Lesson 6: Value Expectations Based on Salary
We’ve already covered why daily fantasy basketball is a predictive sport. We have a large sample to make judgments from, and players have more opportunities to score fantasy points per game than they do in any other sport. When we are dealing with a sport that is so predictable, we can set up expectations for each player based on his salary.
There are three main reasons we want to set value expectations in the first place.
• It gives us an idea of what a player needs to score at his respective salary.
• It allows us to set unique goals for lineups in both cash games and guaranteed prize pools.
• It allows us to compare players across different price points.
When it comes to setting a goal, it should always depend on the type of league that you are playing in. While you may want to shoot for a 5x-6x multiplier in cash games, you may want to shoot for a 6x-7x multiplier in tournaments. I will cover this extensively in my second NBA course, but basically our goal is to create a lineup that is suited for each league type. In cash games, we want to maximize our chances of finishing in the top half of the field. In tournaments, we want to maximize our chances of finishing in the top one to two percent of the field.
There are a number of different approaches to setting value expectations, but I’ve narrowed them down to three.