Lesson 4: Essential Statistics in Daily Fantasy Basketball
I wanted to start this lesson with another story, but I didn’t have an exciting one that had anything to do with statistics. Quoting statistics and trends used to be nerdy in sports, but the tables have turned. All of the cool kids are doing it now. If you are still making lineups based on feel and your gut, you are probably falling way behind the rest of the field. This lesson is going to cover what I believe are the most important statistics in daily fantasy basketball. I’ve also tweaked some of the stats to make them more applicable to DFS.
Minutes
One of the most common ways people describe daily fantasy basketball is “predictable.” This is a big reason why it is my most profitable sport. The key difference between the NBA and the NFL or MLB is variance. Football and baseball both rely on big plays for fantasy production. Big plays are obviously few and far between, which causes player production to vary greatly on a weekly or daily basis.
A deep touchdown pass or a home run could be the bulk of a player’s fantasy production in football or baseball. In basketball, the best a player can do on a single play is to get a block, a rebound, and make a three pointer. Even if that happens, 6.2 fantasy points wouldn’t swing a player’s fantasy production unless he were having a terrible game. There are more possessions and more ways to score fantasy points, which leads to a more predictive sport on a nightly basis.
One of the most important stats is the simplest of them all: Minutes.
To read the rest of this lesson, you must purchase the course!
