The Wednesday NBA Tipp-Off
The Wednesday NBA Tipp-Off
About the Writer: Allen “Tippy” Tippy operates Fantasy Basketball Daily where he covers the day-to-day fantasy NBA scene for season long and daily league players. He’s been participating in Daily Fantasy Sports since 2007 across all of the major sites; concentrating mostly on the NBA. He’s a huge Alabama Crimson Tide fan, Chicago Cubs fan and an avid poker player. Tippy day-trades the S&P 500 Futures market and foreign currency markets for a living. He lives in West Virginia with his wife and seven year old daughter.
Wednesday’s Lineup: DraftStreet.com
I’ve been doing a little playing on DraftStreet and figured I would shine a little fantasy light on them this week. The game at DraftStreet.com is a little different than any of the existing daily fantasy sites, so check the settings before you get started. One advantage to being different is that the site offers the high volume player a chance to diversify his bankroll across multiple sites while using different players and lineups on each. Due to the overall game scoring, most of the correct selections on DraftStreet.com are different than Fanduel and Fantasy Sports Live. Adding DraftStreet.com as one of your daily sites offers a good opportunity to minimize variance by adding an additional unique roster to your overall daily play. The biggest differences with DraftStreet are the positions used and the statistics used to score each day’s games.
While most sites use PG, SG, SF, PF and C, DraftStreet uses only 2 G, 2 F, 2 C and 2 Utility players. Owners are awarded $100,000 in salary cap to buy their 8 players, which is an average of $12,500 per player Some owners like to load their rosters with point guards, while others like shooting guard gunners. The DS rosters offer the flexibility to use whatever kind of players you like without limiting the choices. Just be aware of the scoring statistics before deciding what type of guards or forwards to use for the game.
The second difference is the set of statistics DS uses to score it’s games. The games are scored as follows: Points (1.0), Assists (1.5), Rebounds (1.25), Turnover (1), Missed FG and FT (.5), Steal (2) and Block (2). As you can see, rebounds and assists are assigned much more value on DS, while poor shooting is penalized. The overall strategy change under this setup is to select guards who get assists and forwards who rebound well and shoot for a high percentage.
My Wednesday DraftStreet.com Selections:
| Pos. | Player | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| G | D. J. Augustin | $6929 | I‘m not a huge Augustin fan, but the price was just too cheap to pass up and it gave me enough money to select Dwight Howard at center. Augustin’s has an attractive matchup against a poor Toronto team who have Jarrett Jack and Jose Calderon at PG, neither of which play defense. |
| G | Dorell Wright | $8768 | Another cheap roster filler. Monta Ellis is out and some of the scoring burden should fall to Wright. He’s matched up against a Knicks team that is fairly weak on defense and usually plays higher scoring games. He rebounds well, which should be a benefit under the DS scoring system. |
| F | Amare Stoudemire | $14782 | Amare against the Warriors, how can you not like that? This should be a high scoring game and Amare will get his. |
| F | Elton Brand | $11692 | Brand was the cheapest forward I could find and he’s been having some nice games. Andre Iguodala is out, so Philly will be counting on Brand to score. He’s got a decent matchup against a weak Oklahoma City interior who will be without their starting PF, Jeff Green. |
| C | Dwight Howard | $17780 | Dwight Howard has been on fire lately and he gets a matchup against a Utah team that has been playing some high scoring games. Al Jefferson is a horrible defender and Howard should be able to dominate that matchup. |
| C | Andrew Bogut | $15033 | Bogut has a nice matchup against an Atlanta team that is missing Marvin Williams. The Hawks played Jason Collins on Dwight Howard Monday. As you would expect, this didn’t work out too well for the Hawks. With the same matchup, Bogut should also dominate inside for the Bucks. |
| U | Luis Scola | $13747 | Scola fits the DS system well, he’s a big man who can score and pile up the rebounds. Houston has been playing high scoring games and Scola matches up against a fairly weak Andray Blatche. Houston will also be missing Aaron Brooks, so they may be looking to run the offense through the big men. |
| U | Beno Udrih | $10884 | Udrih will be matched up against a weak Sebastian Telfair and a high scoring Minnesota team. Udrih flies under the radar, but he should be able to produce in the DS scoring system. |
Good luck, and remember to check the gametime status of all players before setting your final roster.