Trust The Process DFS NBA – August 4th, 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 6-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 the Top 5 just trades places. Russell Westbrook is the clear pay up option for cash games at PG today with a floor of near 40.

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 Westbrook and Lillard stay high on the list. We also notice the Top 5 doesn’t change at all really, outside of Rubio replacing Bledsoe. This tells me these five guys are the ones to target in tournaments for point guards tonight. Also, that pretty much confirms Rubio may be more of a GPP target than a cash game target.

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 aside from Bledsoe replacing Rubio. Westbrook and Lillard stay extremely high on 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. We see Kemba and Goran jump up here, but be careful with them as Kemba is still potentially on a minute restriction and Goran is a second unit guy.

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 Lillard and Holiday really jump here. Lillard had been providing fantasy owners 5.5X over his last 3 games while averaging 51.5 FP’s and tops the chart at a +6.98 3g vs 10g rating. Do note we had already seen him extremely highly on every list from above. We also see Napier here providing 5.8X over the last 3 for fantasy owners. However, Napier has really taken a back seat to Ish Smith lately. Napier is someone you can still roll out in tournaments as he does carry a solid ceiling for his price, but I’d be fairly optimistic with him until we see some constant production.

We also like to sort by Clock Watch to see what players had been getting more run lately. We see Holiday jump to the top here, and it is worth mentioning that with Brogdon and Oladipo being hit or miss lately, he has still been seeing solid minutes. We also saw Lillard getting all the minutes he could handle.

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 MIL, HOU, LAC, and DAL really pop up here. MIL is projected to score an absurd 123.8 points today, up from a season average of 102.1. The Total O/U of that game is 229.0, which is solid for GPP purposes. However, this game will be a dumpster fire of playing time and will be very hard to predict. Tread cautiously here.

HOU is implied to score 123.5 today, up from a season average of 110.4. This game also features an amazing O/U of 242.5 and should see a ton of scoring with very little defense. For GPP’s, this is the game to stack.

POR is implied to score 119.5 today, up from a season average of 107.0. This is also a great tournament option as mentioned above as they are facing HOU tonight.

Finally, we see DAL popping on Vegas here. DAL is projected to score 121.0 tonight and the game features a total O/U of 235.5. This is another game that I’m very interested in for GPP’s, as long as SAC can keep it close.

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.

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. Russell Westbrook $9,600/$9,400
2. Damian Lillard $9,300/$9,900
3. De’Aaron Fox $7,500/$7,300

SG

1. CJ McCollum $7,300/$8,200
2. Luka Doncic $11,000/$10,700
3. James Harden $11,100/$11,300

SF

1. Kawhi Leonard $8,600/$9,100
2. TJ Warren $6,400/$8,000
3. Jaylen Brown $6,200/$6,800

PF

1. Robert Covington $6,800/$7,100
2. Zach Collins $4,600/$4,300
3. FD ONLY: Aaron Gordon $5,600
4. DK ONLY: Bam Adebayo $7,700

C

1. Jusuf Nurkic $8,200/$8,500
2. Deandre Ayton $7,400/$7,500
3. Brook Lopez $5,900/$5,700

 

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!