Weekly NBA Draft Strategy
Weekly NBA Draft Strategy
Breaking Down the Weekly
As a continuation from Monday’s piece on DraftStreet, I wanted to make sure I touched on the new weekly format D-Street has brought to the industry: Weekly NBA Drafts. The scoring and format remain exactly the same, however you select a player for the entire week’s games, not just one night. This becomes tricky and intersting at times, because the range of games a player has varies. Usually, it will be 3-4 per player, but on days like today you will even get a range of 2-5 games per player.
This introduces a few interesting strategies to wrap your mind around. The first thing to expect is that everyone will target the players with the most games in the week first. DraftStret adjusts their values on a per game basis to try and counter this, but if you can get a Caron Butler playing 5 games, you would want to take him over a LeBron James playing just 2 or 3. The problem I have with this, is lineups become very restricted in weekly formats. The player field you would select from is automatically reduced. Sure there is a little value had in finding cheaper, explosive 3-Day matchups, but when you are projecting a week in advance:
A) You cannot exploit daily lineup adjustments for injury or discipline as accurately
B) Many players are automatically excluded as +EV picks do to their Game Count
But there’s always a way to find an edge! The good thing DraftStreet allows you to choose what day to start your weekly lineup. So it’s all about the weekly sleeper. In poker you can’t play every hand and win…sometimes you have to sit back and wait for someone else to mess up. I recommend waiting for injury and other lineup opportunities to present themselves before investing heavily in weeklys. Do your research and make sure you have at least one guy that is stepping into a bigger role, and will likely be undervalued for the remainder of the week. Then choose to start your weekly on a day of the week that will give that player 4 or maybe even 5 games. That is the best way to maximize your value in Weeklys.
For example, as soon as I saw Monta Ellis hurt his back last night, I jumped on DraftStreet right away and did some Weeklys with Dorrell Wright, who is already priced too low without the extra minutes he’ll likely be picking up now. Here is my Weekly lineup beginning tonight:
Weekly Lineup
DraftStreet has the most accurate pricing in the biz, but they have some freaky, standout sleepers that haven’t quite adjusted to their formula yet. Right now the two that stand out most are DJ Augustin and Taj Gibson. Other players I am targeting in weeklys right now are:
- 5-Game Top Value Pick – Mike Beasley has a big 5-Game week, and his average #s are down due to leaving a game early with injury, and two clunkers due to blowouts. Forwards are a tricky spot for DraftStreet. You need to make sure you get a player capable of getting rebounds, which B-Easy can do, but doesn’t excel at. If you need a super cheap pick, I would consider Wayne Ellington for the price.
- 3-Game Value Picks – As alluded to earlier, there are still valuable 3-Day players, and when you consider that most of your opponents will automatically ignore the players with 3 games, it provides room to gain an edge. Right now a player like Rudy Gay, who is having a breakout season, will be priced lower then a worse player with 4 games. Gay could easily put up a 100 point week to a player like Ray Allen with 4 games, who might put up around 20 × 4 for an 80 point week. Don’t overlook the 3 game players. The studs like Dwight Howard and Rondo, will likely not be worth the price, but I will often have an underpriced 3 game stud in my Weekly lineups.
- Center Sleepers – The three cheaper Centers worth targeting right now are Serge Ibaka, Andris Biedrins, and Ronny Turiaf all of whom have 4 game weeks. Ibaka is getting more minutes lately, and capable of a double-double and 3 blocks on any time, Biedrins is starting to get back into 2008-2009 form with Crazy Nellie out of town, and Turiaf has been consistent, though with a low-ceiling, across all categories for the Knicks in 25 mpg.
- Injury Step-Ins – I like Eric Gordon, who is due back already, as long as Baron Davis is out. Also make sure to monitor the Rockets PG situation closely, with Aaron Brooks out at least 4 weeks.
Good luck!
Weekly Lineup – Updated
Lineup Updated as of 4:30 PM EST due to decision for Eric Gordon not to play tonight.
- The Al Jefferson/Roy Hibbert Combo gives you 8 games from a stud Center which is good, but the two 3-game players (Brand/Hibbert) makes it a little risky for my comfort…but as mentioned – DraftStreet is tough!