Rubio $6,300/$7,200
- Lonzo Ball $6,500/$7,900
- Elfrid Payton $5,700/$5,500
- Eric Bledsoe $6,100/$6,300
SG
- Donovan Mitchell $6,600/$7,400
- Devin Booker $8,800/$9,000
- D’Angelo Russell $7,400/$7,500
- Khris Middleton $6,800/$7,300
- Lou Williams $6,200/$6,900
SF
- Giannis Antetokounmpo $11,500/$11,700
- Bojan Bogdanovic $5,700/$6,000
- Brandon Ingram (Questionable, be watching the news!) $8,900/$8,400
- Will Barton $6,400/$6,800
- Gordon Hayward $5,800/$6,400
PF
- Kawhi Leonard $10,100/$10,100
- Jayson Tatum $7,600/$7,800
- Julius Randle $7,900/$8,000
- Derrick Favors $5,400/$5,900
- Aaron Gordon $5,700/$6,000
C
- Nikola Jokic $9,400/$9,600
- Rudy Gobert $9,200/$9,200
- Nikola Vucevic $8,700/$8,500
- Montrezl Harrell $6,200/$6,600
- Deandre Ayton $7,400/$7,700
Value
- Jerami Grant $4,000/$4,800
- Monte Morris $4,000/$4,400
- Michael Porter $3,600/$3,600
- Mikal Bridges $4,500/$4,500
- Brook Lopez $4,800/$4,800
Thank you for reading and as mentioned before, be sure to follow my Twitter @AUFan30 or catch me in Slack with any questions you may have! Be sure to be watching the breaking news channel as always to make sure you don’t miss any exciting value plays and be sure your players are good to go! If you know of anyone interested in signing up with the DFSArmy and winning some money, then be sure to tell them to use my referral link DFS Army VIP and use code “AU30” for 20% off their VIP monthly membership!
