NBA Refresher: Knowing the Basics
The start of the NBA regular season is only 8 days away. In my opinion, the NBA is one of the best sports if you are trying to grind out a profit over a whole season. While I’m sure many of you were around for the NBA season last year, there are a lot of new players out there and I thought a quick refresher course on NBA strategy might help. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment here or hit me up on Twitter: @RG_Notorious
DFS strategy differs for every sport. Some of the top players in the industry only play select sports because they just can’t quite get the hang of the other sports. You have to be able to adapt your game to the sport that you are playing. While there is obviously a lot that goes into NBA strategy, I’ve come up with 6 topics that everyone needs to know heading into the start of the NBA regular season:
Get to Know Each Scoring System
I can’t stress enough how important it is to master each site’s scoring system and realize the subtle differences that they have. With the NFL being the main sport in DFS right now, you have probably noticed that each site has very similar scoring for NFL. That is not the case for NBA. Some sites have rebounds and assists higher worth more compared to points, other sites have them being equal. Some sites award 2 points for steals and blocks, other’s do not. One of the biggest differences in scoring across the industry is how sites treat missed field goal attempts. Some sites negate half a point for missed shots while others don’t even consider them in their scoring. That can play a huge factor when taking a player like Kobe Bryant who puts up a lot of shots each night.
If you want to get an early edge on your opponents, study your site’s scoring system for NBA and use it to your advantage when making your lineups. If the system is heavily weighted toward steals and blocks, target the players that can do both like Paul George. A new DFS player is likely going to be targeting the players that can score a lot of points and they won’t even consider the fact that some sites negate for missed shots. Studying each scoring system will allow you to value the stats that are the most important relative to each site.
Minutes Mean Production
In the NBA, minutes are king. More so than in any other sport, when players get in the game, you can count on them to produce. In baseball, a player making a spot start in the lineup may not produce any fantasy points, in fact that spot start may lead to negative points. In the NFL, taking backups is a bit of a mixed bag because teams tend to focus their game plan on the players that they know can produce, not the backups getting the start. If you take a backup RB, you can’t count on him to get the carries he needs to produce.
In the NBA, that all changes. Even a 3rd string player can be fantasy relevant if the two players ahead of him on the depth chart get hurt. If a player receives a good number of minutes, it is almost guaranteed that he is going to get production, although there have been rare cases (see Gerald Wallace). Because there are so many ways to score fantasy points in basketball, a player is very likely to produce because even if he’s not scoring the ball, he’s likely going to get a few assists, rebounds, blocks, or steals. I highly recommend taking the spot start players when they are filling in for injuries, especially on sites that have sharp pricing and have them listed for dirt cheap.
Last Minute Injuries – Twitter/NBA Lineups
This section goes hand in hand with the section above, but it’s emphasizing injuries as not only spot starts, but avoiding potential disasters. In the NBA, checking the injury news may be the most important research that you do all day long. If you aren’t constantly check the latest injury news, you will find yourself behind the 8-ball. You can not afford to have one of your players out with an injury and likewise, you can’t afford to miss out on those last minute spot starts.
Because of the nature of the NBA, most injuries aren’t announce until right before tipoff, leaving that last 30 minutes before lineups lock being the most important 30 minutes of the day. I would block out the final half-hour before lineups lock just to keep up with the latest injury news. I am not exaggerating when I say that the most important research time that you can spend all day long is on injuries. Twitter is probably the quickest source of information for injuries. The information from the beat writers on Twitter is usually posted at least a couple of minutes before it is posted anywhere else. Use this to your advantage.
Defense vs. Position Rankings
Defense vs. Position statistics play a big role in the NFL daily fantasy game and they play just as big of a role in the NBA game. Knowing which teams struggle to contain which positions gives you a huge advantage over your competitors and it often leads you to consider players that you weren’t thinking about before that. The two positions that are my favorite to look at with these rankings are PG’s and Centers. Often times SG’s and SF’s will switch their matchups so sometimes the rankings don’t mean as much for those positions.
But for PG’s and C’s. They are going to be locked up in that same matchup all game long. If you see that Stephen Curry is facing a Kings team that is the worst in the league against opposing PG’s, you know that he has a great opportunity to have a monster game. The same goes for Centers. If you see that Al Jefferson is going up against the Rockets, you may want to avoid him because he is going to be going up against Dwight Howard all night. Not only is Dwight a great defender, but he gets his opponents into foul trouble often.
Vegas Lines
Using Vegas lines in daily fantasy sports is useful regardless of which sport you are playing. Oddsmakers know what they are doing and the lines are basically free research. When it comes to NBA lines, you want to consider two things. The first is the blowout potential of the game. Blowouts in the NBA can really hurt a player’s fantasy output. Unlike in baseball or football where teams usually keep their starters in even if they are up big, in the NBA, if a team is up 15 in the 4th quarter, their starters are likely on the bench for the rest of the game. Nothing is worse than having a player that is playing great through 3 quarters and then he sits out the whole 4th quarter because they are ahead by so much. Any line that is bigger than 10, be a bit wary of.
The second thing to look at is the Over/Under of the game which is also known as the total. These can help you spot games that are expected to be high scoring. You want to target players from these games and sometimes you will see a total that is so juicy that you want to take a few players from the game.
Knowing the Difference Between H2H and GPP Players
This applies to every sport, but it also applies to the NBA. If you are looking to grind out a profit through H2H and 50/50 leagues each night, then you don’t want to take a lot of risks when building your lineups. You want to take the safe players that are going to be fairly highly owned in your leagues. Taking a player that has high variance in his game logs is not the type of player that you want to target because like we mentioned above, you need to have every single player come up with production. It’s hard to overcome a really bad game. I tend to avoid players that rely solely on actual points that don’t get many rebounds, assists, etc.
On the other hand, if you are playing in GPP’s or tournaments, you want to target those high-variance players because those are the players that can set you apart from the pack. Kemba Walker is a guy that comes to mind as a great GPP play because he can give you anywhere from 5 – 50 fantasy points on any given night.
Congratulations, you have now completed the refresher course. The Countdown is almost over, let the NBA games begin!