Trust The Process DFS NBA – August 12th, 2020 FanDuel and DraftKings

The DFS NBA “Trust The Process” article is an in-depth look at the DFS Army NBA Research Station to help find plays on today’s 4-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 DFS Army 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 Aaron Holiday fall completely off the list. He may be more GPP friendly for us today, but we will check other sections first to confirm that.

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 Milton jump into the list. This could make for a very good tournament play regardless at this price.

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. Dragic jumps back in the list here over Milton, which is something to note with Milton.

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. Dragic, Murray, and Brogdon seem to be staples in their offenses. We really need to be watching Brogdon news here as he has been on every list 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. One thing we really need to note here is the fact that we’ve had several months off with the COVID outbreak, so these stats carry a lot less weight right now. Regardless, we’ll still look at who was trending upwards before COVID started. When we sort by Descending on 3g vs 10g, we see Austin Rivers really jump here. Rivers has been providing fantasy owners 5.9X over his last 3 games while averaging 32.7 FP’s and tops the chart at a +13.23 3g vs 10g rating. His most recent game where he tied Harden in fantasy points really propelled those numbers, but regardless hasn’t been a horrible tournament option at all. The guy I’m taking note of from this list is Goran Dragic. Dragic has a 3g vs 10g rating of +6.13 and has been providing fantasy owners 6.4X over his last 3 games. His pricing is still way low and is worth some exposure in GPP’s.

We also like to sort by Clock Watch to see what players had been getting more run lately. The only guy we see jump here is Austin Rivers. We already covered Rivers above, and this increase in minutes is due to how well he has been playing combined with no Westbrook.

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 (+/-).

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.

Vegas

In NBA DFS, we really want to target games that possess a high scoring total. The more possessions a team has gives us more opportunities for our players to score points. Therefore, we will start using the Vegas section of the RS for our research! We will sort by Total +/- Descending to see what teams are projected to score more than their season average tonight.

When we do this, we see LAC, HOU, and TOR really pop up here. LAC is projected to score 117.0 points today, up from a season average of 107.8. The Total O/U of that game is 228.5, which is good for GPP purposes.

HOU is implied to score 119.0 today, up from a season average of 110.0. This game features an O/U of 231.5, making it very good for GPP stacking purposes. This game won’t feature much defense thanks to Indiana’s main defenders being sidelined or not in the bubble and will score some solid fantasy points. My favorite stack game to target.

Finally, we see TOR popping on Vegas here. TOR is projected to score 113.0, which is up from their season average of 104.8. This game will feature a ton of defense and likely won’t score very highly, but does have some good value pieces to help our lineups here.

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. What I do is I take note of the guys that have appeared in every section I’ve detailed above, and the guys that show up the most in those sections go to the top of my list. I adore the Top 3 from each position in the DS and love the 4th and 5th guys. I do not exclude anyone ever from the DS, doing the adore/love method just pushes my guys into more lineups. Therefore, in total, I end up adoring 3 PG’s, 3 SG’s, 3 SF’s, 3 PF’s, and 3 C’s. Do not adore too many players!

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.

Top Plays for Today!!

These are my personal Top 3 Plays that I believe will most likely be on the optimal lineup 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

1. Malcolm Brogdon $6,600/$7,200
2. Aaron Holiday $4,000/$4,600
3. Goran Dragic $5,500/$5,300

SG

1. Paul George $7,500/$8,400
2. James Harden $10,800/$11,100
3. Victor Oladipo $5,700/$6,000

SF

1. Kawhi Leonard $8,700/$9,500
2. Tobias Harris $7,400/$8,000
3. Justin Holiday $3,500/$3,600

PF

1. Robert Covington $6,800/$6,800
2. Michael Porter $7,900/$7,600
3. Bam Adebayo $7,800/$7,700

C

1. Nikola Jokic $8,500/$9,200
2. Myles Turner $6,000/$6,600
3. Ivica Zubac $5,900/$5,800

 

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 want access to my full player pool then go on over to https://wp.dfsarmy.com/ref/99/ and use code AU30 for 20% off your monthly VIP or SBA membership!