Trust The Process DFS NBA – August 5th, 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 Jamal Murray fall completely off the list. These PG options today seem to be cheap enough to help out with potential studs elsewhere for cash in our lineups as well.

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 Simmons and Morant jump to the top of the list. We also notice Chris Paul goes from the top of the list regarding his floor, to the bottom of the list regarding his ceiling. This tells me CP3 may be better suited for cash games, but notice the gap between him and Morant really isn’t much at all.

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 Murray replacing Ja. Simmons stays 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. Note that Simmons isn’t in the Top 5 of USG and that the same pool of guys seems to always be popping here.

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 Tyler Johnson really jump here. Johnson has been providing fantasy owners 5.2X over his last 3 games while averaging 20.6 FP’s and tops the chart at a +8.61 3g vs 10g rating. Do note that even at his 3 game average, that’s barely 5X his salary, which just won’t cut it for GPP’s.

We also like to sort by Clock Watch to see what players had been getting more run lately. We see Johnson and Caruso jump to the top here, and it is worth mentioning that Caruso wasn’t on any prior list or the Who’s Hot list. We already covered Johnson above, and this increase in minutes is due to the Nets having literally no one else to put on the court. Chiozza has been outplaying Johnson severely.

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 PHI, BOS, and TOR really pop up here. PHI is projected to score 119.8 points today, up from a season average of 108.7. The Total O/U of that game is 229.0, which is solid for GPP purposes. This game should be very fast-paced and will benefit guys like Simmons, Harris, Troy Brown, Ish Smith, etc. WAS is also terrible vs opposing bigs, so Embiid should eat here today.

BOS is implied to score 118.3 today, up from a season average of 107.3. This game also features an O/U of 228.0. This game is my favorite GPP stack, as both BOS and BKN should score well here and they are cheap pieces.

Finally, we see TOR popping on Vegas here. TOR is projected to score 115.0, which is way up from their season average of 104.9. I think this game will feature some solid defense and will be a great game to watch, but I don’t love it for GPP purposes.

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. Ben Simmons $8,000/$8,700
2. Mike Conley $6,200/$5,800
3. Chris Paul $7,300/$7,900

SG

1. Donovan Mitchell $7,300/$7,500
2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander $6,900/$6,700
3. Fred VanVleet $7,000/$7,700

SF

1. Tobias Harris $6,900/$8,600 (Amazing FD Play)
2. Pascal Siakam $7,900/$8,800
3. Jaylen Brown $6,600/$6,900

PF

1. Anthony Davis $10,500/$10,300
2. Jayson Tatum $8,300/$8,200
3. Daniel Theis $5,500/$5,200

C

1. Joel Embiid $9,500/$10,400
2. Nikola Jokic $9,100/$9,700
3. Rudy Gobert $7,500/$7,300

 

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!