Introduction: NBA Is the Best
You’re reading this introduction, which means you are here to learn about NBA DFS. That could mean that you have never played NBA before and want to learn a new sport. It could mean that you just want a refresher or to maybe plug a few leaks in your game. Heck, you could be one of the best NBA DFS players in the world and think there is something you could learn from me. Okay, maybe that last one is a bit of a stretch.
No matter your background or what brought you here, there is one thing I absolutely know about you: you came here to learn. I have learned by writing this course, and (I hope) you will learn by reading it. So let’s get to it.
For some obvious and other not so obvious reasons, NBA DFS is by far my favorite sport. I had a basketball in my hands before I could walk, and I was eventually playing competitively as early as 1st grade. We may have been little peanuts at that age, but I remember still trying to win and get better even when I was that young. From peewee leagues, to AAU, to starting on the varsity team at Lawrence North High School as a sophomore in basketball-crazed Indiana (where essentially all of the biggest high school gyms in the country reside, some approaching 10,000-seat capacity; and those suckers filled), to the highest level of Division I college basketball at Duke (practice-wise for me at least!), basketball is all I have known my whole life. It is all I wanted to do growing up. It consumed me in my teenage years. And in a weird way that I in no way saw coming, it has basically become my identity as an adult (“Oh you played for Duke? That is so cool!”).
My point in giving you that quick bio of myself is that I can’t think of a better thing to do for a living than play/research/study/advise — whatever verb you want to use —NBA DFS. I always was good with numbers growing up (until they made me take calculus at least), and the basketball portion speaks for itself. The fact that those two things have somehow combined into this DFS phenomenon is almost beyond belief. I feel extremely fortunate that I have found this path and am thrilled to share my thoughts with you on how to improve your own game. It wasn’t too long ago (fall of 2014 if I recall) that I was reading these same types of courses from guys like Notorious all while soaking up any other knowledge I could get my hands on. I had just discovered NBA DFS and was obsessed with getting better at it. And here I am now writing my own course! Crazy I tell ya.
The not so obvious reasons why NBA is my favorite DFS sport vary a little bit. For one, I have found it to be the easiest way to profit in my early stages as a DFS player. That is an easy No. 1 of course. And the other reason is that it is just so fun to follow the games as a fantasy owner. In the NBA, fantasy points accumulate at such a rapid pace compared to other sports (MLB: yawn, when is my next hitter up? NFL: throw the ball to my receiver!). Is there a better feeling than when one of your players steals the ball, kicks it out to another guy you own, and that guy knocks down a three-pointer? How many points did we just accumulate there!?
Predictability Always Helps
NBA DFS is the easiest sport to predict. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of variance (and we will certainly touch on that later), but “stuff happens” the way we think it will in NBA DFS far more often than in any other sport. When I talk to random people about what I do for a living, they always ask the same question:
“What is your favorite/best DFS sport to play? And why?”
I always use the exact same example in my response, which means taking them back to the 2015-2016 NBA season when Kevin Durant was on the Thunder. If Kevin Durant was announced out for a game, we pretty much KNEW that Russell Westbrook was going to have an unreal game that night. He would always at least approach a triple double, his usage rate would skyrocket, etc.
I then compare it to MLB DFS and bring up Mike Trout. Few would argue against the opinion (cough, fact, cough) that he is the best hitter in baseball. Yet, when Trout faces a subpar lefty in an extreme hitter’s ballpark, we can easily get a day in which he goes 0-4 and accrues zero fantasy points. Maybe the pitcher had better than normal stuff that day. Maybe Trout was off his own game a little bit. Or maybe Trout hit rope after rope off of that lefty and they just happened to be hit right at fielders resulting in four outs. All of those scenarios leave you with a big fat goose egg in what amounted to the nut matchup.
The probability of that happening to Trout is so much higher than Westbrook coming anywhere close to laying a goose egg (comparatively speaking) when Durant was out. Maybe he shoots awfully. Maybe he turns the ball over a ton. Maybe he gets in foul trouble or is part of a blowout so the minutes are somewhat lower than we thought. Even in those scenarios, it was extremely unlikely that he torpedoed your lineup. It basically became a rule: if Durant was out, you absolutely had to play Westbrook almost no matter the price tag (and it was usually a discounted price tag when factoring in the circumstances). And if you need any proof as to whether that worked out for Westbrook on most occasions in the 2015-2016 season, you just have to look at what Westbrook did without Durant for the whole 2016-2017 season (M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!).
So yes, NBA DFS is much easier to predict, which in theory should make it much easier to profit. However, the margins are also way thinner for DFS players who aren’t fully aware of what they are doing. I will essentially spend a whole section on this later in the course in much more detail, but there are certain “value plays” that pop up on some slates that you absolutely must have in your lineup if you want to win that night. All of the sharp DFS owners will be on that player, he will be 80% owned in cash games, and he will absolutely crush that night. That player will also (more often than not) be extremely cheap so, not only will he easily surpass any theoretical value threshold you have in place, but he will also give you salary cap relief that allows you to pay up for more studs (like Westbrook when Durant was out!).
I will dive into these scenarios in much more detail later in the course, but I wanted to be sure to point out that just because I think NBA DFS is “easier to profit in” doesn’t mean I think it is EASY to profit in. There is still research to do, with an absurd amount of moving parts from night to night, team to team, player to player. And we haven’t even touched on the fact that the time leading up to lineup lock in NBA DFS is by far the most stressful of any sport. In MLB, lineups are generally released three hours before the game starts and MAYBE you get a few hitters scratched per week. In NFL, inactive lists must be out 90 minutes prior to the game, and it is extremely rare you see any meaningful changes once those are released.
In the NBA, we are afforded no such luxuries. Starting lineups and injury reports are not required to be announced by the teams (at least not that I am aware of). And if any of those are announced by a team or an NBA beat writer, there are multiple occasions throughout the year in which we get that news 10 minutes before our lineups are set to lock. That results in an all-out scramble to fix your lineup(s), and those are the slates when the cream of the DFS crop of players rises to the top. It is my hope that this course will help you on your journey to get into that echelon of players.