Managing Back-to-Backs in NBA DFS
Some coaches are notorious for scratching players in the midst of long road trips, when a team is playing a back to back, or late in the season. Obviously, stay glued to Twitter before lineup lock and make adjustments as news comes out. On a more general level though, keep in mind how teams tend to perform in these situations.
I used Fantasy Labs to create the below table, which shows how teams performed when there were X days in between games. The Plus/Minus refers to how many points, on average, players scored above or below their implied total based on salary.
| Days | Plus/Minus |
| 1 | -0.44 |
| 2 | 0.53 |
I did add a salary filter so that I would mostly be looking at starters in the result set. As you can see, players have lost close to a full point of value when playing a back-to-back game as opposed to having an off day in between.
As you increase the salary threshold, the results get worse and worse. The more expensive the player was, the harder of a time they had meeting value. If the back-to-back came during a road trip, the results were very bad. This is a definite situation to avoid in NBA DFS:
I will add a caveat here, which is I don’t think you need to avoid players playing in a back-to-back set when both games are at home. One of the main issues with back-to-backs is the required travel between games. Teams often travel after a game, arrive in a new city after midnight, and prepare for another game the next day. It takes a toll. When both games are at home, the results are not so bad…in fact, they’re relatively positive for players $6000 and up:
While we’re here, I’ll debunk a popular myth for you. When a team’s opponent was playing on the second half of a back to back, that hasn’t really done a heck of a lot in terms of value. There are exceptions to the rule, but in general I don’t think upgrading players in these matchups is a great idea.
Obviously, if the opponent decides to sit a player on the second half of a back-to-back, that is a different story. You can refer to the previous chapters for thoughts on how to handle those situations.
In wmonighe’s Adjusting to the Situation in NBA DFS: Micro vs Macro Level Data, you’ll learn:
• When to ignore large sample size
• How to use tools to make adjustments on a micro-level
• Extrapolating per-minute production
• How to manage back-to-backs
Want to keep reading? Purchase the course and learn from the best!
