An Introduction to NBA DFS
Why am I writing this course?
It’s not an existential question; I’m not asking this question in a “What is the meaning of the universe?” sense. I’m asking this for real – and I’m going to answer it for real as well. If you are wondering whether or not you should purchase this course, you should read this lesson first. Because – seriously – this course might not be for you. I’m not saying that as a subtle marketing tool (where I say, “This course is only for a select few” in order to elicit a reaction from you like, “I want to be one of the people this course is for!”). No – I’m being serious. For some of you, there will be absolutely no reason to purchase this course. For others of you, this course will be one of the most valuable things you ever read on your road to success in NBA DFS.
First, though, I need to tell you a bit about my own NBA journey.
If you have clicked on this course, there is a good chance you know who I am already. Maybe you know me from MLB; maybe you know me from NFL.
I’ll be honest: I’m very good at MLB. I’m extremely good at NFL. For reference: I’m typing this introductory lesson after Week Six of the 2015 NFL season. Since I started playing NFL DFS last year, I have placed in the top 4% of tourneys with roughly 20% of my total entries. I have placed in the top 20% of tourneys with over 50% of my entries. So…yeah. I’m good enough that tournaments are really no different from 50/50s for me, and I am generally able to finish “in the top 4%” at the same rate most people hope to simply cash.
I don’t tell you that to brag (although, you know…do feel free to purchase my NFL and MLB courses, if you’d like; they’re pretty darn good, if I do say so myself). I tell you that, instead, so that you know you can trust me; after all, I did not get that good by accident – I got that good through always aiming to outwork every single person with whom I am in competition.
Oh, and I also tell you that so I can set up for you just how bad I was at NBA when I started…
I never expected to play NBA DFS. My DFS journey began in April of 2014 with MLB, and it carried into the 2015 NFL season. When NFL ended, I figured I would take a few months off and return in April ready to crush MLB again. But then, DraftKings noticed that I was no longer pumping money into their pockets, so they sent me a free ticket to a 100-entry satellite in which the top 20% would win a ticket to a $300 NBA contest. Well, okay – why not? I entered, and even though I was clearly playing against a bunch of other guys who had never played NBA (that’s why this satellite was set up in the first place!), I failed to grab one of those tickets.
Cool – no big deal. No need to play NBA anyway…right?
But then, a few days later, DraftKings sent me another entry to the same satellite. This time, I landed one of those $300 tickets, and even though that ticket went to waste, I had started to appreciate the thrill of NBA DFS – the points moving up across your roster at a rapid pace; the last-second injury news and the ensuing scrambles; the steady pace of the scoring – no home runs or touchdowns to send a huge chunk of the field past you at once, but everything instead manageable and predictable and just plain logical.
I had read in several places during football season that NBA is the most predictable DFS sport; I had read that those who “get it” are able to pretty much bank on the profit they will pull in over time.
So, I mean…what else would you expect me to do? I started studying NBA. I read what everyone else said about the basics of NBA DFS. I started reading up on the different players and teams. I started studying roster construction. And I started playing.
I played with low buy-ins at first. I did really well. I think I cashed three of my first four days – maybe four of my first five days. “Why am I playing at such low buy-in levels?” I wondered. “It’s time to bump things up!”
Oh, and “bump things up” I did. All the way up to the levels at which I had been playing NFL…and naturally, that’s when the losing began.
Over the next couple months, I pumped back into the NBA pool all of my NFL winnings and a chunk of my MLB winnings. I’d made a pretty substantial amount of money in NFL, too…so that might give you an idea of just how quickly this money was flowing the wrong way. It wasn’t even “win one night, lose a couple nights, win again, lose a couple more.” It was lose, lose, lose, lose, lose (maybe a win thrown in), lose, lose, lose.
Of course, the biggest mistake I made was playing at a high buy-in level. Let’s get real, right? – who the heck did I think I was? I thought I was going to jump into NBA – having not even watched the sport since Michael Jordan and Larry Bird were relevant names on the court – and dominate right away? Not a chance! I should have taken time, studied, waited, and gradually raised my buy-in level as I gradually started winning.
The second biggest mistake I made was not reading this course. I can’t beat myself up too much about that one; this course did not yet exist. My point is: I should have found something such as this course that I could read – something that would comprehensively guide me through the transition from NFL to NBA. I never found one such piece of literature, and so, I got crushed.
But I’ll tell you why I kept studying, and kept pushing to get better (and then we’ll transition into the course itself):
As I studied NBA each night, I began breaking apart the lineups of the guys who were consistently winning. I worked to reverse-engineer their lineups and break down their thinking. I tried to see what I could learn from their lineups and apply myself. And while doing this, I came across one player (whom I have never seen in any other DFS sport, and whom no one seems to knows anything about, and whom I have never spoken to nor interacted with in any way myself, whose screen name I will not mention in case he wishes to remain anonymous and take money from all of us in head-to-heads), and I started studying this guy’s lineups and tracking his results…and I began to realize that he was cashing in double-ups at a ridiculous rate. Like…really, really ridiculous.
Like, 88%.
Seriously.
For over a month and a half, I tracked his play. Each night, he put close to ten thousand dollars in play – almost strictly in cash games. And over that month and a half, he hit close to a 90% cash rate. In calculating his winnings over that span of time (not even including any head-to-heads he was playing), I worked things out to somewhere around $220,000.
Yeah.
That’s why I kept playing. Not because of that dollar amount, as I will never have a “threshold for risk” high enough to put $10k in play each night no matter how large my bankroll grows, and for that matter, I will probably never be good enough at NBA to cash in double-ups at an 88% rate, as I do not have an innate “feel” for the game the way I do NFL and – to a lesser extent – MLB. But that guy’s consistent success showed me what was possible. It showed me that there was no reason why I could not crack 60%, 65%, even 70% myself.
It drove me to keep studying, keep studying, keep studying. And finally, the tide began to turn. I started cashing more often. I started creeping into “consistency.” I started falling just shy of cashing on the nights I came up short, and started finishing near the top of double-ups more and more often. I started knocking down a few solid tournament showings. My buy-ins at this point were a heck of a lot lower than they had been at the start of my NBA journey, but I started making progress back toward where I had been when NBA began. I didn’t get anywhere close to winning everything back, but I won enough – and had enough “consistent, reliable success” – that I was driven during the “offseason” to study even more.
Will I ever be a guy who crosses the “80% cashing threshold” in cash games? Probably not. But maybe; who knows.
What I do know, though, is that I finally learned how to be a profitable NBA DFSer. I learned how to transition from NFL to NBA, and I came to recognize the mistakes I had made before, and what I would have done differently if I could have gone back and done it all over again.
Hey – look at that! I can’t go back and do things differently myself, but I can help you to avoid the mistakes I made. I can help you transition from NFL to NBA and become profitable far more quickly than I was able to become profitable myself. And why not? After all, maybe none of us will ever be “88% cash rate” players, but we can all turn the inherent predictability of NBA to our favor, and we can all make some very nice money as a result.
This course contains eight lessons beyond this one:
• The Basic Similarities Between NFL and NBA
• The Basic Differences Between NFL and NBA
• The “Four Core” Components
• Talent
• Matchup
• Opportunity
• Price
• Putting It All Together
By the time you have finished these lessons, you will know everything you need to know for transitioning from NFL to NBA and becoming a consistently profitable player. There is room for growth beyond this course – and if you are a longtime NBA player and have achieved consistent, reliable success already yourself, this course is not for you. If, however, you have never played NBA before, or have never managed to figure out how to return a consistent stream of profit, hop on board!
In my mind, the best way to attack NBA is through heavy cash game play, as the predictability of the sport makes it the perfect vehicle for cash game profits you can absolutely bank on bringing in over time. With that said, there will be plenty of thoughts in here that will help you in tournaments also, as I am – at heart – a tourney player all the way.
That is…those thoughts will help you if you are ready to join me.
You ready to join me?
Let’s go make some money…