NBA Four Point Play Review: Monday, January 30th
The Grinder review series will provide the reader with a breakdown of the exposures of “top of the leaderboard” players, the top single-entry lineup, and a comparison between all single entry lineups and professionals for large slate DraftKings GPPs. All players have been merged into the positions they are eligible for on FanDuel to give a more accurate and concise view of exposure by position.
This week, we looked at the $500K Four Point Play [$50K to 1st!] on DraftKings with a buy-in of $4 and maximum entry limit of 150 lineups per person.
Multi-Entry Grinders of the Game
Dafong followed a typical strategy (seen in the other two pro ownerships) of employing a heavy ownership in point guards and big men in the utility positions due to the consistent usage they see. Tyler Johnson was returning from injury and had consistently been priced $100-600 more expensive than he currently was at $5k, leading dafong to try and take advantage of the savings. On the other hand, Isaiah Thomas had been on a tear during his rise to $9400 and didn’t look like he’d let up with the high game total against Detroit. The SG and SF positions looked to be a bit more spread out in terms of ownership due to the streakiness at the positions. At PF and C, we find single player ownerships over 80% in both James Johnson and Andre Drummond. Andre was a monster on the boards as he went for another 20-20 game, while James Johnson came back to form after previously being limited in minutes due to foul trouble in a few of his recent games. Dafong finished quite well with a cash rate of 56.7% but hit out of the park with an 8th place finish for $3k.
Gn1ghtmoon was also aboard the Isaiah Thomas train, but diversified into Yogi Ferrell and Goran Dragic instead of Tyler Johnson. Yogi Ferrell was seeing 30+ minutes as a starter on the dismal Mavericks and had already put up 26.50 DK points the previous night on just 9 FGA. Leading gni1ght’s SG usage was Wesley Matthews, who, like Tyler Johnson, was coming off an injury and was not given a minutes limit. He had been nearly $300-$1k more expensive all season and represented a good value in a great matchup. With Kevin Love out, LeBron was a good bet to see increased usage and faced off against his even higher owned Harrison Barnes in a projected close game. As Channing Frye was Love’s replacement in the lineup, he represented a solid value option and was owned to the tune of 74%. Hassan Whiteside was owned in 99 of gn1ght’s 100 lineups and appeared to have a great matchup on the boards against Brooklyn. He ended up falling short however and somewhat capped gn1ght’s upside. Although he did cash at a 59% rate and finished in 46th place, it could have been more.
Jgo99 seemed to follow a mixed train of thought from the others, as we see similar player exposures throughout his lineups. As seen with the corresponding injuries, Cleveland and Dallas highlighted many of his top-owned plays, but he took a step off the board with a good amount of Mike Conley. While the others didn’t have the same foresight, Jgo99 lapped the field on ownership and profited to the tune of 65.5 DK points, the third highest on the slate behind DeMarcus Cousins and Andre Drummond. Jgo99 featured a heavy dose of the Memphis frontcourt as he overlapped rarely when rostering Zach Randolph in 68% of his lineups and Marc Gasol in 33%. However, they both saw an uneventful day going up against Tyson Chandler. Jgo99 topped out with an 11th place finish for $1500 and finished with a healthy cash rate of 57%.
Single-Entry Winner of the Game
Spank210 seemed to headline a lot of the chalk players at each position on the board. He didn’t have a single player under 13% ownership, yet managed to tie for third place out of 147k lineups. His value-conscious Dallas backcourt was good for five total 3-pointers and hit over 7x value. The always frustrating Andre Drummond went absolute HAM, while Goran Dragic beat up on the porous Brooklyn defense. Channing Frye filled in for the injured Kevin Love nicely as Isaiah Thomas continued his hot streak. Spank210 may have slotted in his cash lineup as quick insurance, but I’m sure he won’t forget going forward!
Single-Entry vs. dafong/gn1ghtmoon/Jgo99
Out of 147,058 entries in the Four Point Play, 16.3% of those entries were entered courtesy of players using a single bullet. The table below compares the exposures of those single entries to the exposures of dafong, gn1ghtmoon, Jgo99, and 75 other top professionals picked off of RotoGrinders’ NBA leaderboard:
