Reverse Engineering: FanDuel Mega Slam Winning Lineup
On Wednesday night, FanDuel user wining247 took down the Mega Slam for a top prize of $100,000. According to his profile on FD, wining247 has only been on the site for about a week, and has cashed in only seven NBA games. One of those other games was the WFBBC qualifier, where wining247 finished first as well, earning himself another shot at $100,000 at the live final.
Still don’t believe that anyone can take down a GPP and win life-changing money in daily fantasy sports?
Let’s take a look at the winning roster for the Slam, and see what we can learn from this huge tournament victory for a new FanDuel user.
Roster Construction is the Foundation
Picking the right players every night is obviously a key element to success in daily fantasy sports. Without the right players, everything else falls apart. This is obvious, and doesn’t really require a lot of explanation.
But roster construction is equally important, and has long been an issue in fantasy sports, even prior to the dawn and boom of DFS. Just consider the debates that rage on in season-long fantasy during draft season, when everyone will publish articles and debate on Twitter to advocate their strategy that they believe has figured out the mystery of roster building.
Because very rarely will anyone pick the right player at every position. Some nights, there simply won’t be a lineup that offers a top scorer at every position within the confines of the salary cap. Last night was a perfect example, as the winning lineup and several other top finishers had players who came in “under value.” The winner didn’t find a roster full of players at “6x salary” to get to the winning score. It came through finding ways to get the best players of the slate into the lineup, and avoiding the big mistakes along the way.
And while we often talk about being contrarian as a method of winning GPPs, it also feeds into roster construction. Being contrarian doesn’t only benefit you in the opportunity to get a bunch of points from a player that no one else has, but also in being able to construct your roster in a different fashion, and to stand out from the pack by having a different set of choices at key positions.
The Domino Effect of Being Contrarian
Let’s take wining247’s lineup as an example. There’s a good amount of chalk plays in this winning roster, with Jeremy Lin, Trey Burke, James Harden, Andrew Wiggins and Nerlens Noel all coming in with fairly high ownership. Lou Williams was also included, and he became an obvious play due to late injury news, and can be considered “chalk” despite a somewhat low ownership percentage.
So that’s two-thirds of the lineup that could be considered “obvious” plays. But not every lineup is going to have those same six chalk picks on their roster, because Harden and Noel were priced fairly high, and there are other options in similar price ranges to many of those players.
Having an incredibly low-owned player like Jonas Valanciunas, despite his score not quite “hitting value,” allowed wining247 to build a lineup using a different set of players than nearly every other entry in the event. A lot of the more popular picks at center were at least $1,000 more in salary, and we can see how this contrarian play set wining247 apart by looking at the sixth-place lineup.
You’ll notice that the shooting guards and forwards are exactly the same on packerbacker0012’s lineups, and that deservedly earned them a spot in the top-six. But the center and point guard spots are where the lineups differ, and that’s where being contrarian paid off for wining247.
Because while packerbacker could have picked Trey Burke over Zach LaVine, that wouldn’t have been enough to move into first. The sixth-place finisher went with the more popular Enes Kanter at the center position, and left $600 in salary on the table while going with Greivis Vasquez at point guard. Going with a more expensive center who scored a similar amount to Valanciunas, while limiting their options at point guard to the lower-tier Vasquez instead of the mid-tier Burke and Lin, is ultimately what set wining apart for the win, and left packerbacker with “only” $12,500 for their efforts.
So while packerbacker did make a lot of the right calls when building their roster, they weren’t contrarian enough to take down the whole tournament. It was the under-the-radar move of wining to go with Valanciunas that set the dominos in motion to construct the top lineup on the evening.
Picking the Right Sleeper
So, why pick Valanciunas?
The Bulls have a very strong DVP against centers, and Chicago was as close to full health as they could get in their front court. But the game was projected to be fairly close, and Jonas has decent game logs against the Bulls this season. In two of their previous three games, Jonas posted over 20 FanDuel points, and he was certain to stay on the floor (provided he stayed out of foul trouble) to help combat the talented bigs for the Bulls.
But otherwise, there wasn’t a whole lot going for this pick. Chicago is one of the best teams in the NBA in terms of rebound differential, and Toronto is one of the worst. Jonas’ minutes have been trending in the right direction over the past couple of weeks, and his rebounds have been pretty steady over that period of time as well, but otherwise the pick seemed to be a bit random. In the end, that’s what made it contrarian, and whatever wining247 saw in Jonas is ultimately one of the keys to unlocking this tournament and picking up the victory.
As I mentioned above, sometimes finding the right player to change up how your roster is built can be a game-changer in a big tournament. Taking a flier on a completely off-the-radar play that hits value will provide lineup construction options unavailable to other gamers in the same event. The second-place finisher, floridabulldogs, did the same by selecting Sacramento shooting guard Ben McLemore at 1.1% ownership, helping them to afford Brook Lopez at center and Anthony Davis at power forward, who combined for over 108 points.
The Lessons to be Learned
It’s no big surprise that players like Lin, Burke, Wiggins, Noel, and even Ariza and Millsap had good games and helped produce a winning lineup for wining247. All of those players had positive matchups, favorable injury situations on their teams, or some other factor that made them stand out as a potential high scorer on the evening.
But there were other similar picks that didn’t pan out. Eric Bledsoe was disappointing against the lackluster backcourt of the Kings, Kenneth Faried was horrible against the bottom-tier defense of the Sixers, and Gorgui Dieng somehow managed to avoid racking up statistics despite being one of only a few healthy Timberwolves. It would have been possible to construct a lineup similar to the top lineups mentioned above using these players, and that would have been enough to turn a five-digit payday into a 50th percentile finish and no cash.
And that would have been fine in a heads-up or 50/50, as that would have been right on the bubble. But for a GPP, it was the combination of chalky plays and a few off-the-radar picks that opened the door for wining247 to have a huge night of DFS success. Making the right calls on coin-flip decisions (like Burke versus LaVine), building a unique lineup (like using an extremely low-owned player at a unique price point at center), and including the right mix of smart chalk plays and lesser owned upside plays are all ingredients to finishing first in a big contest like this.
Want more input on how this winning lineup was put together? Check out our interview with wining247 here.