Daily Fantasy, Daily Life: Volume XVI - DFS Personalities
NBA DFS is one thing, playoff NBA DFS thing is something else.
The NBA DFS season is a grind, we all know this. Sure, baseball might be longer, but you can kind of sleepwalk through it if you choose and not be worse for wear. Lineups come out a few hours before gametime, you can leisurely set your DFS teams, there is rarely any late-breaking news, no big deal.
Baseball DFS is a Type B personality. Relaxed, laid back, flexible.
NBA, though? Every day it’s a series of mental head butts right up until 7 p.m. lock and often well into the night. Scratches, injuries, late-breaking news, rest … the list of potential pitfalls goes on. If you’re not hyper-aware of the day’s news and notes, you’re toast. You need to battle NBA DFS every day.
NBA DFS is a Type A personality. Very aggressive.
And by the end of the typical NBA season, when the teams start signing players out of local gyms to 10-day contracts and tanking goes into overdrive and playoff-bound teams rest starters and and and and and … well, that’s usually when even the most dedicated NBA DFS player is ready to throw up his hands and divorce themselves from the madness.
By the way, I didn’t use the word “divorce” accidentally. If you’re into stretching metaphors well past their breaking point, you can certainly compare the NBA DFS season to a marriage.
Who’s up for a little mid-column metaphor stretch?
NBA DFS is like a marriage in that …
Way I see it, there are two distinct phases to every marriage. I’m going to be celebrating 20 years come June, so I’ll count myself as an expert.
And while many observers will break the two phases into the “honeymoon” phase and everything after, I disagree. Fact is, the honeymoon phase waxes and wanes throughout the marriage.
For instance, my wife and I are both a pair of Type A personalities, so our heads will occasionally butt. That’s the NBA DFS regular season right there.
Every so often though, the head butts blossom into body slams and suplexes (I am speaking both metaphorically and directly to any members of law enforcement who may be reading this) and we have an all-time argument where terrible things are said. These happen … not that often. Maybe once every few years or so, the real knockdown dragouts.
And that’s like the end of the regular season of NBA DFS. Of course, after one of those verbal battles, we apologize, make up, get on with it. And in the aftermath, there’s a certain freshness and newness to the relationship. Dirty laundry aired, deep breaths, a dare I say stronger union.
And welcome to NBA playoff DFS and the (merciful) end to this (objectively ridiculous) metaphor. NBA playoff DFS is much different than regular season NBA DFS. The fights are over. It’s honeymoon phase again. It’s a rare day in NBA playoff DFS when you need to worry about … well, anything.
“The first and most important thing is that minutes for the best players, generally speaking, tend to skyrocket in the playoffs since rotations get tightened,” Andy Means, the NBA senior analyst for RotoGrinders, told me. “Using Giannis Antetokounmpo as an example from last season, he averaged 33 minutes per game in the regular season.
Here were his minutes per game in each series in the playoffs …”
And then Means broke it down. He played 36.3 minutes per game against Miami, which included two blowouts. He played 40.1 minutes against Brooklyn. He “only” played 33.8 minutes against Atlanta, but that includes a blowout and leaving one game early due to injury. Finally, he played 39.8 minutes against Phoenix in the finals.
Point being: Top players are going to play.
Of course, you can’t just build a team of superstars, so finding those right low-priced options are massively important.
“Cheap value’ in NBA playoff DFS is far different than ‘cheap value’ in NBA regular season DFS,” Means said. “Those types of plays aren’t going to be screaming point-per-dollar values, but they are still going to be needed in order to fit in the studs.”
Finding that value is the key to the game, you ask me. I like predicting blowouts in NBA playoff DFS and then filling my value spots with the bench players from the winning team.
Of course, predicting blowouts in the NBA is about as easy as … winning a marital spat. Look at me, bringing it back to the terrible metaphor and sticking the landing. That deserves an early beer. Good job, Jeff.