Mo Money Mo Problems
I stared at my laptop and the name Marvin Williams as the timer on DraftKings ticked down. I had one minute to decide who to put in my Utility spot and had $4,800 left to spend out of my $50,000 salary cap. Marvin Williams cost a perfect $4,800, but the Hornets were 10-point dogs and going up against a tough Warriors defense.
Additionally, Williams’ matchup against Draymond Green was less than ideal (not just because Green might kick him in the gonads and send Williams to the hospital before halftime, but because Green is one of the top defenders in the league). I scrolled through several other names at a lower salary, but none stood out to me. I had interest in Williams’ teammate Spencer Hawes, who would get more run with Cody Zeller out. But Hawes cost $3,500, meaning I would leave $1,300 on the table. I scrolled further down and saw the name Guillermo Hernangomez, who has started getting some buzz after Coach Hornacek said he would get more playing time with the second unit. But Hernangomez cost $3,400, meaning I would leave $1,400 on the table. The DraftKings countdown approached the final seconds, so I clicked Marvin Williams, grimaced, and prepared for lineups to be locked.
At the end of the day, Williams wasn’t awful. He produced 29.25 DraftKings points, respectable for his $4,800 salary. But I downloaded the full list of player scores after all the games were finished and sorted in descending order. Above Marvin Williams’ 29.25 DraftKings points, I saw names like Wayne Ellington (30.5), Okaro White (30.75), Ivica Zubac (33), and yes, Guillermo Hernangomez (34) and Spencer Hawes (36.75). All of these players cost less than Williams and still outperformed him, yet when push came to shove, I didn’t have the courage to roster any of them over Williams.
This got me thinking – why couldn’t I click on another name? Why was I so compelled to roster a player that I didn’t like and felt was in a sub-optimal spot? Then I realized it was all about the salary cap. I couldn’t get myself to leave money on the table. Every night on DraftKings, we’re given $50,000 in imaginary money to build any roster we wish. But there’s something difficult about not spending all of it.
I grew up in a culture that preaches not to waste, whether it be food, resources, or money. How many of you refused to finish your dinner as a child, only to have the guilt and shame brought upon you when you’re told there are kids in third-world countries who are starving? Or maybe this analogy is closer to the DraftKings experience. What if you were given a $50,000 check to go on a shopping spree at your favorite store, and you can’t keep any leftover money? Would you spend it all? Of course you would, because we’re all cheap, selfish, human beings. If I could go on a $50,000 shopping spree, I would do it at Costco. Honestly, I have no idea what I would buy at Costco worth $50,000. I have to imagine when I learn my bill is at $49,000, rather than stop, I would load up on $1,000 worth of Costco pizza to use the full amount. Do I need $1,000 worth of Costco pizza? No. Is there a diminishing return at some point with $1,000 worth of Costco pizza. Probably. After eating $500 worth I’ll probably grow tired and sick of it. Maybe it would cause serious damage to my body. And when looking back, it would have been more wise to stop at $49,000 instead of investing the last $1,000 into Costco pizza (for the record, I would order the combo pizza).
I decided to dig into some actual data on whether using the full $50,000 was always the best strategy. Shoutout to RotoGrinders users rebkell and dash for helping me locate the perfect NBA DraftKings lineups (perfect meaning it yields the highest score within the $50,000 budget for that day). If we took the 31 perfect NBA lineups for the month of December 2016, we’d find that only eight days had a perfect lineup that used the full $50,000 salary cap.
Another interesting takeaway from looking at the December 2016 perfect lineups was that the average salary used was $49,600, and no lineup was below $48,200. Here’s a distribution of the perfect lineups by day in December 2016 and the amount of salary cap used on the main slate (orange cells indicate all $50,000 was spent):
To provide some real-life examples, here are the perfect lineups for the past three days:
So when it’s all said and done, don’t be afraid to leave a little money on the table if you settle on a lineup you love. While using the full $50,000 is sometimes optimal, it’s also possible to build a winning GPP lineup leaving a few hundred on the table as illustrated above.
Remember, we’re playing with a salary cap that uses fake money – you can’t pocket any of the leftover salary in real life. Sometimes I fall into the trap where I have a few hundred left over and then try upgrading at another spot. Before I know it, I come off players I originally was on the entire day and that exercise becomes counter-productive. So the next time you’re faced with a Marvin Williams situation, don’t be afraid to pivot down if you truly believe it will improve your team.