(Finding An) NBA Edge - Week 6
It’s almost time for a new name for this article.
“(Searching For) An NBA Edge”?
“(Hoping to Find) An NBA Edge”?
“(War) What Is It Good For?”
Seriously, it’s been rough.
A few weeks ago, I was feeling good in this article at 8-3 in cash games. Since then, however, I have gone 2-7, tumbling down to 10-10 overall.
Before I go any further, I want to say this: This is not a “complaint” article. This is not an article to speculate that “maybe it’s impossible to make profit in NBA.” Trust me, it’s possible. It’s possible to make really good money, and to make it on a consistent basis – if you’re good. I know people (cough, @JumpaHoo, cough) who make great money in NBA. I told you in my Transitioning from NFL to NBA article on RotoAcademy about the guy I tracked last year who was playing $9800 in double-ups each night, and was cashing at an 88% rate over a sample size of nearly two months. If you “get” NBA, there is money to be made.
In fact, my friend, that is exactly why I keep working so hard on NBA.
“Working so hard”?
Wait – how hard am I really, truly working?
In NFL, my goal is to outwork every single person who could be labeled “my competition.”
In MLB, my goal is to know the sport – the players, their strengths and weaknesses, the advanced statistics, and the strengths/weaknesses/misinterpretations of these advanced statistics – as well as anyone in the country.
In NBA, my goal is – apparently – to be better than I was last year, when I was awful.
I’ve said it in this article before; I’ll say it again: I’ll probably never be great at NBA DFS. I don’t know the sport well enough, and I’m not passionate enough about NBA to commit to studying it as fully as I should. Honestly, I would have been thrilled last year to know I could go 10-10 in cash games over a 20-slate stretch. Maybe next year, as I keep getting incrementally better, I’ll be 12-8 during any given 20-game stretch. Who knows. I’m going to keep working hard (um, “working hard”) to see where NBA can take me.
I’m also going to keep writing this article. Looking through my thoughts helps me, as I am able to identify what I was thinking, where I did well, and where I could have done better. This article also seems to help a lot of you, for the same reasons.
So, here we go. Another week of disappointing results…
How did I do?
I played four slates this last week (I’m in Portland, Oregon this week hunting for a new house/apartment, as my wife and I will be moving up here next month; that made it a bit more difficult to play as much as I would have liked – but it will make it easier for me, down the road, to meet up with any of you who live in Portland so we can hang and talk DFS and build lineups together, so I guess it’s a fair tradeoff). I went 1-3 in cash games in those slates.
I did actually make some good money in tourneys on the night I cashed in cash ($925 won off a $150 investment), though I built three teams that night, and it was my third team that picked up most of that money.
I also, honestly, really liked where my head was on a number of these non-cashing teams. I think I may, honestly, have played better this week than I did during my more successful weeks; sometimes, things just don’t work out.
With that said, I have not yet explored these teams in-depth as I am about to do. So let’s take a look.
2/19/16
Score: 312.75
Result: Cashed in double-ups and barely cashed in tourneys
Team:
46.25 Goran Dragic – $5700
15.25 Devin Booker – $6300
53.25 Luol Deng – $4900
14.50 Amar’e Stoudemire – $4200
21.75 Jahlil Okafor – $6400
61.50 Rajon Rondo – $8300
74.00 DeMarcus Cousins – $1100
26.25 Kyle Anderson – $3100
You know it’s a big slate of games (14 games, in this instance!!!) when DeMarcus Cousins is playing Denver (one of the best matchups a PF/C can have) and is only 12% owned.
This was an interesting team, in that I fell way short of expectations on three players (Booker, Stoudemire, and Okafor) and still managed to cash in tourneys. The reason, of course, was that my guys who blew up (Dragic, Deng, Rondo, and Cousins) were all low-owned, due mainly to the massive size of the slate.
On this night, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Hassan Whiteside were out of action for the Heat, leaving very few players available to soak up a massive amount of missing usage. These are the types of nights on which I tend to do better, as I have played enough NBA to no longer fear “going overboard on compensating for tons of extra usage being available.” While Stoudemire was 45% owned, Dragic and Deng were both under 20% (note: Justise Winslow and Gerald Green did soak up a lot of ownership as well), which gave me a great safety net on the night. If there is one area of DFS I have become pretty good at, it’s being willing to really dive into available usage when high-usage guys are missing a game.
Speaking of “high-usage guys missing a game,” let’s jump down to Kyle Anderson at the bottom. This was the second game in a row Kawhi Leonard was missing for the Spurs, and because Anderson had “only” hit 15.8 points the previous night (which still exceeded value), he was lower-owned than he should have been here on a night with very little value available, clocking in at under 30% owned. He hit more than 8x value for this roster, which also helped a lot.
Rondo and Cousins were easy calls for me, against Denver, but the call I thought was easy (and obviously wasn’t!) was Devin Booker.
In JumpaHoo’s “Jump Shot” article the following Monday or Tuesday, he talked about how Devin Booker and Archie Goodwin did not present quality value at the moment, because they were already priced at where their minutes said they should be priced (and speaking of price: Ronnie Price had returned to action), and these guys were therefore not where we should look to pick up value from the Markieff Morris trade. I wish I had thought of that myself on Friday, but instead, I listened to Suns’ interim coach Earl Watson, who said something along the lines of ‘We’re going to run the offense through Devin Booker now.’ No one else fell for that, as Booker was under 5% owned, and he nearly crushed my team by falling so far shy of value.
Finally, Okafor. Oh, Okafor. Center matchups don’t get much better than “versus New Orleans,” but Okafor picked up three fouls in the first six minutes of the game, then fouled out before the game was over. Ouch! I would still make this play again…though probably not in cash.
2/21/16
Score: 264.25
Result: Finished less than two points out of the money in cash
Team:
39.75 Jrue Holiday – $7300
29.00 Kobe Bryant – $5900
28.00 Jae Crowder – $5700
35.00 Derrick Favors – $7200
39.25 Alex Len – $4600
40.75 Derrick Rose – $7200
13.50 JaMychal Green – $4000
39.00 Kemba Walker – $8000
Kobe Bryant is old. I knew that, but I really learned it on this night, when he played about two minutes in the fourth quarter of a competitive game against the Bulls.
Because Kobe’s usage rate is so high when he’s on the court, and because this was going to be his last game in Chicago, I figured he was a safe guy to roster. Lots of others felt the same way, as he was nearly 50% owned. It was frustrating, then, to track the entire fourth quarter of this game, saying, “Byron, when the heck are you going to put Kobe back in?” Even with his high ownership, another three or four points from him would have been enough to slip me into the money, as I finished 1.75 points shy of cashing, and there were very few people between me and the cash line.
But then, that’s loser thinking, isn’t it? That’s the type of stuff I refuse to do in MLB and NFL. If I fall short of cashing in those sports, I examine things and say, “How can I do better? Where did I make mistakes? How can I improve?” When you think like that, you’ll find that you are always pushing yourself to get better. When, instead, you say things like, “If only Byron Scott had played Kobe a few more minutes, I would have cashed,” you take your success out of your own hands. So let’s see what else I could have done differently on this night…
JaMychal Green was the big disappointment on this roster, notching just barely over 3x his salary. The question we need to ask, then, is this: was he a bad play, or did it just not work out on this night? The truth: He was not a bad play at all. In his other three games since Marc Gasol went down (two before this slate, one after), Green has notched point totals of 22.0, 37.5, and 25.8. I could have used Kris Humphries in that spot instead, for $300 less (Humphries was a popular option that night, after he had gone off in his Suns debut; he disappointed on this slate, scoring just over 18 fantasy points – though that margin would have been enough to get me in the money had I used him over Green), but I felt at the time that Green was a better play. I still feel that way; that was not a mistake, it was simply a bad bite from variance.
Speaking of Humphries: When Tyson Chandler was out for this game, recency bias led a lot of people to Humphries, while Len went low-owned at 13.8%. Remember how I always talk about studying ownership percentages? These are the types of trends you can spot, and this can be extremely valuable in tournaments. Because Humphries was the shiny object on the Suns, you could know in tourneys on this night that Len would go overlooked.
Other than those two guys, this is a much tougher slate to break down in an article such as this one. Everyone outside of Len and Green either “just barely exceeded value” or “just barely fell short of hitting value.” In other words: I didn’t make any blow-you-away plays, but I didn’t make any egregious errors in the players I rostered, either. The main reason, however, that this slate is tougher to break down is because some of the guys who were really highly-owned on this night (e.g., LeBron James at over 30% owned, versus OKC) indicate that it was less that I “took the wrong players” on my team, and was more that the more popular roster construction approach on this night was to free up some salary to pay up in a spot or two (notice that my most expensive player on this night was $8k).
I looked at this team a lot that night, after I fell short, and I genuinely liked what I had done. Originally, I planned to use Isaiah Thomas against Denver for $200 less than Kemba (Thomas outscored him by 12.75 points), but I got too scared to roster Thomas. Then I planned to use Andre Drummond against New Orleans at the same price as Kemba (Drummond outscored Kemba by 12.50 points), but I was maybe scarred from having rostered Okafor a couple days earlier in that same great matchup (Drummond scoring 51.50 points at 35% ownership hurt me more than anything else on this slate).
Ultimately, I built a very good team here. The only issue was that this team was maybe a bit too non-aggressive. Favors against Portland could “hit value,” but how much more could he be expected to do? Kemba against Brooklyn could “hit value,” but…okay, never mind on this one; Kemba wasn’t as bad of a play as I’m making him out to be, it’s more just that Thomas and Drummond outscored him. But there are others. Jae Crowder could hit value vs Denver, and he certainly had some upside, but not as much upside as it would have been nice to grab. Jrue and Kobe were solid plays, as were Rose and Len. Honestly, this was a very sound team. It just didn’t quite do enough.
2/22/16
Score: 279.50
Result: Jamal Crawford
Team:
22.50 D’Angelo Russell – $4500
1.50 Jamal Crawford – $5600
75.00 Giannis Antetokounmpo – $7100
41.00 Gorgui Dieng – $6700
29.00 Alex Len – $4600
34.75 Isaiah Thomas – $7800
35.25 Jabari Parker – $5900
40.75 DeAndre Jordan – $7600
On this slate, I had $800 left over, with a team I really liked. In theory, I could have gone up from Russell to Jordan Clarkson (exactly $800 more), and I liked both players. But that seemed like a classic situation of “making a change just to make a change,” as either guy could have put up a higher score than the other that night; I didn’t want to use that money “just to use it,” but wanted to instead make sure I was using that money to make a “clear and convincing improvement to my team.” I wasn’t moving off Crawford (ouch!), Giannis, Dieng, or Len. There was no one $800 more than Jabari who made any sense. So that left me with two options: go up from Kris Middleton ($7200) to Isaiah Thomas, or go up from DeAndre Jordan to Kyle Lowry vs the Knicks at $8300.
For some reason, I never really like rostering Lowry. I think most people feel that way; they must, because he usually hits value, but his ownership is rarely high and his price never moves much. On this day, JumpaHoo had highlighted in the Jump Shot the reasons Lowry made for a great play that day, and I knew there was blowout risk in the Clippers’ game against the Suns (meaning DeAndre’s upside might be capped, with the chance he might play only three quarters), but DeAndre just soars past value so often, and with such ease, I didn’t want to pass him up. And Thomas has more upside than Middleton. So that was the way I went.
I’m still not sure if it was the “wrong” play. Thomas played extremely poorly on this night (if I remember correctly, he started the night 1-8 shooting), and he still almost hit value (and he did outscore Middleton by a point) even though he got most of his points in the second half. And DeAndre passed value in three quarters, and would have had a monster game if the Suns could have kept this game within 12 to 15 points in the fourth quarter.
I would have cashed if I had used Lowry, who hit 56.75, but I think the “upside” of DeAndre/Thomas was probably higher than the “upside” of Middleton/Lowry, and the floor was about the same.
I liked this team a lot. I think it was well-constructed. In fact, this team and the team from 2/21 were probably better-constructed than the team from 2/19. Things just simply did not work out.
Score: 249.50
Result: Finished pretty far outside the money in cash games and tourneys
Team:
20.75 Shelvin Mack – $3600
38.00 Victor Oladipo – $6700
10.25 Maurice Harkless – $4400
47.00 Derrick Favors – $7300
53.75 Nikola Vucevic – $7400
34.00 Jrue Holiday – $7400
24.25 Thaddeus Young – $6800
21.50 Jahlil Okafor – $6400
I have mentioned many times in the past that in cash games, you are going to cash more often than not if you happen to be on the same players everyone else is on. In other words: If you have highly-owned guys on your team from top to bottom, you’ll be in good shape in cash games more often than not.
Of course, I have also pointed out an alternative to that idea, which is that you can outperform the slightly-positive results that can be gained from “always siding with high ownership” if you are able to identify low-owned players you expect to outperform the high-owned players. In MLB and NFL, I regularly have one or two (or even more) low-owned players in cash games, and my ability to identify low-owned guys who give me an edge is a big part of the reason I am able to be consistently and reliably successful in those sports.
In NBA, however, I’m usually fine siding with high ownership. I don’t seek it out, but if rosters lock and I see that all my guys are highly-owned, I’m certainly never upset about that.
On this night, Okafor (in a solid matchup against Orlando – though, admittedly, with me refusing to acknowledge that, as high as Okafor’s upside is, he’s inherently risky) was the only guy on my team who was under 20% owned. In fact, Shelvin, Oladipo, and Vuc were all over 55% owned, and Thaddeus was the only guy on my team besides Okafor who was under 30% owned. Typically, that would be good news in cash games, but it was not on this night.
Here is the really frustrating thing for me here, though: I liked Rudy Gay. I liked him a lot, and I originally planned to use him in that final forward spot (where I used Thaddeus Young instead). But as I read things that day and saw everyone touting Gallinari and Hayward at small forward, without a lot of love for Gay against Denver, I backed off. Which was stupid, really, because I didn’t love Thad against Portland, and it’s not like anyone was talking about him, either. But in this moment of weakness – of not trusting my research, and of instead just trying to make sure I “didn’t do anything dumb,” I missed out on 25.25 additional points I would have had from sticking with my original intentions and using Gay in that final forward slot. That would have gotten me into the money in cash games with ease.
And when I had that original team, with Gay instead of Thad, I had $100 in salary left over and spent about 30 minutes trying to decide if I should use Okafor at $6400 or Nerlens Noel at $6500. Has I used Noel, that would have been an additional 20.75 points, for a really nice day in tourneys.
Fear of “making a dumb play” led me from Gay to Thad, which also led me away from the “Okafor or Nerlens” debate.
So close…
Not that “so close” counts. Right?
But then…maybe it does. Maybe “so close” is an indicator that a little more work can push things from “so close” to “just barely over the hump.”
I’ve been “so close” for the last few weeks. So let’s see if we can get over the hump this next week.
Let’s see if I can “meet up with you at the top of the leaderboards” between now and next Friday.